Specialist Cardiac Physiologist (XR06)

Job description

Job responsibilities

PRINCIPAL DUTIES & AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

Clinical Duties

To be professionally and legally accountable for all aspect of work, including the management of patients in your care.

To undertake routine assessment of inpatients and outpatients prior to a range of cardiac investigations to ensure the patient is suitable for the investigation.

Participates in the on-call rota (7day/24hour) for acute emergencies in the Cardiac Catheter Lab and/or for those with implantable cardiac devices and performs clinical duties out of hours. This requires a high level of autonomy, often giving advice to medical staff with limited specialist knowledge thus directly influencing patient care/outcomes.

Routinely undertakes assessment of both inpatients and outpatients prior to a range of cardiac investigations and uses own discretion in order to ensure the patient is suitable for the investigation.

Provides clinical technical advice to patients, carers and other members of the multidisciplinary team both within and outside the cardiology department.

Carries out all aspects of clinical work as approved by the clinical management team.

Works as an autonomous practitioner within established departmental Standard Operating Procedures and codes of practice.

Communicates with all members of the multidisciplinary team and trust-wide staff to ensure the best possible care for patients by using negotiating, reassurance and persuasiveness skills.

Communicates information about routine and complex cardiac investigations to patients and relatives/carers including children and those with learning and/or physical disabilities.

Calibrates and manipulates a wide range of complex, expensive technical equipment which processes, creates, updates and stores information.

Carries out a broad range of fundamental and complex cardiac investigations and following analysis and interpretation of physiological data, provides accurate and factual reports.

Clinical investigations would be dependent on the applicants skill set and area of clinical focus and may include but are not limited to:

- Advanced ECG assessments/calculations

- Ambulatory and remote monitoring analysis

- Cardiac angiography/intervention and heamodynamic assessment, both adult and paediatric

- Cardiac ultrasound imaging

- Cardio-Pulmonary Exercise (CPX)

- Electrophysiology studies

- Permanent Pacemaker (PPM) and Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators (ICDs) implantations

- Physiologist led PPM and ICD follow-up

- Physiologist led and medically supervised exercise testing

- Temporary pacemaker insertions

- Therapeutic radiofrequency ablations

- Tilt testing

This does not provide an exhaustive list of roles and responsibilities, and these may be subject to change with professional and service developments.

Demonstrates personal duty of care for safe use of expensive and highly complex equipment and reports equipment faults in accordance with departmental policy.

Maintains stock levels of consumable items and for day to day security of expensive equipment e.g. implantable devices.

Professional

Maintain professional registration; RCCP, AHCS, HCPC.

Responsible for maintaining own technical competencies in clinical areas including achieving professional exams/membership appropriate to clinical area, e.g. BHRS, BSE etc.

Experience and knowledge of specialist cardiac investigations and techniques at postgraduate level.

Responsible for reporting clinical incidents and adverse events to the appropriate responsible clinical service manager.

Expected to undertake informal training by means of periodic in-house assessments.

Responsible for formal mentorship and input into coordination of training of designated junior staff and students.

Be an active member of the departmental clinical governance meetings and in-service training programme by attendance at, and participation in, in-service training programmes, tutorials, individual training sessions, external courses and peer review.

Undertakes Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in accordance with Personal Development Plan (PDP) as developed with Line Manager.

Attends and participates in departmental staff meetings.

Maintains and develops current knowledge of evidence based practice in each clinical area.

Frequently undertakes collection of data for use in audit, research projects and equipment testing.

Regularly provides training in fundamental cardiac techniques to Trainee Cardiac Physiologists and junior staff members.

Organisational

Demonstrates the ability to prioritise and organise the clinical caseload within a designated area of cardiology.

Effort

Required to exert moderate physical effort. Frequent transferring of patients and equipment on both trolleys and wheelchairs.

There is a frequent requirement for prolonged, but often predictable, periods of concentration.

Frequent exposure to highly distressing situations, e.g. cardiac arrests during rescue coronary intervention while the patient is having a heart attack.

Frequent exposure to highly emotional circumstances, e.g. catheterisation of small babies who will inevitably die due to the nature of their congenital heart defects or disabling cardiac devices of the terminally ill in whom lifesaving treatment has agreed to been withdrawn.

Requires a high level of manual dexterity and good hand to eye coordination in order to ensure the accurate application of a range of diagnostic tools.

Requires a high level of sensory coordination in order to immediately recognise life threatening physiological signs and then respond appropriately.

To comply with the Trusts manual handling policy at all times.

Frequent exposure to unpleasant working conditions on a regular daily basis, e.g. bodily fluids including blood, sputum, vomit, urine, fleas and lice.

Occasional exposure to verbal and physical aggression.

Deals sensitively with patients who have high levels of anxiety and aggression caused by pain, dementia or limited mobility.

Person Specification

Experience

Essential

• Existing competency in a wide range of cardio-respiratory investigations; please detail.
• Experience as a qualified healthcare scientist within a cardio-respiratory department, or close to finishing the STP programme
• Competency in interventional labs, such as PCI
• Be able to perform Bradycardia Pacing follow up and implants

Desirable

• Competency in performing and reporting all cardiac devices or have independant skills in electrophysiology studies
• Leadership ability
• Experience supporting an out of hours primary PCI service
• Experience in complex devices; implant and follow-up

Skills & Behaviours

Essential

• General physical abilities to undertake role
• Shows initiative to develop and learn new skills
• Enjoys working as part of a team
• Takes accountability for their work and has pride in their role
• Computer literacy and skills in a wide range of IT systems

Desirable

• Interest in service development
• Coaching skills
• Interest in developing others using feedback tools
• Ability to manage and accept necessary change

Qualifications

Essential

• AHCS/HCPC registration, or ability to gain registration within 6 months.
• Professional registration with the BHRS, or working towards accreditation.
• Cardiac Physiology degree; PTP, STP or ONC/HNC or HCS degree apprenticeship.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

Leeds Teaching Hospitals

Address

Leeds General Infirmary

Great George Street

Leeds

LS1 3EX

Employer's website

https://www.leedsth.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)