Registered Clinical Scientist (XR07)

Job responsibilities

PRINCIPAL DUTIES & AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

Management

To contribute to the provision of the Transplant Immunology service to nationally and internationally accepted standards (UKAS/EFI) and within the available resources.

To contribute to the development of policies and protocols, ensuring these are implemented within the work area.

To contribute to the testing and selection of analytical equipment

To provide clinical and scientific leadership and training of staff in specific areas.

To attend and contribute to departmental meetings related to management, service development and policy development.

To ensure that clinical incidents and complaints are reported and used to improve practice, in line with Trust policies, procedures and national guidelines.

To implement policies and procedures within the work area.

To be responsible for planning own service provision.

To provide advice to service users as required on all aspects of the provision of pathology service.

To use the laboratory database and associated software to locate appropriate patient & laboratory data, provide interpretation and resolve and correct erroneous information, compile and analyse statistics and prepare clinical and scientific presentations.

Clinical

To provide a clinical technical and clinical advisory services for Transplant Immunology across the region.

To provide specialist professional advice in one or more specific areas of the service.

To provide clinical advice to medical staff in charge of patient management, if necessary challenging that management and advising an alternative approach or treatment.

To undertake clinical audit of service effectiveness and to contribute to discussions on clinical audit in other medical specialities.

To be available to regularly answer all clinical enquiries into the department, providing advice and interpretation and dealing with all clinical or laboratory problems that arise.

Scientific

To contribute to the development and selection of analytical methods employed and to maintain full awareness of their reactions, limitations and causes of interference or error. This knowledge is essential for the validation of reports, identifying errors and explaining anomalous results to clinical staff.

To provide leadership and guidance to BMS and ancillary staff on matters of quality assurance related to laboratory analyses and to take appropriate action when errors are identified.

To use patterns of abnormalities in laboratory results together with clinical details on a patient and general clinical knowledge and experience to formulate advice on differential diagnoses and the appropriateness of treatment.

To maintain an up to date and expert scientific and clinical knowledge and to contribute to the knowledge of colleagues.

To critically evaluate analytical methods and equipment prior to introduction and maintain at highest possible standards within the resources available.

To be responsible for the safe use of expensive and highly complex equipment.

Research and Development

To conceive, initiate, and undertake Research and Development projects. To ensure that opportunities that present are taken up and involving and cooperating with clinical colleagues from other disciplines where appropriate.

To participate in and advise upon ongoing Research and Development projects initiated in other clinical areas, which involve any aspect of laboratory work.

To undertake collaborative Research & Development of a clinical nature where the investigations lead to better understanding of disease or the contribution of laboratory facilities.

To participate in Clinical Audit with colleagues within Pathology at local, regional and national level.

To present scientific and clinical research data at local and regional meetings and at national and international conferences.

Training

To provide postgraduate teaching sessions in Transplant Immunology to medical, nursing and laboratory staff.

To supervise and provide in-service training to trainee Clinical Scientists and Biomedical Scientists towards their required professional qualifications.

To participate regularly in departmental clinical case discussions and seminars.

Additionally, the following are core values which relate specifically to this post:

To be registered as a Clinical Scientist with the Health Care Professions Council and as an independent practitioner work within its rules and regulations and the national guidelines of the profession and UKAS.

To provide leadership in the department in the area of service quality ensuring that all departmental staff focus on quality and patient safety.

To provide an interface for discussion of errors and a means to learn from them.

To be professionally accountable for provision of the clinical service and use evidence based practice, audits and published research to improve the service.

To conduct clinical audit of the service and contribute towards the development of best practice.

The jobholder must comply at all times with the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust Infection Control policies, in particular by practising Universal Infection Control Precautions. Hand hygiene must be performed before and after contact with patients and their environment.

All staff are responsible for working with their colleagues to maintain and improve the quality of services provided to our patients and other service users. This includes complying at all times with the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust Policies, including Health and Safety policies, in particular by following agreed security and safer working procedures, and reporting incidents using the Trust Incident Reporting system.

The jobholder must comply with all policies and procedures designed to ensure equality of employment and that services are delivered in ways that meet the individual needs of patients and their families. No person whether they are staff, patient or visitor should receive less favourable treatment because of their gender, ethnic origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion etc.

The jobholder must take responsibility in agreement with his/her line manager for his/her own personal development by ensuring that Continuous Professional Development remains a priority. The jobholder will undertake all mandatory training required for the role.

As an advanced practitioner to expect to be telephoned at any time for advice or consultation on all and any topic. This will often have a clinical urgency and require other tasks to be put on hold or delegated to a colleague while the consultation is in progress.

The working day is largely unpredictable having to resolve problems of scientific and clinical nature and telephone enquiries may involve a detailed search of the literature, formulating detailed advice and relaying this back, where it is not possible to give an immediate response. Some times these interruptions are interrupted by further telephone calls so can end up dealing with 3 or more tasks at the same time and having to prioritise which to complete first.

Qualifications

Essential

• First Degree in relevant biological subject
• OR alternative qualifications AND experience externally assessed as being equivalent
• Masters Degree or PhD in relevant subject
• OR assessed equivalent level of knowledge and expertise within speciality of H&I
• Registration as a clinical scientist with Health Care Professions Council.

Other Criteria

Essential

• Good hand eye co-ordination for fine manipulation of delicate instrumentation.
• Assertive

Skills and Behaviours

Essential

• Good oral and written communication skills.
• Able to prepare and present scientific and clinical information at meetings or as part of a teaching commitment.
• Able to organise and manage complex activities.
• Able to maintain intense concentration on important tasks despite frequent interruptions.
• A very high level of knowledge is required in H&I. General knowledge of other medical specialities including areas of pathology and diagnostic imaging is essential for the provision of advice on pati
• To understand the role of the department in the Trust and relationships with other medical specialities and Primary Care Trusts.
• To be fully aware of the requirements and constraints of Clinical Governance, Patient Confidentiality and Patient Safety and to operate within these values.
• To be fully aware of the procedures in the Trust for investigating complaints and errors and to ensure that appropriate action is taken to minimise future occurrence.
• Able to maintain self-control in difficult and challenging situations.
• To be an autonomous practitioner capable of dealing professionally with clinical colleagues including medical and nursing staff.
• To be able to challenge established medical opinion and patient management on the basis of specialist knowledge, expertise and best practice examples.
• To undertake continuing professional development and maintain competence in all areas of practice.
• To be able to explain to patients complex clinical and scientific terminology, requirements and reasons for specialised investigations and how these impact upon their treatment.

Desirable

• Able to initiate and co-ordinate R & D activities.
• Able to conduct Audit of services.

Experience

Essential

• To have completed a formal post graduate training programme approved as appropriate for registration
• OR to have undertaken alternative training and supervised in service experience totalling 6 years as appropriate for registration.
• To have a thorough knowledge of H&
• To have a good knowledge of analytical methods, quality assurance and problem solving.
• To have a good basic knowledge of human immunology and transplant medicine.
• To have a basic knowledge of managerial procedures in general. To have developed analytical (technical) skills in general areas.
• To have developed ability to deduce probability from a range of opinions.
• Able to conduct Research and Development Activities.
• Developing a clinical awareness beyond the context of own speciality.
• Able to advise medical and nursing staff on investigations and interpretations of laboratory assays (where necessary with back up from more senior staff)
• Able to advise on aspects of service provision and development.
• Able and confident to challenge established views.
• Able to recognise patterns of abnormality and relate them to clinical situations and assess differential diagnoses.
• Able to use and manipulate lab computer system and standard software packages.
• Able to provide leadership to a small team within the department as delegated.

Desirable

• To have undertaken training and gained experience in H&I
• To have detailed knowledge of a specific speciality within medicine.

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).