Consultant Clinical Scientist H&I - Transplant Immunology

Job responsibilities

PRINCIPAL DUTIES & AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

Workload Demand Control

To initiate and continue discussions and close liaison with Medical Consultants and CSU Lead Clinicians and to challenge the prevailing Pathology test requesting patterns of their clinical teams.

To agree with Pathology Consultants and Laboratory Managers appropriate Pathology test requesting patterns / panels and assist with their introduction and implementation.

Management

To actively contribute to the provision of the Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Service within Specialist Laboratory Medicine to nationally accepted standards (the United Kingdom Accreditation Service; UKAS and the European Federation of Immunogenetics (EFI) Accreditation) and within the available resources.

To actively contribute to the development of policies and protocols, ensuring these are implemented within the department and dealing with issues arising where these impact upon clinical practice in other CSUs and Primary Care.

To actively contribute to the selection and procurement of analytical equipment including those requiring OJEU tendering and to take responsibility for purchase of minor and medium equipment and supplies.

To be an authorised signatory for expenses claims and study applications for all members of the department.

To participate in recruitment and selection of staff.

To provide clinical and scientific leadership, training and appraisal of staff in the department and pathology in general, actively contributing to the day-to-day management of staff in Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics.

To attend and, when the situation warrants, chair departmental meetings related to management, service development and policy development. Also, to co-represent the department at Trust level in areas such as quality, patient safety and governance.

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

To actively contribute to the production and implementation of policies and procedures within broad guidelines from the profession, NICE, DHSC, UKAS and EFI and to authorise those delegated to others. To determine how these guidelines may be implemented and adhered to within the Trust, and assess their impact on all users of the service.

To be jointly responsible for planning and implementing medium and long-term strategies affecting service delivery to the acute, mental health and primary care sections. This includes location of services, configuration and staffing.

To provide expert advice to NHS Trusts, ICBs, NHS-BT and DHSC as required on all aspects of the provision of pathology service. To be jointly responsible for liaison with laboratory service users regarding service delivery.

To use the laboratory databases and associated software to locate appropriate patient & laboratory data, provide interpretation and resolve and correct erroneous information. To understand and use a variety of computer programmes to perform the requirements of the role.

To collate and interpret highly complex data from a variety of sources and in several different formats, also to critically assess published reports in order to produce, when required, formal evidence-based reports and discussion papers on a full range of managerial, clinical and scientific topics for consideration at departmental, CSU, Trust, ICB, Network, NHS-BT and DHSC level.

Clinical

To actively contribute to the provision of the clinical technical and clinical advisory services of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics.

To be jointly responsible for the clinical provision of the service, for delivery of high-level complex expert professional advice within the Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics areas of the service for patients at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

To participate in an on-call Duty Consultant roster providing an out-of-hours clinical advisory service. To participate in a roster providing 24/7 attendance the department as required to support the medical and surgical transplant team. To support non-consultant clinical scientists, medical and clinical staff members in addressing clinical and scientific enquiries which require judgements involving a range of options and interpretation of highly complex and often conflicting information, that would be outside the scope and experience of non-consultant staff.

To be jointly responsible for ensuring that the repertoire of tests available is up to date, appropriate and meets the requirements of evidence-based practice.

To be jointly responsible for negotiating and agreeing with the clinical users appropriate investigation protocols to ensure best use of the service within the available resources.

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

To contribute towards the undergraduate and postgraduate training of medical staff. To actively contribute to teaching the interpretation of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetic data to medical students at the University of Leeds.

To undertake clinical audit of service effectiveness in accordance with published and recognised standards, and to contribute to discussions on clinical audit in other medical specialities.

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

To be responsible for training and assessing competency of junior staff to address clinical and scientific queries into the department.

Scientific

To provide leadership and guidance in the development and selection of analytical methods employed and to maintain full awareness of their reactions, limitations and causes of interference or error. This requires careful evaluation of highly-complex evidence and comparison of a wide range of options that is essential for the validation of reports, identifying errors and explaining anomalous results to clinical staff.

To provide leadership and guidance on matters of quality assurance related to laboratory analyses and tests performed at the point of care and to take appropriate action when errors are identified.

To use complex and highly-developed interpretive skills to identify patterns of abnormalities in laboratory results and integrate these together with clinical details 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 ensure that all analytical methods and equipment are critically evaluated prior to introduction and maintained at the highest possible standards with the resources available.

Research and Development

To conceive, initiate, supervise and coordinate programmes of research and development (R&D) undertaken within the Department. To ensure that research activity is done within the guidelines of Good Clinical Practice and meeting the requirements of research governance as defined by the LTHT department of Research and Innovation. To ensure that opportunities that present themselves are seized and, where necessary, delegating projects to others in the department and ensuring involvement and cooperation of clinical colleagues from other disciplines, where appropriate.

To prepare project plans for ethical approval and negotiate funding from external and internal sources, ensuring that expenditure is properly accounted for against any grants awarded.

To participate in and advise upon on-going R&D projects initiated in other clinical areas, which involve any aspect of laboratory work.

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

To participate in clinical audits with colleagues at local, regional and national levels.

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

Training

To actively contribute to delivery of the Scientist Training Programme (STP) for Pre-Registration Clinical Scientists and the Higher Specialist Scientist Training (HSST) programme within the department. This covers recruitment, induction, design of training modules, registration on internal and external training courses, monthly assessment, annual appraisal and general pastoral care.

To assist the department to maintain accreditation with the National School of Healthcare Scientists (NSHCS), to deliver the STP and HSST programmes for Clinical Scientists.

To provide undergraduate and postgraduate medical training sessions in Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics.

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

To participate regularly in departmental clinical case discussions and seminars.

To give lectures to NHS and allied staff outside the department.

Additional Requirements

Essential

• Able to use and manipulate laboratory computer systems and standard software packages.

Skills & behaviours

Essential

• Well-developed analytical (technical) skills.
• Able to initiate, direct and co-ordinate R & D activities.
• Able to lead and co-ordinate audit activities and authorise corrective action.
• Well-developed clinical awareness within and beyond the context of their own speciality.
• Able to take personal responsibility for own decisions and advice and for those of more junior staff.
• Able to advise and lead on broad service development and strategic planning.
• Detailed awareness of current and developing NHS and healthcare issues and guidelines.
• Able to develop and take responsibility for professional guidelines and policies impacting across the Trust and Health Community.
• Able to challenge with confidence established scientific and clinical views using reasoned argument, personal knowledge and research findings.
• Able to establish and maintain effective networks with professional, clinical and managerial colleagues within and beyond the Trust.
• Good coaching and mentoring skills.
• To undertake continuing professional development and maintain competence in all areas of practice.
• Good communication skills able to communicate with different members of the multidisciplinary team and patients with differing levels of knowledge and understanding.

Qualifications

Essential

• First Degree or assessed equivalent level of knowledge and expertise.
• Masters Degree or assessed equivalent level of knowledge and expertise in the speciality of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics.
• Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists as required for Medical Consultant or Consultant Clinical Scientist Posts with Pathology or externally assessed as equivalent.
• Demonstration of Continuing Professional Development
• Registered as a Clinical Scientist with Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC)

Desirable

• PhD or equivalent

Experience

Essential

• A very high level of knowledge, coupled with excellent judgement, is required in both general and highly specialised areas of H&I to consultant level
• To be fully aware of the requirements and constraints of Clinical Governance, Patient Confidentiality and Patient Safety and to ensure that the service operates within these values.
• To have an extensive knowledge of routine and specialised analytical methods, quality assurance and problem solving.
• To be able to support non-consultant clinical scientist staff members in addressing clinical and scientific enquiries which require judgements involving a range of options and interpretation of highly
• Able to perform clinical risk assessments and resolve issues or investigate complaints relating to the service as part of Clinical Governance.
• To have a good knowledge of managerial processes within the NHS.
• Extensive knowledge of national professional and NHS guidelines relating to service provision and quality.
• Good knowledge of financial management, resource allocation and procurement.
• Involvement in service planning and development.
• Experience in staff recruitment and staff management.

Desirable

• To have attained status as a national or international expert or adviser.
• Knowledge by experience of national committees of profession or NHS or international groups.
• Experience with leading service development beyond the department.
• Experience with developing national guidelines and policies.
• To be invited as plenary speaker to national and international conferences.

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.

UK Registration

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