Consultant Care of the Elderly - Acute Frailty

Job summary

An opportunity has arisen for Consultant Geriatricians within our Frailty services at Royal Lancaster Infirmary working across our Frailty Intervention Team and wider Frailty Services.

This role is an exciting opportunity for you to be part of developing a new model of care for the Morecambe Bay population living with frailty.

The Frailty Intervention Team pathway works on a "early intervention, better outcomes" philosophy with a focus to returning patients to their usual place of residenceon the same day as presenting in the Emergency Department where appropriate.

The Frailty Intervention Team is a developing team with approval for further MDT roles which, with successful recruitment, will become 7 day Frailty service.

As the service develops, it will continue to build strong links with our community services and establish formal links with pre-hospital urgent and emergency care services to offer direct referrals.

This is an exciting time for our services and we hope you will want to play a part in developing a gold standard service which will achieve our aim of delivering excellent care in the Morecambe Bay area for our Frail and older patients

Application for this substantive post will only be accepted if you are in the process of obtaining your CCT/CSER within six months of interview. Fixed term positions may be offered with a view to the substantive post upon obtaining your CCT/CSER

Interviews for this post have been scheduled for 12th July 2023

Main duties of the job

The successful appointee will be expected to:

• Undertake patient assessments for Frail & Older patients attending the emergency department to help patients return to their normal place of residency at the earliest opportunity
• Provide care for acutely unwell, frail patients on the AFU
• Review appropriate patients classed as Outliers
• Contribute to service development and quality improvement
• Provide leadership and work as part of and develop our team

You will ensure, with Consultant colleagues that the department provides an effective 7 day service, within national and local standards. This would mean each consultant would be doing a 1:5 weekend shift in our Frailty Intervention Team service.

You will join in the running of the Department, and share the management of patients under the care of the team, in order to help achieve national key performance indicators relevant to geriatric medicine.

The appointment will be for 10 programmed activity sessions which would include direct clinical care and supporting professional activity. The number of programmed activities may be negotiated down or up.

About us

We operate from three main hospitals - Furness General Hospital (FGH) in Barrow, the Royal Lancaster Infirmary (RLI), and Westmorland General Hospital (WGH) in Kendal, as well as a number of community health care premises including Millom Hospital and GP Practice, Queen Victoria Hospital in Morecambe, and Ulverston Community Health Centre.

FGH and the RLI have a range of General Hospital services, with full Emergency Departments, Critical/Coronary Care units and various Consultant-led services.

WGH provides a range of General Hospital services, together with an Urgent Treatment Centre, that can help with a range of non-life threatening conditions such as broken bones and minor illnesses.

All three main hospitals provide a range of planned care including outpatients, diagnostics, therapies, day case and inpatient surgery. In addition, a range of local outreach services and diagnostics are provided from community facilities across Morecambe Bay.