Job responsibilities
The Liverpool Congenital Cardiac Service
The Liverpool Congenital Cardiac Service is the Level 1 Specialist Surgical Centre for the North West of England and North Wales. It provides specialised congenital heart services for a catchment of circa 7.5million people. The Liverpool Congenital Cardiac Service is a collaboration between four trusts in Liverpool comprising; Alder Hey NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool Heart and Chest Foundation Trust, Liverpool Womens NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust. The four partner organisations provide an all age congenital cardiac service with a campus based model of care.
Alder Hey Childrens Hospital will provide Level 1 services for children with CHD. Level 1 services for adults with congenital heart disease will be provided jointly by Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital and the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. Specialised Obstetric Services will be delivered jointly between Liverpool and Manchester University Hospitals Foundation Trust.
Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital is a foundation trust and the largest standalone heart and chest hospital in the UK. It provides specialist medical and surgical services to a population of 2.8 million people across Merseyside, North Wales, Isle of Man, parts of Lancashire and Cheshire.
The Hospital has seen major investment recently and has 180 medical and surgical beds, 26 day case beds, 10 CCU beds and 24 surgical ITU beds. There are 8 dedicated cardiothoracic surgical operating theatres. provides a full range of invasive and non-invasive Diagnostic Cardiopulmonary facilities.
There are seven Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratories for Diagnostic Procedures, Angioplasty and Electrophysiological (EP) work, Structural and Congenital interventions, with four Labs used predominantly for the PCI service and two predominantly for EP. One lab is dedicated to Structural and ACHD work. There is a dedicated pacing theatre a further operating theatre used approximately 50% of the time for cardiac devices (the remaining sessions are for aneurysm surgery/aortic stenting/TAVI).
LHCH is a high-volume interventional centre with over 1400 pacing procedures, 1700 Catheters, 2400 PCI procedures (1100 PPCIs), 1500 EP procedures and more than 400 complex pacing/device procedures performed last year
Alder Hey Childrens Hospital
Alder Hey Childrens NHS Foundation Trust is a major teaching hospital of the University of Liverpool. It serves not only the local population of children but is the tertiary referral centre for children from Merseyside, Cheshire, parts of Lancashire, Shropshire and North Wales for many sub-specialties of paediatrics. A brand new award-winning purpose-built Hospital in the Park was opened in October 2015 providing modern customised facilities for children, families and staff. The hospital has 240 beds, including day beds for surgery, a medical day care unit and observations beds in the Emergency Department.
The paediatric services and expertise within the hospital are considerable and include paediatric cardiology, cardio-thoracic surgery, neonatal surgery, neurology and disability, neurosurgery, audiology and ENT, ophthalmology, nephrology, respiratory medicine, rheumatology, gastroenterology, dermatology, endocrinology, metabolic medicine, haematology, oncology, infectious diseases, immunology, clinical genetics, trauma and orthopaedics, burns and plastics surgery, a 24-bedded paediatric intensive care unit and an 18-bedded high dependency unit, paediatric radiology, paediatric pathology, paediatric emergency medicine, general surgery and general paediatrics all on a single site. A child and adolescent mental health service is also provided with an in-patient unit located off site.
The Trust provides a range of community services through approximately 30 community sites, home carers and child development centre. The radiology department provides an excellent supportive service, which includes both a CT and MRI scanning service including an intra-operative facility. There are specialist paediatric support services in pharmacy, laboratory services and Professions Allied to Medicine.
A purpose-built Education Centre is situated in the Institute in the Park which also accommodates the Institute of Child Health on the hospital site and is available for all postgraduate educational activity.
The Post
This post is based at Liverpool Heart & Chest Hospital and at Alder Hey Hospital. The successful applicant will work under the supervision of the consultants who perform the different structural interventions, although they will be assigned a named educational supervisor. There will be exposure to all aspects of ACHD/Paediatric structural intervention as well as opportunities to maintain other complimentary skills.
The post will provide the postholder with an opportunity for a transition between completion of training in Paediatric Cardiology (CCT) / Adult Cardiology (with experience in ACHD) and a consultant cardiologist with expertise in Congenital Cardiac Interventions (Paediatric and Adult) with service provision capabilities at a regional Level 1 cardiac centre
The postholder will gain experience in all areas of Congenital Cardiology with the majority of their time committed to developing their sub-specialty interest in interventional catheterisation of children and adults with congenital heart disease. The main objectives of this post are:
- Develop subspecialty skills in congenital interventional cardiology.
- To provide a service commitment in Adult Congenital Heart Disease and be involved in all aspects of the department.
- Experience in paediatric interventions
- To participate in clinical and other service activities with the objective of ensuring high standard of patient care.
- To take an active part in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and training.
- To contribute to the management of the clinical service and service development.
Outpatient work will include a minimum of two ACHD clinics (which will include an Interventional focussed clinic) and potentially one paediatric cardiology clinic per week. Flexibility across sites for clinic may be required. The appointee will be responsible for the management of ACHD and paediatric cardiac catheterisation patients and also for the post-procedure management of structural intervention patients.
We would expect a suitably trained appointee to perform at least 50 first operator adult and/or paediatric cases by the end of their fellowship.
There will be no regular emergency cover required though this may be negotiable dependent on experience. The post-holder will gain considerable experience of the management of cardiac patients in a tertiary setting. The clinical work schedule would be agreed during the first month of appointment, depending on the appointees requirements and previous training experience (Paediatric Cardiology vs Adult Cardiology background)
Specific duties
Record of Training
All training is subject to annual assessment by an educational supervisor and the programme director. Educational supervisor will be assigned at the start of the fellowship and will provide close supervision to ensure training goals are obtained. As well as serving as a review and training, this will allow planning and flexibility within the post-holders programmes and will allow for career advice and development of specific interests accordingly. Although not within a formal training programme the disciplines of the usual SpR commitment will be applied.
Post-holders will be expected to keep a log book of all practical procedures undertaken, which will be regularly reviewed by their supervising consultant and signed accordingly.
Annual Leave and Study Leave
The post-holders will have full entitlement to annual and study leave. All leave arrangements are subject to approval by the administrative SpR and the supervisory consultant. In addition, study leave applications are also subject to approval by the Postgraduate Clinical Tutor.
Staffing:
The Department of Congenital Heart Disease sits between two sites at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital and Alder Hey Childrens Hospital. The consultants cover a range of subspecialist areas including cardiac surgery, fetal cardiology, cardiac imaging and interventional cardiology. Our surgical programme covers the full range of congenital heart surgery.
Indicative weekly timetable
Day
Time
Work
Monday
am
pm
Admin / Research / Teaching / ACHD Clinic
ACHD clinic
Tuesday
am
pm
Cath Lab Alder Hey / LHCH
Cath lab Alder Hey / LHCH
Wednesday
am
pm
Cath Lab Alder Hey
Cath Lab Alder Hey
Thursday
am
pm
MDT Alder Hey
Lunch Time teaching Session
MDT LHCH
Friday
am
pm
Cath lab LHCH / Alder Hey
Cath lab LHCH / Alder Hey
The timetable is flexible and can be adjusted to suit the needs and the previous training background of the appointee (Paediatric vs Adult Cardiology) and of the other trainees.
