Consultant in Palliative Medicine

Job responsibilities

Phyllis Tuckwell

JOB DESCRIPTION

Job Title: Consultant in Palliative Medicine

6-10 PAs

Salary Range: £ 109,725 - £145,478 per annum

Base: The Inpatient unit, Farnham

Accountable to: Medical Director

Job Summary

This post is for a Consultant in Palliative Medicine to work as part of an established team of consultants in a modern technology-enabled teaching hospice. The job comprises of a minimum of 6 and a maximum 10 Programmed Activities (PAs). Direct clinical care (DCC) will be delivered predominantly on the Inpatient unit initially alongside an experienced consultant. In time there will be the opportunity to become more involved with community-based work as part of the Hospice at Home (H@H) team depending on experience and confidence. The post will also include supporting professional activities (SPA) time dedicated to service development and delivery of educational activities to the organisations multidisciplinary team and external colleagues.

The appointee will be an employee of Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice Care (PT).

Background

The post has become available because of career advancement of one of the consultants. Following this, the post has been reviewed and reshaped to fit the current needs of the organisation eg returning to a new 18 bedded purpose-built ward, increasing importance of the virtual and community wards, plus the increasing use of technology in healthcare. The post would especially suit a doctor in their first consultant job. Phyllis Tuckwell recognises the additional roles and responsibilities that becoming a new consultant involves and additional support has been added in to this post.

Main Duties & Responsibilities

Clinical

• To provide Consultant led care and medical management to inpatients in conjunction with the other inpatient unit consultant and the MDT.
• To contribute to the multi-disciplinary review and decision making around referrals, treatment and discharge for patients with advanced disease, or terminal diagnoses through attendance at the weekly inpatient unit multi-disciplinary team meetings.
• To work in partnership with patients and their families/carers as a member of the multi-disciplinary Specialist Palliative Care Team on the inpatient unit.
• To provide high quality clinical care supported by current clinical knowledge/ evidence based practice as part of a Specialist Palliative Care Team.
• To provide, as needed Consultant medical care and oversight to palliative patients in their own home and in care homes by working with Independent Nurse Prescribers, Clinical Nurse Specialists and primary care colleagues. Undertaking domiciliary visits, outpatients clinics and providing telephone support and electronic prescribing.
• On occasions to deputise for the Virtual Ward consultants in leading the daily board round and oversight of the Virtual Ward patients.
• To participate in on call rotas with Specialist Palliative Care Consultant colleagues to provide 7-day, 24-hour advice.
• To adhere to and review clinical standards of care including NICE, ICS guidelines and inhouse guidance and further contribute to the development of clinical guidelines within the locality and regions as appropriate.
• To help review, where appropriate, clinical processes, policies, protocols etc., in order to deliver the highest possible quality of care.
• To support the collection of accurate clinical data using PTs databases including EMIS and sentinel.

Education and Training

To support the Learning and Development team to deliver on the education strategy of being a teaching hospice.

• To have the opportunity to provide both formal and informal teaching/education in Palliative Medicine to multi-disciplinary health care professionals across care settings in collaboration with local Specialist Palliative Care colleagues including the mentoring of clinical nurse specialists as they study for extended qualifications, such as prescribing (V300).

• On occasions to work with the Learning and Development and consultant team to deliver education to external colleagues including physicians associates, paramedics, General Practitioners, pharmacists and community nurses both at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

• Following training, to have the opportunity to act with others as clinical supervisor for resident doctors and specialty doctors working on the Inpatient Unit. This would include involvement in their induction, supervision and assessments during their rotation and liaising with their education supervisors as necessary.

• To provide learning opportunities and experiences to visiting qualified medics and medical students on placement.

Management

• To undertake, with support, clinical service development/evaluation projects as required to help assess the delivery of the clinical strategy.

• To maintain accurate and contemporaneous record keeping and data collection including the use of shared records with primary (EMIS) and secondary care providers (EPIC and Cerner) in accordance with guidelines.

• To participate in regular appraisal and continuous professional development in accordance with PTs processes for revalidation.

• When the opportunity arises assist the Medical Director by leading or supporting (based on experience) on agreed and delegated management responsibilities across PT.
• To engage with activities that promote personal development in role and in growth as a clinical leader such as clinical supervision, mentoring or coaching from a suitably trained external professional and/or participation in action learning sets or new consultant groups.
• To abide by PTs procedures, policies and guidance in relation to operational issues, health and safety, data protection, clinical governance and confidentiality.

Quality, Clinical Governance and Research

To be involved in Clinical Governance activities including audit, medicines management, learning from deaths, incident investigations etc. in conjunction with the Clinical Governance team.

To work with others to conduct baseline assessments against best practice guidance (DoHSC directives, and NICE technology appraisals, interventional procedures and clinical guidelines).

Research

To support the research consultant to promote a positive research and evidence base culture across all clinical areas of PT.

To maintain training on Good Clinical Practice

To be involved in PT research activities including identifying and consenting research subjects

Internal Focus

To develop relationships with key staff and in particular Medical Director, Director of Patient Services, Deputy Director of Nursing, Clinical Managers and the Ward Manager.

To support the Medical Director and the Director of Patient Services to advise the Board of Trustees in the formulation of policy and planning.

Support the Medical Director in advising the Senior Leadership Team, Chief Executive and Board as necessary on medical issues and broader clinical issues in conjunction with the Director of Patient Services.

Contribute to the development of PTs yearly business plan and longer term strategic plans, for own area of expertise as well as inputting as appropriate to other areas.

External Focus

To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of external factors impacting on specialist palliative care, including government policy and thinking, best practice and clinical developments and proactively contribute this knowledge to the development of PTs clinical operations and strategy.

As the opportunity arises support the Income Generating team in their work to raise funds for PT and linking with patients and their carers.

Location of work

Office facilities will be provided with access to secretarial support, a laptop, smart card internet access, e-mail, and telephone. The post holder based at the main Farnham site and occasionally from the Beacon centre in Guildford to fulfil all components of the job as well as to provide cover for consultant leave.

The role will involve working with local Specialist Palliative Care colleagues based at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Frimley Park Hospital, Thames Hospice, Woking Hospice, and the Midhurst Community Team.

Provisional Job Plan

The provisional job plan is based on 10 programmed activities, but the final job plan will be determined by the number PAs the successful candidate wishes to work.

DCC (Direct Clinical Care) = 7.5 programmed activities

SPA (supporting professional activities) = 2.5 programmed activities

An annual review will take place and any changes to the role as a result of organisational demands and priorities will be discussed with the post holder.

On Call

The appointee will participate in a non-resident low intensity 1:6 to 1 :7 second on call rota. We expect the consultants to take compensatory time back when 11 hours of undisturbed rest is not achieved during the on call period. To ensure the on call is fairly renumerated and is not excessive, it is periodically subject to a diary card exercise.

The on-call availability supplement for this post is currently B.

PLEASE SEE THE FULL JOB DESCRIPTION ATTACHED

Experience

Essential

• Fully trained specialist in chosen field
• Experience of palliation of
• non-malignant disease
• Experience of Palliative Medicine in a variety of settings at a senior level including the charitable sector
• Research interests
• Experience of participation in planning and delivery of teaching to a variety of
• healthcare professionals.

Desirable

• Qualification in Education

Qualifications

Essential

• Full registration with GMC and
• membership with MDU/MPS or equivalent
• Higher medical qualification
• Possess or be eligible for Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) in Palliative Medicine or Certificate in Eligibility for Specialist Registration (CESR)

Desirable

• Higher qualification relevant to
• Palliative Medicine eg MSc or
• Diploma

Skills

Essential

• Demonstrates excellent ability in written/spoken English communication and capacity to adapt language as appropriate to the situation.
• Strong team and strategic leadership skills
• Organisational skills/time management
• Teaching & presentation skills

Qualifications

Essential

• Full registration with GMC and
• membership with MDU/MPS or equivalent
• Higher medical qualification
• Possess or be eligible for Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) in Palliative Medicine or Certificate in Eligibility for Specialist Registration (CESR)

Desirable

• Higher qualification relevant to
• Palliative Medicine eg MSc or
• Diploma

Personal Qualities

Essential

• Proactive, innovative, enthusiastic
• Flexible and adaptable
• Ability to work with and accommodate a wide variety of professional staff with different skills and knowledge.
• Committed to personal development of self and others
• Self-aware and reflective
• Car driver with valid driving licence

Desirable

• Personal interests outside of work

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).