Career Grade/ Lead Clinical Scientist

Job overview

The Radiotherapy Physics Group at the Northern Centre for Cancer Care (NCCC) is looking for an experienced registered radiotherapy Medical Physics Expert to join our team.

NCCC runs services at both the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle and Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle and provides a highly specialised clinical service for the treatment of cancer patients. The successful candidate will be based primarily at the Freeman Hospital but would be required to work occasionally in the Carlisle site.

• Interview Date: 19th June 2025
• 37 hours 30 minutes/week
• You will be redirected to Trac to apply for the vacancy.  Please expand the job details section and read all of the information before applying for the vacancy.

NO AGENCIES PLEASE

Main duties of the job

As the successful candidate you will contribute to the whole range of our service but play a major role in delivering reference dosimetry and equipment QC and bring skills and experience to improve the quality of the radiotherapy physics service across a range of sub-specialties. You will be able to demonstrate leadership skills, including leading on a major project and show that you can provide clinical, scientific and technical advice to a wide range of other professional groups including clinical, technical and managerial staff both within and outside of NCCC.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The NCCC is one of the leading radiotherapy centres in the UK. We are the first to use MR-only planning for radiotherapy and are one of the few radiotherapy centres with a dedicated MR scanner. Our range of advanced treatment methods on our state of the art fleet of Varian units includes SRS, SABR, VMAT, IMRT, TBI, TSEI and SGRT. The department will be commissioning our first linac with HyperSight imaging later this year. We have a strong and developing brachytherapy service and our growing computing group is leading major automation projects.

NCCC is a reference site for advanced SRS practices with Brainlab Elements and we have an excellent culture of clinical trials involvement. We have a strong teaching pedigree linked with Newcastle University, delivering the national STP academic MSc course, oncologist FRCR teaching and local STP and Route-2 physicist training.

Band 8a

• You will have a significant role in managing aspects of the physics QC and dosimetry service to ensure high quality delivery radiotherapy.
• You will contribute to a wide range of radiotherapy physics clinical and scientific services, including planning, imaging, radiobiology and radiation protection.
• You will work closely with the radiographic & engineering teams to ensure that the equipment is suitable for the clinical needs.
• You will be required to report and explain scientific & technical issues to the senior physics, radiographic, medical and managerial team using language suited to each.
• You will work closely with the team at the Carlisle site and will on occasion spend time at the Carlisle site.
• You will provide scientific and technical leadership in your area of expertise.
• You will maintain and develop high standards of service provision throughout your area of responsibility.
• You will assist the service lead in developing and monitoring strategies, procedures and practices, to ensure that quality is maintained and information is stored and communicated appropriately.
• You will develop and deliver research activities for healthcare advancement across a range of specialist areas.
• You will line manage and mentor individuals and contribute to the management, development and training of other staff.
• You will be required to teach on our Clinical Scientist and FRCR academic training courses and train and coach on our STP teaching programme

Band 7

Salary: £46,148 - £52,809

• Performs a range of advanced healthcare science activities
• Provide highly specialist advice and training to staff within own area and other professionals.
• Actively involved in research and development projects.
• Supervises and trains less experienced staff and trainees.

Newcastle upon Tyne is an exciting place to live with easy access to city, coast and country. The nightlife is lively, there is plenty of sport, culture and a good transport network.

If you do not have recognition as an Medical Physics Expert, you could still be appointed and would initially be employed as a Band 7 Clinical Scientist. You would be expected to complete submission of your MPE portfolio within 18 months of commencing your employment before being transitioned to the Band 8a Clinical Lead Scientist post. To qualify for the lower appointment with later transition, you must bring evidence of portfolio progress to the interview.

Please note it is a requirement of The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust that all successful candidates who require a DBS for the post they have been offered pay for their DBS certificate. The method of payment is a salary deduction from your first month’s pay.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement. If it works for the service, we will do our best to make it work for you.