Consultant Autopsy Pathologist

Job overview

We are delighted to be able to offer an opportunity for a highly motivated, ambitious individual to join our team.

The post presents an opportunity to join a progressive team which continuously adopts and develops new diagnostic techniques, and will allow opportunities for involvement in teaching, training and research. We operate a well-established system of specialist reporting and the successful applicant will join a team of consultants and advanced practitioners. You will take a major role with the Autopsy Pathologist team. We hold a regional contract with several Coroner Jurisdictions, delivering a timely and specialist autopsy service to all. We work closely with our bereavement team and Coroners officers to support families. Mortuaries are situated at both RVI and Freeman site, and we participate in regional meetings for the centralised service. We also have a Forensic Medicine Unit to support HM Coroner activity for the region.

In addition to the challenges of the role, we can offer you a commitment to teaching, education, research and audit.

Candidates for the post must be registered medical practitioners and on, or eligible to join, the Specialist Register within six months of the date of the Appointments Committee.

Please read attached Job Description and Person Specification.

Main duties of the job

The successful candidate will be expected to specialise in Autopsy Pathology as a major component with potential minor contribution to another specialty team, the latter depending on the interest of the applicant as well as the needs of the Department.

The successful candidate will be expected to participate in autopsy work.

For an informal discussion and further information regarding the opportunity and Directorate, please contact: Dr Antony Darne or Dr Peh Sun Loo, Joint Heads of Department, on 0191 2829440 or via email at antony.darne@nhs.net or peh-sun.loo@nhs.net

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Duties and Responsibilities:

Consultants in the department currently spend approximately 85% of their time involved directly in clinical service provision and 15% undertaking supporting professional activities (audit, QA, CPD, management, research, teaching etc). Each consultant contributes 43 weeks to the rota with remaining weeks allocated to annual leave, study leave etc.

The advertised post is a replacement 10 PA post, NHS-based, although there may be an opportunity for a candidate with an appropriate academic profile to participate in research activities at the Newcastle University. This would be negotiated with the university at the time of appointment. Where appropriate an application will be made for the appointee to be granted the title of Associate Clinical Lecturer in Cellular Pathology. The department undertakes a significant amount of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and you will be expected to participate in these teaching programmes.

AUTOPSY PATHOLOGY

In the region of 2,000-2,500 autopsies are performed every year at The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (NUTH). The vast majority of these are carried out under the direction of HM Coroner and we have a centralised service covering the jurisdictions of Newcastle and North Tyneside and County Durham and Darlington. NUTH is also a major trauma centre and tertiary referral centre and as a result we also receive a number of cases from other regions. We frequently take requests from other Coroners for our post-mortem CT scanning service.

The majority of autopsies receive a whole-body CT scan before the autopsy, with over 1,000 post-mortem CT scans carried out each year. These are reported by an enthusiastic and experienced team of in-house NUTH Consultant Radiologists. Many cases are sudden community deaths though being a tertiary referral centre this also includes trauma and post-operative cases. The Trust has two modern, well-equipped mortuaries at both the Royal Victoria Infirmary and Freeman Hospital sites; most cases are carried out at the RVI site, which is where integrated post-mortem CT scanning also takes place. We have a large, dedicated team of Anatomical Pathology Technologists in the mortuary, some of whom are trained to carry out the post-mortem CT scanning including administration of contrast for angiography.

The routine adult autopsy service is currently provided by a combination of three consultant forensic pathologists and six consultant histopathologists who perform the autopsies as part of their salaried workload. There are also two forensic pathology resident doctors in the department at any one time as well as histopathology residents. Clerical support is provided by a dedicated team of five whole-time equivalent staff. NUTH also provides perinatal pathology and neuropathology services for the North East region, and three of the four forensic pathologists for the North East are based at NUTH. There are monthly mortuary performance meetings, separate monthly mortuary governance meetings, as well as monthly Consultant Autopsy Pathologist meetings, and there is also regular autopsy teaching for histopathology resident doctors.

Within the department, you will have a high-quality microscope, and a personal computer with digital dictation and the option of voice recognition. You will also have access to the Departmental secretaries. The department has good facilities for digital photography of macroscopic and microscopic specimens. There is also equipment and technical support for production of material for educational, audit and research presentations. The Department is in the process of introducing Digital pathology for reporting, but this will not be compulsory.

You will be expected to participate in audit and in relevant EQA schemes. You will also be expected to take part in continuing professional development and annual appraisal (the latter including annual job plan review). Time and funds will be made available by the Trust for attendance of professional and educational meetings etc. and appraisal familiarisation courses are provided in-house. Current study leave entitlement is 30 days over 3 years. Time will be made available for necessary individual preparation to support the annual appraisal procedure. You will share responsibilities with existing consultant staff for the training and supervision of trainee medical staff and will be required to devote time to these activities on a regular basis. You will be required to undertake administrative duties contributing to the running of the Cellular Pathology Department in co-operation with the Head of Department.

You will have full and specialist registration (and a licence to practise) with the General Medical Council (GMC) or the General Dental Council (GDC) (or be eligible for registration within six months of interview). You will also be expected to hold the FRCPath or an equivalent qualification.

Flexibility:

In line with the Trust’s core value of placing patients at the heart of everything we do, we are developing our service provision to be responsive to the needs of our patients. To meet those needs some staff groups will be increasingly asked to work a more flexible work pattern so that they can offer services in the evening or weekend. As a result any offer of employment to a consultant post will be subject to you agreeing to work a new more flexible pattern or working in the future if required, including evening and weekend work.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.