Consultant Clinical Scientist

Job overview

The Northern Centre for Cancer Care (NCCC) has created a new Head of Treatment Planning 8C role and is looking for a highly experienced registered radiotherapy Medical Physics Expert to fill it.

NCCC runs services at both 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 Tuesday 23 June 2026
• 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

You will be responsible for the scientific management, leadership and development of the radiotherapy treatment planning processes and systems at NCCC including management of physicists and a large team of planning technologists. You must have proven significant experience of leading a service and be able to set clinical and organisational strategy and policies to maintain our strong treatment planning profile. You will be expected to already have a significant personal profile at a national and ideally international level.

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. We have recently introduced HyperSight imaging on our newest linacs and are developing our on-line adaptive radiotherapy processes across a range of treatments. We have a strong and developing brachytherapy service and our growing computing group is leading major automation projects.

The 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.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• You will provide scientific and technical leadership in external beam planning and ensure resilience in the planning service.
• You will manage and lead the planning section, comprising 20 clinical technologists across both Newcastle and Carlisle sites and a group of clinical physicists.
• You will ensure that treatment planning is safe and accurate and meets current and developing national and international standards.
• You will liaise directly with senior clinical oncologists to develop and update clinical protocols.
• You will liaise with the clinical trials coordinator and Primary Investigators and ensure that trials QC and MPE input is appropriate and contribute to the design of trials led by NCCC.
• You will liaise with other Operational Delivery Network leads as appropriate to ensure high quality radiotherapy planning across the network.
• You will work with national teams to ensure that NCCC’s treatment planning meets the national standard of care.
• You will lead on radiation incidents where there is a planning element, to investigate, identify and implement lessons and ensure that audits demonstrate reduced likelihood of recurrence.
• You will lead on training and coaching for a range of needs, including MSc, STP, FRCR and in-house professional development for the main professional groups in radiotherapy.
• You will develop and monitor strategies, procedures and practices, to ensure that quality of external beam treatment planning is maintained and information is stored and communicated appropriately.
• You will develop and deliver research activities across a range of specialist areas, supervising a range of scientific and technical staff as appropriate.
• You will line manage and mentor individuals and contribute to the management, development and training of other staff.
• You will be responsible for approving expenditure on planning related software and training.