Consultant in Acute Medicine

Job overview

The department of Acute Medicine at Chelsea Westminster Hospital are looking to recruit a substantive consultant to compliment the well-established and forward thinking team. The successful candidates will broaden the collective skill set and will actively contribute to, and support true multi-disciplinary working in line with the Royal College of Physicians and the Department of Health’s strategy for modernising acute care within the NHS.

We have two consultant positions available on a permanent and fixed term basis. The posts are based in the Department of Acute Medicine at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust. It is expected that the post-holder will actively contribute to the Trust’s Acute Medicine services and support true multi-disciplinary working way in line with the Royal College of Physicians and the Department of Health’s strategy for modernising acute care within the NHS.

The post-holder will undertake fixed clinical and non-clinical sessions according to an agreed timetable with other members of the Consultant Team. During clinical sessions the post holder will be responsible for the care of patients on the Enhanced Care Unit, the Acute Assessment Unit (AAU), and in the Ambulatory Emergency Care service, all with a designated team of trainee doctors, ACPs and Physician Associates.

Main duties of the job

The Acute Assessment Unit (AAU) at Chelsea Westminster Hospital is comprised of 54-beds; 9 enhanced care beds & 10 assessment spaces.

Emergency medical admissions are rapidly assessed in the Emergency Department and then if admission is required, directly transferred to the AAU for further management. All cases, unless requiring CCU or critical care, are managed on the Unit until discharged back to the community or transferred for further in-patient care to the appropriate speciality area.

Usual daily admissions are 30-35 patients a day, with additional activity now managed through our Ambulatory Emergency Care service. The unit is well staffed MDT of junior doctors, physician associates, nurses, therapists and pharmacists.

The Ambulatory Emergency Care (AEC) unit offers high quality same-day emergency care (SDEC) and is comprised of a trolley-based area for assessment and treatment; treatment chairs & rooms - alongside allocated outpatient clinic space.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key Result Areas, Main Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide High Quality Care to Patients
• The post holder must be medically qualified and maintain GMC specialist registration and revalidation.
• Develop and maintain the competencies required to carry out the duties required of the post.
• Ensure prompt attendance at agreed direct clinical care Programmed Activities.
• Ensure patients are involved in decisions about their care and to respond to their views.
• Adhere to the Trust Customer Service Commitment and adopt a professional approach to customer care at all times.
• Develop clinical practice through self-reflection and learning from experience, application of research into practice and active contribution within the multi-disciplinary team.

Research, Teaching and Training

• Contribute to high quality teaching to medical undergraduates and members of other health care professions.
• To contribute to training and teaching of medical trainees, medical students, other doctors in training and other staff groups.
• Contribute to teaching and training non-Consultant postgraduate colleagues.
• Contribute to the clinical and/or educational supervision and appraisal of training grade doctors in order to ensure external accreditation of training posts.
• Where possible to collaborate with academic and clinical colleagues to enhance the Trust’s translational research/audit portfolio, at all times meeting the full requirements of Research Governance.
• There is flexibility in the job plan to dedicate variable amounts of time to research, teaching and training depending on individual interests.
• Ensure that your mandatory training is up to date as per Trust policy.

Performance Management

Work with medical, nursing, other clinical and managerial colleagues to ensure high performance in the following areas:

• Clinical efficiency e.g. Length of Stay (LOS) reductions, admission on day of surgery, reducing cancelled operations and DNA rates.
• Quality of outcomes e.g. infection control targets, reducing re-admission rates.
• Financial management e.g. identification, implementation and achievement of cost improvement programmes and participating in efforts to ensure services are provided cost effectively e.g. managing locum agency spend, monitoring and managing the drug budget to target, ensuring accuracy of clinical data for the team.

Medical Staff Management and Accountability

• Responsible for on-going assessment and regular appraisal of all doctors in training, Trust doctors and non-consultant grades as delegated by the Divisional Medical Director/Service Lead /Divisional Director of Operations.
• Adhere to Trust / department guidelines on leave, including requesting and reporting absence, and professional and study leave, and to ensure that members of staff for whom you are responsible do the same.
• Participate in team objective setting as part of the annual job planning cycle.
• Participate fully in regular departmental activities including department meetings and team building activities.