Consultant in General Adult Liaison Psychiatry

Job overview

This is a part-time consultant post (6 programmed activities) to work in General Adult Liaison Psychiatry for Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust within Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

This is a part-time (6 sessions) replacement post following a permanent reduction in hours of a previous consultant.  The post will provide liaison psychiatry assessments and follow-up to patients within the acute hospital.

Main duties of the job

This is a substantive part time post in Liaison Psychiatry. The consultant will have 4 PAs for direct clinical care including clinical admin. The key part of their role will be to provide clinical leadership to the team and assessing, treating and following patients up as appropriate.

The remaining 2 PAs are for supporting professional activities (SPAs) and the post holder will have flexibility to take on a variety of things such as teaching, training, research, continuing professional development/audit, and leadership activities. There is no expectation that they will take them all on. The specific job plan and allocation of PAs will be developed with the Clinical Directors, and in discussion with consultant colleagues and managers in the sector.

The post holder would support the whole MDT by providing clinical leadership to the team and assessing, treating and following patients up as appropriate. Each day and week is different in how this is best achieved but to summarise; the department is a very busy liaison psychiatry department in a large acute teaching hospital trust.  The Team together sees approximately 600 new referrals per month. The service covers a teaching hospital with a current bed base of 1650 and approximately 550 ED attendances a day. The workload can vary depending on the number and acuity of referrals, but the consultant could see up to a maximum of 2 new or 6 follow-up patients per working day, depending on demand.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

An integral part of the post holder’s duties will be consultation to medical colleagues and teaching and supervision of resident medical staff. The post holder will also offer consultation to nursing colleagues in Liaison Psychiatry.

Most initial assessments are carried out by the liaison nurses or other clinicians within the team, but consultant input will be required for complex cases in the Emergency Department and on wards.

Other duties include:

To participate in the clinical governance framework in DPM and the wider Trust.

To supervise resident medical colleagues and support staff.

To take an active service planning role at local level.

To participate in clinical audit.

Teach medical students from the University of Nottingham.

Contribute to the business planning and service development of Liaison Psychiatry.

The post holder will work alongside sector colleagues to provide daytime medical cover.  The out-of-hours on-call responsibilities will consist of participating in the North Nottinghamshire Combined AMH and Old-Age Consultant Rota.  For this post the on call is 1 in 13 pro rata.  There is a night-time Specialist Trainee rota and Resident level rota. The on-call commitment for this post is rated Category B, low intensity. The remuneration for this is 1%.