Consultant in Older Peoples Services (Community Frailty)

Job overview

An opportunity has arisen to join our Community Frailty team in Northeast Essex as a less than full -time (LTFT) or full-time consultant. This will consist of 9 or 10 Programmed Activities (PA’s) per week. Successful applicant(s) may be entirely in the community or work 50:50 between acute and community.

Main duties of the job

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced clinician to lead the continued development of integrated frailty services across Northeast Essex, working seamlessly across acute, community and virtual care settings.

The successful candidate will possess specialist accreditation in Geriatric Medicine and demonstrate significant expertise in the assessment and management of older people living with frailty. They will have a clear understanding of the evidence supporting Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA), proactive frailty management and admission avoidance, recognising that unnecessary hospital admission can lead to deconditioning, hospital-acquired complications and poorer outcomes for this vulnerable patient group.

We are looking for a consultant who is confident in managing clinical risk within the community and has the experience and judgement to support patients safely at home wherever appropriate. They will be comfortable making complex clinical decisions in partnership with multidisciplinary colleagues and will champion a culture that supports treatment in the patient's usual place of residence whenever it is clinically safe to do so.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post-holder will:

• Work with colleagues to provide a consultant-led service with the highest standard of care;
• Work with the multi-professional team to develop care pathways and clinical guidelines;
• Develop and maintain good working practices with wards, out-patients and the Emergency Department (ED);
• Collaborate and promote close working links with colleagues, other departments and primary care;
• Offer educational, clinical support and leadership to community and acute colleagues.
• Ensure appropriate information is made available to staff to measure clinical performance and enable meaningful benchmarks to be established and evaluated within your area of responsibility;
• Ensure there is a robust process for reviewing the quality of services provided, explaining the causes of success and failure and ensure the highest standards are maintained;
• Provide a role model of professional leadership, which underpins the corporate values and behaviours agreed by the organisation, ensuring these are understood and demonstrated by the medical workforce within your area and take remedial action where poor behaviour are demonstrated;
• Ensure that junior doctors training confirms to college requirements; and
• Participate in the appraisal of medical staff within the department in line with the Trust’s agree policy

Clinical

• Fulfil the role of a community Geriatrician working to manage patients with a range of frailty syndromes and fully utilise our community frailty services.
• Work closely with the other consultants in Older Peoples Services to share in the care of patients in all aspects of care including acute care and rehabilitation;
• Liaise with consultants within the department on the development and implementation of protocols and guidelines for the management of elderly patients and the development of clinical audit;
• Provide a consultant advisory service to colleagues in other specialties in the trust as well as those in the mental health trust;

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.