Consultant in Rehabilitation Medicine

Job overview

Substantive Consultant of Rehabilitation Medicine at North Bristol Trust; serving across The Bristol Centre for Enablement (BCE), The Major Trauma Centre and Neurosciences service at Southmead Hospital

Main duties of the job

• Initial rehabilitation medicine assessment of allocated major trauma and HART patients within 72 hours.
• Providing regular assessment and advice for major trauma/HART inpatients, supported by the Major Trauma and HART Practitioners (MTP) team.
• Ensuring the completion of appropriate electronic rehabilitation prescriptions during admission and at discharge.
• Attend, on the days they work in the MTC and HART, the daily board round meetings with MT/HART practitioners and RM colleagues to ensure the rehabilitation team is able to effectively discharge its role as case manager for acute patients with complex rehabilitation needs.
• Facilitate and participate in complex family meetings and case conferences to facilitate the delivery of interdisciplinary rehabilitation programme.
• Deliver a responsive in-reach service to the acute wards (including ICU) to provide assessment and advice regarding the rehabilitation aspects of patients’ management, communicating with family/carers of complex patients regarding rehabilitation plans and prognosis.
• Liaise and build links with regional rehabilitation services (e.g.  Frenchay Brain Injury Rehabilitation Centre, Somerset Neurological Rehabilitation Centre and the Dene Neurological Centre, Gloucester) to enhance patient flow and timely transfer to these services when appropriate.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder will have continuing responsibility for the care of patients in his or her charge, for the proper functioning of the service and will undertake the administrative duties associated with the care of patients and the running of the clinical department.

The post holder will be required to work in partnership with colleagues of all disciplines, external links to the Trust and service users, to ensure the creation of a high quality and responsive service.

The post-holder will be responsible for the clinical management of patients under their care. They will be responsible for acute rehabilitation input in allocated Major Trauma and HART patients but primarily into those with more severe and complex needs, usually with neurological or musculoskeletal injuries. There are approximately 60 – 80 trauma patients in the hospital at any one time with around 10-20% of these requiring a more intense level of input including the coordination of care in liaison with Consultant colleagues for those patients requiring multi-specialty input.

The post holder will be expected to be actively involved in the administrative, teaching, continuing medical education and audit and quality improvement activities of the Major Trauma Centre and HART. Involvement in research and audit and quality improvement will be encouraged together with playing an active role in the development of acute rehabilitation services and pathways at the MTC.

The post holder will be expected to adhere to Trust policy and procedures as well as contributing to policy and service development. The post holder should have enough understanding of NHS financial management to provide the best service possible. They will minimise waste, improve services, and promote effective use of resources available.

The post holder should understand the roles and policies of local and where relevant national agencies involved in healthcare.

The post holder will be expected to provide compassionate leadership to their clinical teams. This may include multi-agency teams within Primary and Secondary Care. They will be responsible for the supervision of junior staff within their team and will lead by example and with compassion.