Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist (Psychological Medicine)

Job overview

Applications are invited for this post in Psychological Medicine / Liaison Psychiatry at Oxford University Hospitals NHSFT. The post-holder will join the flagship Acute Trust Psychological Medicine Centre, which comprises 13 consultant psychiatrists and more than 40 psychologists.

Oxford University Hospitals offers a remarkable opportunity to excel in the field of Psychological Medicine. The award-winning Psychological Medicine Centre provides an innovative, fully-integrated approach to meeting psychological and psychiatric needs within medical and surgical specialties and across the lifespan. Our psychiatrists and psychologists work as members of medical and surgical teams.  As well as seeing patients and families in the inpatient and outpatient settings, they support their colleagues to deliver holistic, biopsychosocial care for all the Trust’s patients.

Our unique setting provides an exceptional range of clinical exposure. The Trust provides the full spectrum of secondary and tertiary specialties and our consultant team boasts several members with subspecialty expertise including maternity, neuropsychiatry, psycho-oncology, ITU psychiatry, and child and adolescent liaison psychiatry.

Join us at Oxford University Hospitals Psychological Medicine Centre where your skills will thrive, your expertise will be honed, and your contribution to patient care will make a significant impact.

Main duties of the job

The specialty area for this post will be predominantly in Acute General Medicine services, but there is scope to work in other areas our service covers in parallel, and in due course other specialties too. The appointee will work alongside a large number of psychiatrists and psychologists, who are integrated into medical teams across the Trust.

This is a Trust appointment with a base at the John Radcliffe Hospital site.

The appointment is on a whole-time basis. However applications are welcome from those who wish to job share.  Any person who is unable for personal reasons to work full-time will also be considered eligible to apply for the post.  If such a person is appointed, modification of the job content will be discussed on a personal basis in consultation with the clinical lead and consultant colleagues.

This post would suit a psychiatrist with a CCT in adult psychiatry or a dual CCT in adult and old age psychiatry and experience of working in an acute hospital setting.  An endorsement in liaison psychiatry is not essential.

Senior trainees in the final months of their training are eligible to apply.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The John Radcliffe Hospital provides a full range of acute medical and surgical services including maternity, trauma, intensive care, cardiothoracic and clinical neurosciences services.

This post is predominantly focused on acute general medicine. The time spent seeing patients as part of the integrated team working and other activities will be agreed with the post-holder in their collaboratively produced job plan, which will in turn reflect the agreement with the relevant medical service.  As an indicator of the direct patient care activity a consultant working  in the medical team might expect to see on average 10 new and 20 follow patients each week.

As part of the consultant (emergency cover, daytime) rota , periodically the post-holder will also be expected to work at any of the Trust’s other locations: the Churchill Hospital which houses various specialties including renal and transplant, intensive care, haematology, oncology and palliative care services; the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, a specialist orthopaedic hospital, which also houses rheumatology and rehabilitation; and the Horton General Hospital (HGH) in Banbury, a smaller associated District General Hospital. The psychiatric service to the emergency departments is provided by the local mental health trust.

The post-holder will be a consultant of the Acute Trust and will work as a member of one or more of the Trusts’ medical teams.

The post-holder will have the opportunity to collaborate with academic colleagues on relevant clinical research projects.

The specific medical team (s) the appointee works in, will be negotiated according to availability and the applicants’ preference.