General Medical Consultant

Job overview

This role is to provide important clinical leadership whilst supporting colleagues and maintaining own clinical skills. It is expected that the clinician acts as the representative of their service and has good knowledge of service delivery, clinical safety and can advocate for patients and colleagues.   The ideal candidate should be proactive, compassionate and committed to share in the challenge of providing patient centred specialist care.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be based at Queen Victoria Hospital. It is essential that the applicant can demonstrate experience in General medicine specialty and can lead by example. The post holder will be expected to undertake job planning, investigate complaints and incidents, flag risks as they come up and be accountable for the behaviours of themselves and their team.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Job Summary

• To undertake clinical duties as required for clinical specialism
• Maintain a high standard of clinical expertise and care for the patient
• Provide clinical leadership for all general medicine
• Support trainees and non-medical staff within the service
• Undertake job planning, CPD and appraisal as required
• Assist service managers, general managers / professional leads with business planning/ complaints/datix investigations and relevant service meetings as required
• Support and enable relevant governance processes within own dept.
• Work collaboratively with other services and directorates as required

Key Responsibilities

• To provide clinical expertise in general medicine. This may be delivered through patient clinics including supporting diagnosis through diagnostic access, maintaining own clinical workload in line with performance targets, supporting patient outcomes and diagnosis.
• To foster a culture of multi-professional engagement in the improvement of care across integrated pathways for a specific condition or patient group. This may include supporting surgical teams with general medical queries for both in-patient and out patients.
• To work collaboratively across the trust and with other directorates including provision of POPS clinics, CDC pathways and support pre-assessment clinics.
• To support education opportunities for resident doctors/ dental trainees/ nursing/ AHP & HCS staff regarding aspects of general medicine such as frailty, anticoagulation, diabetes, implanted devices and risks around surgery.
• To promote programmes of quality assurance (such as clinical audit), which support individual professional development and also inform commissioner and provider organisations.
• To understand, communicate and support the implementation of clinical policy relating to networks (including NICE Quality Standards and Outcome Strategies).
• To promote a culture of research within the service ensuring that research is fostered and involved staff are enabled in Good Clinical Practice
• Take an active role in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of the Care Group’s Business Planning. This may include assisting with discussions regarding service plans and developments with internal and external agencies.
• To ensure that clinical care is central to the delivery of all trust and NHS England priorities. To work with patients to best manage their conditions and enable patient choice.
• To create and/ or maintain relevant governance structures that support widespread multidisciplinary involvement including doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and clinical scientists.
• To act as a champion for patients and their interests and involve the public and patients in the policy development and decision-making of networks.
• Employ effective communication, negotiation and influencing skills to enable stakeholder relationships to deliver objectives over the duration of projects/programmes.
• Represent the trust in sensitive and political situations, delivering difficult messages where required to high-level audiences.
• To ensure all public and patient contact is of highest professional standard. Prepare for and undertake the protective interventions that you are responsible for in a manner that is consistent with evidence-based practice and maintaining patient safety.

Promoting equality and reducing inequalities

• To uphold organisational policies and principles on the promotion of equality.
• To create an inclusive working environment where diversity is valued, everyone can contribute, and everyday action ensure we meet our duty to uphold and promote equality.

Partnership and improvement

• To effectively engage with other clinical networks where relevant synergies exist around the achievement of outcome ambitions and integrated care pathways.
• To engage and develop collaborations for quality improvement across whole health communities, for the realisation of equitable access to quality care and the achievement of outcome ambitions for patients.
• To work with other structures, including Providers, Community, Academic Institutions, Health Innovation Networks, Charities, Voluntary & Independent Sector organisations aligning innovation, education, informatics and quality improvement.
• To work with operational and executive teams ensuring alignment of policy and service transformation for patients.
• To use insight in the use of evidence of analytics to inform quality and clinical improvement.
• To promote the systematic application of the quality framework tools such as NICE Quality Standards, Quality Accounts etc.

Secretary Support and Office Space

Secretarial support and a fully equipped office with all necessary IT equipment will be provided to the postholder.

Developing an excellent organisation

• To provide leadership and management to the defined clinical area within the Trust Clinical Network.
• To support the organisation’s ways of working, model the values and champion the NHS Constitution.
• To ensure compliance with all confidentiality and governance requirements within the networks.
• To adhere to relevant Codes of Conduct.