GP with interest in cardiology

Job overview

Croydon University Hospital seeks to recruit qualified GPs to be trained to deliver Heart Failure clinics within the Cardiology service as part of a unified team at our acute site.

The roles are part time, fixed term contract (12 months), and GP Cardiologists are asked to consider undertaking 1-2 sessions per week (with time off for annual leave, study leave and CPD).  Full training will be provided, as will a shadowing programme.

The premise of this role is based on the success of the Oxford Integrated GP-Cardiology (OIGC) model whereby GPs were trained to deliver Cardiology Care. Adapted for heart failure, this role provides a unique opportunity for GPs to receive training in Heart Failure diagnosis and management by specialist consultants. This is particularly pertinent to the Croydon Borough due to the rising number of cases of Heart Failure due to increasing multi-morbidity of our patients. The prevalence of Heart Failure is only set to increase over the next decade and therefore the need for delivering high quality Heart Failure care in the community is ever increasing.

This approach to Heart Failure is intended to make care more accessible and is distinctive in its approach from some previous models in that it seeks to integrate primary and secondary care and to build bridges and connections between GPs and local Cardiologists. Furthermore, this role will provide opportunities to disseminate knowledge back into primary care for the purposes of shared learning.

Main duties of the job

The GP Cardiologist will be responsible for assessing, analyzing and forming a diagnosis and management plan for patients with known or suspected heart failure attending specialist clinics at CUH.

Assessments will include a history, physical examination and interpretation of an ECG in almost all cases and may include the integration of data from echocardiography, exercise testing, heart rhythm monitoring, and more specialized imaging, although a report will be provided by the physiologist in all cases.

The GP-Cardiologist will make a diagnosis, and communicate this to the patient and carers / family, and will make recommendations concerning, for example, lifestyle modifications, medications, need for further investigations, and need and location for follow up (whether with own GP, in community cardiology, or in secondary care).

The GP Cardiologist will communicate the outcomes of the consultation to the GP and to secondary care, and will complete all necessary administration relating to the consultation and to the service, including requesting, reviewing and endorsing all results of investigations.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

As per Job description