Lead Specialist Bowel Cancer Screening Practitioner

Job overview

UCLH is looking to recruit a Specialist Screening Practitioner (SSP) into our nurse-led Bowel Cancer Screening (BCS) service.

You will work alongside other SSP’s providing care for participants of the screening programme. This is an opportunity for someone with a particular interest in bowel cancer and/or screening who would like experience in an expanded nursing role.

Experience of Endoscopy or GI nursing is desirable. You will have a full induction programme and assigned a mentor when you start to support your integration into the team, to enable you to undertake clinics and support the screening endoscopy lists once trained.

Due to the expansion of our service, it is an exciting time to join us and play a leading role in the earlier diagnosis of bowel cancer, based at UCLH but working across NCL, supporting bowel cancer screening lists at UCLH, Whittington Hospital and Chase Farm Hospital.

Main duties of the job

The successful candidate will join a team of Specialist Screening Practitioners responsible for providing care for patients participating in the Bowel Cancer Screening Programme. This involves initial nurse-led assessment clinics: arrangement of colonoscopies for patients within designated Bowel Screening colonoscopy sessions, and to attend colonoscopy with them. They will provide clinics to discuss colonoscopy outcomes, including cancer diagnoses.  Our nurses are the patient advocate, providing the information necessary to ensure that patients are able to make informed choices at all stages of the screening process. Our team of SSPs are responsible for ensuring that all activity is recorded on both local and national databases for audit and quality assurance purposes.

The role will involve coordinating care, working autonomously and addressing the needs of individuals that arise. It will also entail detailed and accurate data entry into local and national databases. The post holder will require excellent communication skills and a flexible approach to their work.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For the full Person Specification and more information regarding the main responsibilities of this role, please refer to the attached Job Description.

The North Central London bowel screening centre is based at UCLH and covers the eligible population in Camden, Islington, Haringey, Enfield and Barnet.  We are a busy service and once again expanding.  We deliver colonoscopy screening lists at UCLH and Whittington and are about to start screening lists at Chase Farm Hospital, in Enfield.

The Bowel Cancer Screening Programme continues to grow at UCLH. The starting age for bowel screening was reduced to 50 in March 2025 and having achieved age-extension UCLH has also been chosen as one of the first trial sites in England to lower the threshold to trigger an abnormal test and a referral. The vision is for more people to be screened so as to identify bowel cancer at an early stage and remove advanced polyps before they turn into cancer thus saving lives.   We value and promote diversity and equality in the workplace and a degree of flexible and hybrid working is available

Come and be a part of the best NHS trust in England to work for, according to our staff*

* UCLH top trust to work at in England - In the most recent NHS staff survey UCLH had the highest percentage of staff who said they would recommend us as a place to work, out of all general acute or acute/community NHS trusts in England – for the third year in a row.

UCLH recognises the benefits of flexible working for staff – To find out more, visit: Flexible working.

To discover more about what makes UCLH a great place to work, visit: Why Choose UCLH?