Palliative Care Consultant

Job overview

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust are seeking to appoint a Consultant in Palliative Medicine to join the existing team of ten consultants.

Specialist hospital and community palliative care services have existed in North Tyneside and Northumberland for many years.  In December 2009, an innovative, new 19 bedded palliative care inpatient unit opened within North Tyneside Hospital.  Such has been the success of this service with patients, families and healthcare professionals, that the Trust opened a similar unit in Wansbeck Hospital in November 2011.

In April 2011, community palliative care services became part of the Trust and in April 2012, the trust took over responsibility for Palliative Medicine services in Northumberland.  These three significant developments were important milestones in enabling the realisation of a vision to deliver a fully integrated community, inpatient and hospital palliative care service close to people’s homes.

Main duties of the job

At Consultant level, the team is committed to supporting each other.  Individuals are encouraged to develop themselves, and take on leadership roles within the Trust, region and nationally.  The existing Consultants have been involved in national initiatives through the Association for Palliative Medicine, NICE and the Department of Health, as well as roles within the trust and region.  The Palliative Care Service is part of the Northern region Specialty Training programme for palliative medicine, Core Medical Training, GP Vocational Training Scheme and Foundation programme. There is a significant contribution to undergraduate and postgraduate education.

Northumbria palliative care services are responsible for delivering Consultant services to 6 hubs: North Tyneside, Wansbeck, NSECH, Central/South Northumberland, West Northumberland and North Northumberland. This is provided across community, hospital and palliative care inpatient services. The team provides cover for service gaps- holiday, sickness, maternity or vacancies.

Individual Consultants provide an integrated service across community, inpatient and hospital settings depending on the exact number of sessions in their job plan for the Northumbria component.

The successful candidates will join a team of ten existing Consultants at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust. Depending on the negotiated job plan, the successful candidate will work across a palliative care unit, with potential support of a community team.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post-holder will be employed by Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.  The post is a fixed term contract of one year OF 0.6 WTE plus on call with 2% on-call supplement. 0.8 PAs of this are to provide weekend cover in a 1:8 basis.

All consultants work as part of a multi-disciplinary team. The exact makeup of the team varies according to setting and includes (but is not limited to) nurse consultant, Clinical Nurse Specialists, palliative care nurses, specialist palliative care physiotherapists and occupational therapists, social workers, technical instructors, chaplains, pharmacists, and resident doctors.

If an individual would prefer to add 2.5 PAs of palliative care unit inpatient work to an existing LTFT job plan, this can be considered in discussions.

There are regular palliative care business meetings and Consultant meetings. The Consultants host the Northern Regional Palliative Care Physicians’ Group once a year and attend as well as contributing to senior clinical leadership within the Trust