Specialty Doctor MCSI

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Specialty Doctor in Spinal Injuries  at The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHSFT, to provide an effective, sustainable, consultant clinical service that can be flexible and responsive to the changing context around spinal cord injury care.

The post offers an excellent opportunity for a motivated Specialty Doctor to further develop and pursue their own clinical interests within the department. The successful candidate will be encouraged and supported to build expertise in subspecialty areas such as urodynamics or any other area of clinical interest, with access to dedicated training, supervision, and protected time for service development.

This full time post comprises 8.5 PAs for direct clinical care (DCC) with 1.5 support professional activities (SPA).

The shift pattern for the post is currently 1:5 weekends and 2 hour extended weekday hours. Candidates are expected to be on site during all shift duration as the bleep holding doctor.

Main duties of the job

The  Midlands Centre for Spinal Injuries (MCSI)  is concerned with the prevention of Spinal Injuries, maximising neurological recovery, minimising complications of disability, complications following discharge and maintain health, independent and a good quality of life on an ongoing basis.

The Midland Centre for Spinal Injuries Unit is one of 11 in the UK (8 in England) designated to receive and treat spinal cord injured patients.  The unit has 48 beds which include 15 acute and 33 rehabilitation/planned admission beds.  We work closely with the Trauma centres. We also admit paediatric patients to Alice ward.

Medical staff based in the centre comprise: five consultants, two specialty trainee registrars (STRs) in rehabilitation medicine (spinal injuries) and three Specialty Doctors (including this post). The non-consultant grade posts provide the outpatient, acute admission and readmission clinical services and share the 1 in 5  shift rotation (9am to 7pm only, overnight emergency cover is provided by resident medical doctor and outreach team).

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Main clinical responsibilities:

• Provide overall medical care to all inpatients and outpatients along with other doctors to provide the medical component of care for the in-patients and out-patients.
• Contribute to the duty/out of hours rota, dealing with new referrals, enquiries from other hospitals, GPs and patients.
• Ensure patients are assessed and managed effectively including clinical examinations and investigations relevant to people with spinal cord lesions and monitoring of their multisystem dysfunction.
• Monitor the neurological status appropriately; ensure accurate, contemporaneous clinical records are kept and investigations reviewed and acted upon.
• Candidate may need to be prepared to carry out urodynamics sessions and be able to look after and advise patients admitted for urological investigations and follow up. If the postholder doesn’t have previous experience, training arrangements will be put in place including assessment and long term management of acute Spinal Injuries to ensure the postholder achieves the requisite skills and competency required.
• Ensure quality of care, patient safety and clinical effectiveness are built into practice, evaluated and improved.
• Liaise constructively with other members of the multidisciplinary team to ensure effective interspeciality and interdisciplinary team working.

Prospective applications should review the full job description attached.