Specialty Doctor - Stroke Medicine

Job overview

This is a substantive specialty doctor post (employed as per the specialty doctor contract) working across the hyper-acute, acute, and rehabilitation stroke services within Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust. The post focuses on providing consistent high-quality care to patients with stroke across their care pathway.

The specialty doctor (Stroke Medicine) post will offer experience across the whole stroke pathway; TIA clinics, hyper-acute care including cerebral reperfusion assessment and delivery, acute management, and rehabilitation. There is a particular focus on multidisciplinary team working and ensuring the delivery of excellent, patient-centred care.

The post holder will not be required to undertake out-of-hours or on-call commitments.

The role includes 1 PA of SPA time, supervision of foundation doctors, and offers the opportunity to work towards CESR if desired.

The department encourages an interest in service development and quality improvement.

Main duties of the job

• The post holder will join the Stroke Medicine team at Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust to provide specialised clinical expertise, expert advice, and leadership to patients, carers, and trust staff.  •    The post holder will work within the existing interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams based across the hyper-acute, acute, and community stroke services. •    The main responsibilities include direct delivery and leadership of stroke care for o    Acute admissions – cerebral reperfusion assessment and delivery and facilitating the front door acute stroke pathway. o    Inpatients - participating in daily ward rounds, & multidisciplinary meetings.  o    TIA clinics. o    Stroke rehabilitation medicine - the post may include working at the Stroke Rehabilitation Unit based in Newton Abbot Community Hospital. •    The post will involve, clinical supervision of foundation doctors, delivery of teaching sessions to medics and the wider MDT, and engagement with undergraduate medical students. •    The department will support the post holder to develop a specialist interest and to work towards CESR if desired. •    The department is rapidly developing, and the post holder would need to have a flexible working attitude and a desire to provide high quality stroke input a across a diverse and changing range of clinical encounters.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Responsibility for patients and client care

• Practise in a ‘middle grade’ role (equivalent to registrar grade), with supervision from consultant colleagues across hyper-acute, acute, and rehabilitation stroke services. There will be training for OP clinics including TIA clinics. •    Provide timely and comprehensive assessment and treatment of stroke patients and conducting an NIHSS assessment in accordance with the stroke guidelines. •    Practise using a patient-centred approach, championing the patient’s wishes and goals when negotiating investigation and treatment plans. •    Facilitate safe and timely patient discharges using a ‘Home First’ approach whenever able. •    Work in a variety of settings, for example; acute and rehab stroke wards, the emergency department, TIA clinics, general outpatient clinic, community hospitals, and provide liaison support to other non-stroke wards. •    Practise and promote a high standard of written and verbal communication with patients, carers, and colleagues. •    Respect patients’ dignity, ensure confidentiality and work to overcome communication barriers. •    Practise safe prescribing and safe use of medical devices. •    Be aware and comply with legal framework for practice including consent framework, data protection, and equality and diversity.

Responsibility for supervision, leadership and management

• Lead a team of junior doctors and multidisciplinary colleagues, be approachable and a role model. •    Engage with acute, community, and stroke specialty colleagues in a collaborative way. •    Demonstrate an understanding of leadership styles and use this to create effective and successful team relationships. •    Demonstrate the ability to appropriately challenge others, escalating concerns when necessary. •    Engage with annual appraisal, job planning and reviews of performance and progression. •    Post holders will be supervised by a named stroke Consultant available to contact each day as needed. •    Post holders will be allocated a supervisor whilst in this clinical post to discuss development goals and guide learning.

Communication and working relationships

• Deliver regular teaching to junior and MDT colleagues. •    Participate in our departmental medical students teaching programme. •    Clinically supervise foundation doctors and provide on the job training. •    Be involved in assessing and providing formal or informal feedback for colleagues in medical and non-medical roles.