Job overview
This is an exciting opportunity for a Senior Clinical Fellow post at the Whittington hospital, rotating through general paediatrics, neonates and community paediatrics (6 months each), thereby providing scope to complete all core level 2 RCPCH competencies. The post holder will be expected to participate in the current acute middle grade rota, and work in the paediatric emergency department, paediatric ward, level 2 neonatal intensive care unit and in community paediatrics.
Main duties of the job
Please see the Job Description and the Persons Specification for further details about the job role. If you are unable to access the PDF, the details of the job description can also be found in the 'Detailed Job Description and Main responsibilities' section.
Working for our organisation
The Whittington Hospital and the community health services in Islington and Haringey are award wining organisations, delivering acute and community based health services to a population of 443,000 people. The organisation is the biggest employer in the area, with over 4,000 staff. The organisation delivers healthcare not only on the acute hospital site which has 420 beds, but also from a variety of other venues and through visits to people’s homes. We want to ensure that all our patients and service users receive treatment and care in the most appropriate environment for their health needs.
Whittington Health as an Integrated Care Organisation (ICO) offers greater opportunities to work across the boroughs to address the health needs of the local population. By integrating our hospital and community teams, we aim to improve the quality of care to our patients and service users whilst reducing costs by working closely together.
Whittington Health also works with other health, social care and voluntary sector partners to support patients and service users from their initial appointment whether it be with a community health team or at the hospital, all the way through to treatment and tailored after care. In May 2011, Haringey’s children’s services also joined Whittington Health.
Whittington Health is one of the three main teaching campuses for the University College Medical School.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
ACUTE GENERAL PAEDIATRICS:
All tier 2 (middle grade) paediatric doctors on the general paediatric ward are responsible for the care of babies, children, and young people (CYP) (up to the age of 18 years) admitted to the ward and assessing patients referred by the Emergency Department and GPs and for seeing CYP in outpatient clinics. They are responsible for ward work, keeping thorough, legible notes and discharge summaries as well as participating in the weekly training half days.
Experience will be gained in acute and general paediatrics and in the management of patients with sickle cell disease, shared care oncology patients as well as child protection work.
The clinical fellow would be expected to both lead and accompany the attending consultant on the regular daily ward round in co-operation with nursing staff and junior trainees. To get to know the patients on the wards and to identify those families with social or psychological problems to be discussed at the weekly paediatric multidisciplinary liaison meeting.
In the Emergency Department, clinical fellows are expected to hold the paediatric on call bleep, manage unwell patients, lead paediatric resuscitation calls, supervise junior trainees and work in close liaison with the emergency care nurses and doctors.
Duties include:
·Liaison with nursing staff, parents, medical and support services
·Liaison with the attending general paediatric consultant
·Liaison with tertiary units for shared care patients
·Supervision of ward work and record keeping
·SBAR “handover” of patients and their problems to fellow registrars at shift changes
·Participation in general paediatric clinics
·Attendance and participation with joint medical meetings and training
·Medical student and junior trainee teaching
NEONATAL UNIT:
In the neonatal unit, the clinical fellow would be responsible for the care of babies in the neonatal intensive care unit, special care baby unit, on the postnatal wards and in the labour ward. They are expected to lead neonatal resuscitation calls, lead and participate in ward rounds, neonatal-obstetric meetings, paediatric training meetings, and the weekly neonatal multidisciplinary liaison meeting. They are responsible for completing neonatal discharge summaries.
Experience will be gained in advanced neonatal resuscitation, neonatal intensive care and neonatal developmental follow-up in a multi-disciplinary team. Doctors are expected to become proficient in technical skills including umbilical and percutaneous venous lines and cranial ultrasound imaging
Clinical duties include:
·Participation in the consultant ward rounds and leading wards rounds alone.
·Participation in daily record keeping, updating of results, supervision of junior trainee discharge summaries and completion of complex summaries. Assistance to junior trainees on labour ward and postnatal wards. Liaison with tertiary referring units, community midwives and nurses and social services.
·Communication with parents of infants on the neonatal unit and postnatal ward
·Presentation of cases at the neonatal unit multi-disciplinary psychosocial meeting.
Acquisition of skills while on the neonatal unit:
1. Cranial ultrasound examination and interpretation, basic cardiac ultrasound.
2. Teaching and supervision of junior trainees
3. Supervision of SHO practical procedures, fluid prescriptions, ventilator management and general care of neonates on the Unit.
4. Record keeping
5. Shared responsibility for Neonatal Unit data sets and Neonatal Statistics
COMMUNITY PAEDIATRICS:
During this post you will work within either the Camden or Islington community paediatric team with out of hours work at the Whittington hospital. The community teams provide assessment and intervention for children with a wide range of special needs and disabilities.
The post-holder will be expected to work within the multidisciplinary team of community paediatricians and allied health professionals to provide a comprehensive community child health service to the paediatric population. The post holder will be supervised by identified leads for all aspects of community paediatrics including Children Looked After, Safeguarding, Neurodevelopment, Neurodisability, SEND and Autism.
Clinical duties include:
1. Neurodevelopmental Clinic - includes neurodevelopmental assessment, medical assessment as part of Education Health and Care Plan needs assessment. We do joint assessment with therapists when children have complex needs.
2. Autism Clinic – includes medical assessment of children who are undergoing diagnostic assessment for autism.
3. Special School Clinics - clinics held at the special schools in Camden and Islington with support from the special needs school nurse. This will include medical assessment and management of children with complex medical and developmental needs.
4. Safeguarding: includes contributing to the child protection rota as part of the Community paediatric team. This involves being the on-call clinician for safeguarding from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm. The clinician will take part in strategy discussions with Social Care and child protection medical assessments. The post holder will be supervised by a senior member based on their experience.
5. Children in Care Clinics – The post holder will do initial and review health assessments for Looked After Children.
Teaching:
To attend all timetabled teaching sessions
To contribute to departmental teaching programme
To contribute to teaching of students particularly in relation to community child health services
Audit, Quality Improvement and Service Improvement:
To engage in departmental projects and initiatives to improve services, clinical practice and guidelines.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
6. MBBS or equivalent
7. MRCPCH Written
8. MRCPCH Clinical
9. NLS or equivalent
10. APLS or equivalent
Desirable criteria
11. Higher qualification (certificate/diploma/masters)
Registration
Essential criteria
12. Limited or Full GMC registration
Career Progression
Essential criteria
13. Provision of complete details of employment history
Eligibility
Essential criteria
14. Delivery of good acute clinical care
15. Maintaining good medical practice
16. Good relationships and communication with patients
17. Good working relationships with colleagues.
18. Professional behaviour and probity
Clinical Experience
Essential criteria
19. Minimum 2.5 years’ experience in acute paediatrics including Paediatric ED and at least 6 months in Level 3 neonatal medicine
20. At least 6 months experience working within the NHS
Desirable criteria
21. Previous experience on middle grade rota
Fitness to practise
Essential criteria
22. Up to date
23. Meets professional health requirements (in line with GMC standards/Good Medical Practice)
Language Skills
Essential criteria
24. Applicant to have demonstrable skills in written and spoken English that are adequate to enable effective communication about medical topics with patients and colleagues
Personal skills
Essential criteria
25. Capacity to communicate effectively at different levels, e.g. young people and their families
26. Capacity to work cooperatively with others in a multidisciplinary group.
27. Capacity to bring a range of approaches to solving problems.
28. Capacity to manage acute situations under pressure.
29. Demonstrates initiative & resilience to cope with changing circumstances.
30. Organisation ability to achieve a balance between urgent and important demands
Probity
Essential criteria
31. Takes responsibility for own actions. Displays honesty, integrity & awareness of ethical issues. Understands importance of advocacy, children’s rights, safety, confidentiality & consent.
Application numbers
This vacancy may close early if it receives a high number of applications. Please complete and submit your application in a good time to avoid disappointment .