Job overview
We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced nurse to join the Inpatient Pain team as a Band 8a Advanced Practitioner.
The Inpatient Pain Service currently provides a Monday to Friday service 8am – 8pm cross site. The team review patients on the critical care areas and wards with acute trauma pain, post surgical pain or ongoing chronic pain and offer clinical advice to all teams to support their patient's pain management requirements.
The successful candidate will work collaboratively within the team and provide expert advice and guidance in the pain management of complex patients across multiple directorates and services, including: TAP, Haem, Cancer, Palliative Care, Acute and General Medicine. The postholder will also be instrumental in delivering a large educational portfolio to junior doctors and nurses across the trust in both complex and acute pain including training on PCAs, epidurals, local anaesthetic infusions, loading regimes, weaning regimes and recognising opioid toxicity.
The successful applicant will demonstrate evidence of senior nursing leadership, excellent communication and transformation skills and a desire to drive forward service and team development.
This post is predominantly clinical and the successful candidate will work across both Guy’s and St Thomas’ sites.
Closing date: 12/01/2026
Interview date: TBC
Main duties of the job
The Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) will provide expert care across the four pillars of Advanced Clinical Practice (Clinical Practice, Leadership and Management, Education, and Research). The post-holder will work autonomously across the Pain Management Service on both the St Thomas’s and Guys sites and focus on delivering comprehensive assessment and treatment of a range of complex pain issues.
Under the management of the Inpatient Pain Service ANP, the post holder will work closely within a team of Nurse Specialists and Consultant Anaesthetists within the Pain Service, as well as members of the wider multi-disciplinary team, in other specialist areas.
This is primarily a clinical role, but time will be allocated for service development and supporting professional activities across the other pillars of practice.
They will have a key role in teaching and supervision of other members of the multidisciplinary workforce, as well as other educational requirements across the department/Trust. Similarly, they will also have an important role in quality improvement, service development, audit, as well as opportunities for involvement in research activities.
Working for our organisation
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust comprises five of the UK’s best known hospitals – Guy’s, St Thomas’, Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Royal Brompton and Harefield – as well as community services in Lambeth and Southwark, all with a long history of high quality care, clinical excellence, research and innovation.
We have around 22,700 staff, making us one of the largest NHS Trusts in the country and one of the biggest employers locally. We aim to reflect the diversity of the communities we serve and continue to develop new and existing partnerships with local people, patients, neighbouring NHS organisations, local authorities and charitable bodies and GPs.
We strive to recruit and retain the best staff as the dedication and skills of our employees lie at the heart of our organisation and ensure that our services are of the highest quality, safe and focused on our patients.
Our values:
Our values help us to define and develop our culture, what we do and how we do it.
It is important that we all understand and reflect these values in our work. We are:
1. Caring – we put patients first
2. Ambitious – we innovate and strive for excellence
3. Inclusive – we respect each other and work collaboratively
Our values and behaviours framework describes what it means for every one of us in the Trust to put our values into action. The framework can be found on our Trust jobs pages and our intranet
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
4. Support
5. Provide autonomous assessment and treatment of patients with complex pain conditions across multiple ward areas including surgical, medical, orthopaedic, oncology, critical care, and speciality wards
6. Coordinate care between pre-operative, inpatient, and post-operative outpatient phases across both sites, ensuring continuity
7. Prescribe medications within scope of practice and competency framework, supporting independent prescribing recommendations for clinical nurse specialists
8. Mentor and supervise junior staff and students across diverse clinical environments
9. Lead service improvement initiatives across all covered wards and specialities supporting continuous quality improvement requirements
10. Deliver formal and informal teaching sessions within the clinical scope of the Inpatient Pain Service
11. Participate in clinical research studies supporting research provision requirements
12. Contribute to service evaluation and outcome measurement including audit of effectiveness
Please see attached job description and person specification for further information
Person specification
Previous experience
Essential criteria
13. Post registration qualification in appropriate area of speciality or equivalent post qualification experience.
14. Extensive experience of working autonomously at an advanced level within the specialist area delivering effective patient focused care.
15. Experience of delivering change management both personally and as a facilitator
Desirable criteria
16. To have or working towards a non medical physical assessment course
Skills, Knowledge, Ability
Essential criteria
17. Evidence of teaching skills in particular teaching patients in how to manage their conditions and raise their awareness of their condition.
18. Up to date knowledge of current clinical and professional issues
19. Able to use skills of history taking and physical assessment to direct patient care
Desirable criteria
20. Ability to interpret and analyse complex data and findings
Additional
Essential criteria
21. Flexible and positive approach to work
22. Knowledge of quality standards & NICE recommendations/NSF
23. Knowledge of current clinical & nursing research
Desirable criteria
24. Undertaken clinical & nursing research
Guy’s and St Thomas’ celebrates, respects and values the diversity of its staff and patients. We review our policies, procedures and practices to ensure that all employees, patients and carers are treated equitable according to their needs. We are actively committed to ensuring that no one who applies for a job, works or study’s at the Trust, or accesses our services is discriminated against on the grounds of race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, religion or belief, age, gender identity, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity/paternity, or marital/civil partnership.