The Northumbria Spinal Surgery Fellowship offers an excellent opportunity for a post-FRCS senior trainee to gain fellowship experience of Spinal Surgery. The post will provide extensive clinical and surgical experience in the field of elective adult degenerative spinal disease. The large geographical catchment provides a wide variation in patients presenting with complex pathologies. The Spine department has been providing adult elective spinal surgery to this population for over two decades and is currently made up of 3 Consultant spine surgeons (Ata Kasis, Cyrus Jensen, Matthew Mawdsley,) each with post-CCT Spine Fellowship training.
We are currently advertising for a 10 month fixed term post, commencing in October 2025/ASAP.
The fellow will work within a Trauma and Orthopaedic department of 31 consultants and 4 fellows who are all keen to improve practice - successfully developing and adopting numerous quality and cost improvement projects. The fellow will be expected to support the Orthopaedic Trauma rota at NSECH including on-call participation, particularly in the first 4 months of the fellowship, transitioning to an elective Spine focus in the latter 6 months.
Please note we reserve the right to close this vacancy prior to the closing date once the required number of suitable applications have been received.
The spine department in Northumbria is recognized nationally for its delivery of high quality and very efficient spine care. As can be seen on national performance metrics platforms, we score highly in most of the quality indicators including length of stay and compliance with PROMS collection.
The department is centrally commissioned to provide high-volume low-complexity surgery in addition to complex cervical and lumbar surgery and can offer significant exposure to anterior cervical and lumbar surgery. Successful applicants will work as part of a Spinal Multi-Disciplinary Team, including an Orthopaedic Specialty Trainee (part of the Northern Deanery Training Program,) Pain Management Consultants, Musculoskeletal Radiologists and Extended Scope Practitioners.
The fellow will be expected to support the Orthopaedic Trauma rota at NSECH including on-call participation, particularly in the first 4 months of the fellowship, transitioning to an elective Spine focus in the latter 6 months.
In addition to this, the successful candidate will be expected to introduce a program to further improve care for these patients. The improvement project will include designing and launching the improvement program and measuring and reporting progress. There is also a strong research pedigree within the department, and the successful candidate will be expected to proactively engage with and complete a research project within the Spine department.
We manage three major locality hospitals at North Tyneside, Wansbeck and Hexham, plus a number of smaller community hospitals and clinics from Tynemouth to Berwick on Tweed, covering one of the largest geographical areas of any NHS trust in the country. Leading in innovation and quality – opening a state of the art Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, the first of its kind in England. Do you want to work in one of the best performing NHS organisations in England? Work in an organisation that supports its staff and focuses on staff experience as much as it does the experience of its patients? You can live and breathe in an area that has the cleanest air, cost effective living, great nightlife, some of the best schools with a wealth of history available on your doorstep. Sound too good to be true? Well it isn't, this is what you get when you work for Northumbria Healthcare, this is the Northumbria Way Please read 'applicant guidance notes' before submitting your application.
Please see the attached job description for further information on the main responsibilities of the role and person specification.