Specialty Doctor in Care of the Elderly

We wish to appoint a new Specialty Doctor to join our diverse Care of the Elderly service at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (GHNHSFT).

Our department includes consultants, associate specialists, Advanced Nurse Practitioners who work collaboratively to deliver high quality care.

This post will be based on one of our established Care of the Elderly wards along side a substantive Consultant in Care of the Elderly. The post would be perfect for a physician who has enthusiasm and passion for Care of the Elderly Medicine and is looking to advance their career, but who have not pursued the traditional training route. We are looking for doctors who are 5 years post Foundation Training and may be currently working at the level of a registrar or above. The post will be flexible and tailored to the successful applicant.

In order to maintain and develop GIM competencies and capabilities, there would be one evening session per week (between 5-9pm) in Acute Medicine. This would be at a registrar level and include the acute medicine take, ward cover or SDEC.

We are looking to nurture enthusiastic talent and would support a successful applicant in their pursual of higher-level training or CESR.

As a senior employee of our Trust you will work in close co-operation with and support not just other clinical professionals but also our managerial colleagues in providing high quality healthcare to our patients. Integral to the responsibilities of our posts are the following objectives:

• to ensure the delivery of a high quality patient-centred clinical service
• to provide effective leadership to all staff engaged in that same task
• to sustain and develop teaching and research wherever appropriate
• to work in accordance with our trust’s procedures and operating policies
• to support the business plans and development strategies formulated for the specialty, the Medical Division and our Trust
• to work within the framework of team decisions
• to take a whole systems approach to working with the wider health community both NHS and social services
• to show initiative, enthusiasm and flexibility

The main hub of our department is based at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital where we have a well-developed Frailty Assessment Service supporting a busy ED, Frailty Assessment Unit and a direct assessment pathway. Cheltenham General Hospital also provides a full consultant led service and wards and plans are underway for the development of a Frailty SDEC and Virtual Ward. We currently have 4 dedicated General Care of the Elderly Wards across both sites, and provide support to 7 community hospitals.

The department includes a full range of subspecialties including community geriatrics, movement disorders, falls, syncope, orthogeriatrics, surgical liaison and dementia. Individual job plans represent different jigsaw pieces that make up the complete picture of our service. There are many, flexible opportunities for further career development.

Core to these posts is the early Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment of the frail elderly presenting as emergencies to our acute hospitals, the ongoing development and support of the Frailty Assessment Service, Frailty Assessment Unit, SDEC and Virtual Ward and to increase the provision of general elderly care medicine within our trust and across the county of Gloucestershire.

We expect the post-holder to develop and lead a robust service in order to provide high quality care to patients in a timely manner. This would be with the support and supervision (where needed) of a substantive COTE consultant.

• to be responsible for medical input to general elderly medicine inpatients on one of our COTE wards
• to be responsible for providing advice and input to elderly medicine patients referred from other medical or surgical specialties
• to provide advice and input to elderly medicine patients referred via GP’s and/or senior nursing/therapy staff within the county
• to provide one evening session (5:00-9:00pm) to Acute Medicine. This might be on the medical take, ward cover or SDEC. This would be at registrar level.
• to provide weekend post take and FAS ward rounds for COTE Medicine at GRH on a 1 in 7 fixed session rota (no on-call)
• to conduct clinical practice in accordance with contractual requirements within the parameters of our Division’s and Trust’s agreed objectives