Specialty Doctor in Child and Adolescent Mental Health / Paediatric Neurodisability / General Practice with experience in mental health - 10PAs - Permanent - (1 Post)

Centre for Interventional Paediatric Psychopharmacology and Rare Diseases (CIPPRD) – National & Specialist CAMHS

Winner of 2015 RCPsych Award for Psychiatric Team of the Year: Children & Adolescents

We are delighted to invite applications for one full time permanent Specialty Doctor post in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry in Child and Adolescent Mental Health / Paediatric Neurodisability / General Practice with experience in mental health (10PAs) to join the established Centre for Interventional Paediatric Psychopharmacology and Rare Diseases (CIPPRD), a national and specialist outpatient Tier 4 Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. Part time applications will be considered.

The post is based within the CAMHS Clinical Academic Group of South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, the most comprehensive mental health service for children and young people in the country.

The Trust is a leading mental health service provider working in partnership with the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience as part of the King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre.

Please note that only applicants who are GMC registered will be considered for shortlisting. 

Main duties of the job

There are excellent opportunities for professional development including management, training, research, and audit experience. There is also opportunity for teaching locally within the service to multi-disciplinary and medical colleagues, to post-graduates at King’s College London, and to psychiatry trainees on the Maudsley/SLaM training scheme.

The CIPPRD is headed by Professor Paramala Santosh and attends to children and young people up to the age of 18 years who present with a range of significant mental health difficulties with complex neurodevelopmental problems, acquired brain injury, childhood dementias and physical problems and provide extended care to those with rare diseases up to the age of 24 years. We have been funded to run the Centre for Personalized Medicine in Rett Syndrome (CPMRS), a new service that will provide neuropsychiatric services for Rett Syndrome patients across the life span. Translational research including innovative clinical trials on Rett Syndrome is currently underway in CIPPRD. Opportunities to participate in research are available and encouraged. CIPPRD was the winner of 2015 Royal College of Psychiatrists Award for the Psychiatric Team of the Year: Children & Adolescents.

Working for your organisation

The post holder will work alongside Professor Santosh, another consultant psychiatrist, and two consultant clinical psychologists, specialty doctors, a highly specialist clinical psychologist, and specialists in computational analysis and precision medicine in the service.  The team includes a range of experienced staff, and supported by three full time administrators.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key Responsibilities of Post-holders: 

1. Accountability: The appointee will be professionally responsible to The Head and Lead Consultant for the Centre for Interventional Paediatric Psychopharmacology and Rare Diseases. The appointee will be managerially accountable to the Lead Clinician and the Service Manager for National & Specialist CAMHS, who work in partnership with the CIPPRD Team Lead to deliver this service. Effective working relationships between the medical team, the multi-disciplinary team and local service management are essential to the overall effective working of the service. Individual members of the clinical team are expected to work collaboratively across organizations to support local services.

• Clinical Duties: The postholder will be a full member of the CIPPRD medical team of the Maudsley Hospital. The postholder will carry out specialist psychiatric assessments and physical examinations of children with severe and complex neurodevelopmental and / or neuropsychiatric difficulties. They will also follow-up and care co-ordinate these children in the Medication Stabilization and Monitoring Clinic and in the CIPPRD Follow-up Clinic under the supervision of the consultants. The postholder will need to complete online clinical outcomes using the HealthTracker^TM, a digital health monitoring platform, along with assisting in collecting psychophysiological measures using non-invasive sensor-based wearables (watches) and review patient reported outcomes routinely, to provide optimal clinical care. Exact duties will depend on the clinical expertise of appointee, ongoing CPD, cover needed due to absence of other colleagues, and clinical/service priorities. 
• Provision and Cover During Absences: 6 weeks’ notice is required for both annual leave and study leave to ensure the clinical rota can be managed accordingly. Leave will be authorized by Clinical Unit Lead and countersigned/approved by the Service Manager, considering other leave and service priorities. 
• Medical Practice: All members of the Trust’s medical staff are expected to practice within current GMC guidelines, those contained within the booklets on Good Medical Practice and Maintaining Good Medical Practice. These booklets outline the duties of doctors who are registered with the GMC, emphasizing the responsibility of every doctor to ensure standards of good clinical care, to keep up to date with clinical skills, to work in teams and to maintain good relationships with colleagues in all disciplines. The Trusts are committed to these principles and will provide support for education and development of all grades of staff. 
• Clinical Governance: The Trust has established multi-disciplinary clinical governance mechanisms that the postholder will be expected to participate in, including: evidence based practice implementation of local policies and procedures that support best practice - both uni-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary. Risk management processes to ensure clinical and non-clinical risks are identified and actions taken as appropriate. 
• Audit and Quality Improvement: The Trust undertakes regular quality improvement and clinical audit of their activities and the appointee will be expected to take part in this programme, and further develop specific projects and associated data collection relevant to their work and their department. 
• Teaching, Supervision and support to training and non-consultant staff grade posts: There are weekly training sessions for junior and middle grade doctors open to all staff. In addition, there is a weekly supervision for trainee doctors, which is also open to this post. There are weekly teaching sessions within the CIPPRD team, towards which the post holder would have the opportunity to contribute. There are termly CAMHS Consultant and SAS CPD, and Trust-wide Consultant and SAS CPD ½ days. The Trust provides access to library resources for support. 
• Other Elements of the Role: Ensure that electronic patient clinical records relating to post holder's work are well maintained and meet Trust standards for documentation and communication with referrers and users are met. Promote good links with Tier 3 and local outreach CAMHS. Contribute to the development of policies and procedures to support good practice and ensure that appropriate high-quality clinical services are delivered. Ensure that policies and procedures are implemented to safeguard and protect children and young people, and where necessary implement the CPA process. Provide a service which promotes diversity, meets the needs of service users from diverse ethnic, cultural and religious traditions, is accessible and sensitive to needs relating to disability, gender, and sexual orientation. Collate activity information as requested to meet the demands of Performance Management and Service Planning. Help maintain a clinical database and keep all other records and statistics as necessary and required. Apply quality standards to all work undertaken, in line with Trust Clinical Governance policies. Attend professional meetings as appropriate within and outside the Directorate, in accordance with CPD and agreed Personal Development Plan. Assist in the implementation of research and evaluation where required. Support clinical staff in developing new research and evaluation projects.
• Job Plan: The contract states that there is a requirement for all staff to have firm job plans. These plans are intended to give the Clinical Director a more explicit input into the arrangements and review of doctors' duties. A job plan is a detailed description of the duties and responsibilities of a doctor and of the facilities available to carry them out. A job plan and a work programme are an integral part of the doctor's contract of employment. Job planning occur annually with the Consultant Psychiatrist of the service.
• For further details / informal visits contact: Professor Paramala Santosh - Job title: Consultant Psychiatrist and Head of CIPPRD - Email address: cipp@slam.nhs.uk