An exciting opportunity has arisen for an enthusiastic, skilled doctor to join our award-winning Hospital Palliative Care team at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. The Post holder will join the Specialist Palliative Care Team in providing a liaison service for adult inpatients across the Trust and will be responsible for providing middle grade support to the Trinity Hospice Hospital Palliative Care Team.

Main duties of the job

• Support the delivery of the Trust's values and Trinity's mission statement of enabling compassionate care on the journey to end of life through supporting and extending the educational reach of specialist palliative care services.
• Support the delivery of best practice in palliative and end of life care in line with the Fylde Coast End of Life Care Strategy (2016-2021) and the National Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care (2015-2020, relaunched May 2021).
• Work with the Fylde Coast Strategic End of Life Group to support the implementation of the local strategy and the ongoing development of palliative and end of life care across health and social care on the Fylde Coast, reflecting the National Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care.
• Contribute to the delivery of education to all staff groups along with key staff at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals and Trinity Hospice Palliative Care Services and have the opportunity to act as a clinical or educational supervisor to speciality doctors and Trainee Advanced Clinical Practitioners that supports delivery of the Northwest Model of Life Limiting Illness.
• Provide clinical leadership alongside hospital and hospice colleagues around service developments, development of safe practice and review of policies and procedures.
• Act as a role model and supervisor for undergraduates around both academic and clinical roles.
• Work towards participating in the on call medical rota.

About us

Blackpool Victoria Hospital, or BVH, as it is known locally, is a medium sized NHS district general hospital (DGH) and comprises the major element of secondary health care within the wider combined acute and community trust that is the Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The Hospital itself has around 900 beds and these provide care for Acute Medicine in its wider terms and DGH Surgical specialities, including amongst others General Surgery, Trauma and Orthopaedics, Urology and Gynaecology. There is a Women and Children's unit including both Consultant lead and Midwife lead maternity care.

There is a busy Accident and Emergency unit, closely linked to the Acute Medical Unit and the Intensive Care Unit. Surgical urgent admissions are managed through a Surgical Assessment Unit. Two regional specialities are hosted on site regional Haematology and the Regional Cardiothoracic Unit (Lancashire Cardiac Centre) which provides Primary PCI and other tertiary cardiac services.

Job description
Job responsibilities

• Collaborate with colleagues in primary and secondary care to implement protocols for the management of patients.
• Keep up to date with the developments in the specialty. Consultants are expected to continually review the clinical appropriateness of existing technologies. In addition, the use of new techniques where they can be justified clinically will be encouraged. Conforming to state of the art advances will ultimately depend on other priorities within the total unit.
• Contribute to post-graduate and continuing medical education. The Trust supports the requirement of CDP as laid down by the Royal College of Physicians and is committed to providing time and financial support for these activities.

The post is for 10 programmed activities per week including 9 DCC (including 1.5 clinical administration), 1.0 core SPA, and will work towards an 0.5 on call commitment. The post holder will primarily be expected to work on site at Blackpool Victoria Hospital but may be required to work across other sites (IPU and Community) as the service requires.

Person Specification
Qualifications & Training
Essential

• MBBS, MBChB or equivalent
• Full GMC registration and license to practice
• At least 4 years post registration training
• Eligibility to work in the UK

Desirable

• Certificate / Diploma in Palliative Care
• MRCP/MRCGP

Experience
Essential

• Knowledge of symptom control in palliative care including malignant and nonmalignant disease
• Ability to manage a caseload independently

Desirable

• Experience in Oncology/ Care of the Elderly / General Practice.
• Knowledge and experience of multidisciplinary specialist palliative care within hospital, community and hospice settings

Skills & Knowledge
Essential

• Excellent clinical skills in history taking and examination
• Evidence of fulfilling GMC good medical practice domains
• Understanding of clinical governance

Communication Skills
Essential

• Effective interpersonal and communication skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively (written, verbal and non-verbal communication) with patients/relatives and carers and all members of the multidisciplinary team
• Ability to work collaboratively with other teams.

Desirable

• Advanced communication skills training

Research, Audit & Quality Improvement
Essential

• Understands principles of research, Audit and Quality Improvement
• Evidence of participation in audit cycle
• Evidence of participation in quality improvement

Desirable

• Evidence of participation in clinical research & publications

Education & training
Essential

• Evidence of interest and experience in education across settings
• Committed to continuing personal development and medical education

Desirable

• PGCE

Personal Attributes
Essential

• Able to work effectively as part of a multidisciplinary team.
• Ability to work flexibly and adapt to changing needs of patients, team and service.
• Ability to work autonomously but awareness of limits of own knowledge and when to seek help
• Effective time management skills and ability to prioritise workload effectively
• Flexible approach to work
• Ability to manage a caseload independently
• Demonstrates initiative and resilience.

Desirable

• Leadership & management experience
• Willingness to develop clinical skills to support delivery of strategic and operational plans

Other
Essential

• Meets professional health requirements in line with GMC standards
• Clear Criminal Records Disclosure check at enhanced level.
• Willing to participate in the 1 in 5 on call system for medical staff and willingness to participate in 7 day working if required
• Sufficient IT skills.
• Membership of recognised medical defence organisation

Desirable

• Full driving licence

382-DOC131-23