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Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical Duties: 

Clinical duties are divided pro rata based on clinical professional activities (PA’s). This post will be remunerated at a rate of 10 PA’s per week although the number of PA’s worked each week will vary depending on attending duties, which are shared between the consultant group. 

• Intensive Care weeks: The attending consultant has continuing responsibility for care of both medical and surgical patients in their charge, including all babies in intensive care and the isolation room. During weeks on service other activities can be suspended to allow commitment to the acute daily workload and service needs. The consultant will lead a grand ward round twice a week and it is expected that the consultant will do an informal ward round each day. There is occasional need for consultations for babies on the General Paediatric wards and PICU. The consultant attends the registrar handover round at 8.00 am, and hands over care to the on-call consultant between 5 and 7pm.

• High-dependency Care weeks: The attending consultant has continuing responsibility for the care of patients in their charge including all babies in the high dependency area on the unit. During weeks on service other activities can be suspended to allow commitment to the acute daily workload and service needs. The consultant will do a grand round twice a week and it is expected that the consultant will do an informal ward round each day. This consultant is also responsible for covering emergency activity outside of the neonatal unit (delivery suite and the emergency department), and for antenatal counselling of women on labour ward. The consultant attends the registrar handover round at 8.15 am, and hands over care to the oncall consultant between 5 and 6 pm.

• Special Care weeks: The appointee will participate in providing cover for special care babies and the postnatal wards. During these weeks, the consultant will review patients in their care daily and provide support for junior staff looking after patients on the postnatal wards. There is an allowance for twice weekly ‘ward round’ of transitional care patients on the postnatal wards. They also provide consultant support for the neonatal community nursing team

• Non-attending weeks: The appointee will undertake appropriate administrative and clinical duties associated with the running of the clinical department. Attendance at multi-disciplinary unit meetings, the Thursday morning teaching session and Grand Round and the multidisciplinary meetings planning direct patient care is expected as well as contribution to the educational activity of the department. There are days off during non-attending weeks in accordance with the total PA remuneration.

• Clinic: There is a once weekly neonatal follow-up clinic, staffed by two neonatal consultants and a middle grade doctor. Once a month, this clinic is reserved for high-risk neonatal graduates who have a detailed neurodevelopmental assessment. This post holder will provide cover for 10 clinics/year. Clinics cannot be done during intensive care and high dependency attending and may be done during special care attending or in non-attending weeks. Other clinics done by consultants include a 2-year Bayley’s follow-up clinic, a neonatal respiratory clinic and paediatric cardiology clinics with a consultant from Royal Brompton Hospital. There is also a bimonthly fetal medicine counselling clinic with parents for infants with abnormalities detected antenatally requiring specific care postnatally.

• Out of hours of cover: On call will be 1:9.3 with prospective cover allowing for colleague’s leave. The on-call consultant will remain in the hospital until 10 pm. The post holder will be expected to liaise with consultant colleagues in providing internal cover for annual leave and study leave. The consultant on-call for the weekend will do an ITU and HDU ward round each day and be on site for at least 12 hours per day.

Non-clinical duties

• Education: All consultants actively support multi-professional and undergraduate education within the department. It is expected that the post holder will contribute to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. There may be opportunities to present at Medical School and Child Health Grand Rounds. 

• CPD, Appraisal and Job-planning: All consultants are expected to regularly update their professional knowledge and to maintain a portfolio of evidence for CPD. They will also have a commitment to participate in the Trusts mandatory and statutory training (MAST). The post holder will be supported to develop the required skills in educational supervision.

• Leadership & Management: All consultants take an active role in the leadership and management of the clinical service, attend regular multidisciplinary meetings and lead defined areas of the service. SPA responsibilities will complement those of the team. This will include consultant quality assurance for the Newborn Infant Physical Examination programme. The successful candidate will participate in the Trust’s system of governance and audit and to observe the Trust’s agreed policies and procedures, drawn up in consultation with the profession on clinical matters, and to follow the standing orders and financial instructions of the Trust.

• Research: Applicants with a comprehensive research portfolio who can lead new projects on the neonatal unit will be welcome. Current research active collaborators are paediatric infectious diseases, the fetal medicine unit and the medical school. Applicants who have active links and would collaborate with new research groups for the neonatal unit will be welcome. There are opportunities to participate as the Principal Investigator in NIHR portfolio studies

• Academic: The post-holder will be expected to contribute to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching