Job overview

The cardiac unit at Alder Hey is one of the SACS approved national centres for congenital cardiac training. This is an exciting time to join the Cardiac Services Department at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, having recently moved into the new Children’s Health Park.

The cardiac team is made up of surgeons (4), cardiologists (13), cardiac liaison nurses (7) and specialised intensive care, anaesthetic, radiology and nursing support. It is one of the principal departments in one of the largest children’s hospital in Europe.

Patients are seen with various heart conditions which include all complex forms of congenital heart disease in neonates including hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Alder Hey has fully equipped dedicated operating theatres with their own specialist staff and a fully equipped catheter room with bi-plane angiography and multi-channel recording facilities. There is one dedicated cardiac theatre with five fixed operating days (three sessions each) every week. There is a second cardiac theatre with two additional operating days (two sessions every Monday and alternate Wednesdays).

All cardiac patients, both medical and surgical, are cared for on a dedicated cardiac unit or the High Dependency Unit. The cardiac unit shares the facilities of a 21-bed intensive care unit with an average cardiac occupancy of 10 beds in the unit, and also has access to beds on the High Dependency Unit.

Main duties of the job

The holder of the post will join the other junior staff (NTN trainees + rotating Paediatric SpR) in maintaining a partial shift rota that provides adequate care and investigation of infants and children with cardiac problems presenting to the Unit. In addition they are expected to participate in the care of the post-operative cardiac surgical patients in the Intensive Care Unit and assist with the care of cardiac patients in outpatients. Whilst much of the work is outpatient and ward based, where a candidate is particularly interested, every effort will be made to facilitate training in other areas of paediatric cardiology that become available (fetal, catheter laboratory, MRI etc.).

Working for our organisation

As a leader in child healthcare and research, Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust provides care for more than 275,000 children and young people each year, making us one of the biggest and busiest children’s hospitals in Europe. This care is delivered not only on our main site in Liverpool, but in patients’ homes and communities, and at other hospitals across the North of England.

Our state-of-the-art hospital, on our main site in Liverpool, opened in October 2015. It sets a new benchmark within the NHS and has won many prestigious industry awards. Buildings, however, are only as good as what happens inside them.

Our highly professional, skilled staff include some of the best clinicians in their field in the world. This expertise is combined with a care and compassion, evident in all of our staff, that our patients and families tell us is unique. This dedication and passion for putting our patients at the heart of everything we do has helped us to achieve a rating from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) - England’s independent regulator of health and social care – of ‘Good’ overall and ‘Outstanding’ in the category of ‘Caring’. This is something that we’re proud of, but it’s something that wouldn’t have been possible without our staff.