Job summary
- Main area
- Geriatric Medicine
- Grade
- NHS Medical & Dental: Consultant
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 10 sessions per week
- Job ref
- 179-7510665-MSC
- Employer
- West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- West Suffolk Hospital Foundation Trust
- Town
- Bury St. Edmunds
- Salary
- £100,870 - £111,441 Pro Rata Per Annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 29/10/2025 23:59
- Interview date
- 05/12/2025
Employer heading
Specialist in Geriatric Medicine
NHS Medical & Dental: Consultant
Job overview
Specialist in Geriatrics & Acute Frailty Medicine – Shape the Future of Frailty Care!
Join our pioneering Care of the Elderly team at West Suffolk Hospital, where innovation meets compassionate care. This is an opportunity to lead transformative change in frailty care both regionally and nationally
What We Offer:
- Inpatient Geriatrics Ward: Oversee care on our 32-bed ward and develop the ward to have outstanding care for our frail populations
- Acute Frailty Service: Conduct specialist assessments in ED, AAU, and SDEC (Monday–Friday, 9 AM–7 PM)
- Community Impact: Collaborate with the Virtual Ward and community teams
- Weekend Rounds: Participate in a 1 in 7 rotation (Saturday–Sunday, 8:30 AM–12:30 PM)
Why Join Us?
Frailty care is a top priority for our trust. Under new leadership, we are pioneering eFrailty Alerts, electronic clinical frailty scores, and patient-led pathways. By empowering patients, families, and healthcare professionals through education and innovation we are shifting away from traditional hospital-based care. Our approach fosters patient ownership of health, reduces ED waiting times, and delivers high-quality, person-centred frailty care. You will be working in Bury St Edmunds, a charming town in the heart of Suffolk with excellent transport links to Cambridge and London.
Interviews to be held on Friday, 5th December 2025
Please See Full Job Description attached for details
Main duties of the job
• Provide advice and day to day management of medical inpatients.
• Maintenance of the highest clinical standards in the management of all in-patients and out-patient under the care of your team.
• Teaching and training of intermediate, junior staff, nursing staff and medical students.
• To actively participate in both departmental and Trust matters concerning Clinical Governance and audit.
• To fulfil obligations relating to continuing medical education and professional development, appraisal, and revalidation.
• To provide high-quality, holistic medical care to frail older people in both hospital and community settings.
• To develop services in a subspecialty area within geriatric medicine.
• To provide advice and support to local GPs and community matrons.
• To work with appropriate community services to enable frail older people to receive treatment safely in their own home.
Please See Full Job Description attached for details
Working for our organisation
#BeKnown at West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. By us. By our patients. By our community
We are a busy, friendly, rural NHS Trust providing high-quality care and compassion to more than a quarter of a million people across west Suffolk. We care for, treat and support people in hospital, at home and in various community settings.
The West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds provides acute and secondary care services (emergency department, maternity and neonatal services, day surgery unit, eye treatment centre, Macmillan unit and children's ward). It has 500+ beds and is a partner teaching hospital of the University of Cambridge.
Adult and paediatric community services, provided in collaboration with West Suffolk Alliance partners, include a range of nursing, therapy, specialist, and ongoing temporary care and rehabilitation, some at our Newmarket Community Hospital.
We do our utmost to achieve outstanding clinical outcomes for patients and our values of fairness, inclusivity, respect, safety and team work guide how we work and behave as a team.
With nearly 5,000 staff, from all over the world, we strive to make our organisation a great place to work. Whatever your role or ambition, we want to help you be the best you can be.
We promote a diverse and inclusive community where everyones voice counts and you can #BeKnown for whoever you are.
Join us. What will you #BeKnown for?
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
We are a team of geriatricians looking to expand our services further across the hospital and into the community to enable more older people to benefit from specialist geriatric assessment. We provide acute in-patient services on an elderly care ward, ortho-geriatric services, medical and surgical liaison services, front door assessment and out-patient clinics at the West Suffolk Hospital site. In addition, we provide a falls clinic at a community hospital in Sudbury and oversee care of intermediate care beds in the community hospital at Newmarket and in a nursing home in Bury St Edmunds.
Our priorities for the next 2 years include the establishment of an acute frailty assessment unit to take direct admissions from the community, establishing falls and frailty clinics in peripheral sites, developing models of closer working with community matrons and advanced clinical practitioners in frailty to enable patients to receive comprehensive geriatric assessment closer to home, establishment of a virtual ward and using new technology to provide remote assessment of patients in care homes.
Please See Full Job Description attached for details
Person specification
Qualifications and Specialist Training
Essential criteria
- Full GMC registration with a licence to practise
- MRCP or equivalent
Desirable criteria
- MD or PhD
Experience and Clinical Expertise
Essential criteria
- Ability to offer expert clinical opinion on a range of problems in adult Geriatric Medicine.
- Ability to take full and independent responsibility for clinical care of patients.
- At least 10 years. Geriatric Medicine experience, minimum of 6 years in the Speciality Doctor grade (equivalent years’ experience in a relevant speciality from other medical grades including from overseas will also be accepted). Foundation and AM experience will equal a minimum of 12 years’ medical work since obtaining a primary medical qualification.
Desirable criteria
- Five years supervised training in an appropriate SpR training programme or equivalent.
- Clinical training and experience equivalent to that required for gaining UK CCT
Management and Audit Experience
Essential criteria
- Ability to advise on efficient and smooth running of the Emergency Medicine service.
- Ability to manage and lead a multidisciplinary team.
- Ability to contribute to the development of services.
- Experience of clinical governance and audit management
- Ability and willingness to work within the Trust and NHS performance framework and targets.
Teaching Experience
Essential criteria
- Experience of supervising FY1s, FY2s, ST1s, ST2s, ST3+s and SpRs.
- Experience of workplace-based assessment
- Ability to teach clinical skills to students and trainees.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of teaching basic clinical skills to undergraduates.
- Experience of teaching other professional groups.
Other Attributes
Essential criteria
- Ability to work flexibly within a multidisciplinary team.
- All applicants to have demonstrable skills in written and spoken English that are adequate to enable effective communication about medical topics with patients and colleagues which could be demonstrated by one of the following: - PLAB 2 If applicants believe that they have adequate communication skills, but do not fit into one of the examples they need to provide evidence.
Desirable criteria
- Ability to travel to rural area.
Research Experience
Essential criteria
- Ability to apply research outcomes to clinical problems.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of conducting research projects.
- Publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Application numbers
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Dr Amaka Achara
- Job title
- Clinical Lead
- Email address
- [email protected]
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