Locum Consultant Audiovestibular Physician

NHS; Newcastle upon Tyne; On-site; GBP 105,000 - 140,000

Job description

Locum Consultant Audiovestibular Physician

The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

We are delighted to be able to offer an opportunity for a highly motivated, ambitious individual to join our well integrated team.

This role will enhance the investigation, diagnosis, and management of hearing, balance, and communication disorders across the age range from birth to old age. The role will integrate multidisciplinary collaboration, patient-centred care, and ultimately improve service delivery and outcomes.

This is a 12 month fixed term post.

Please read attached Job Description and Person Specification.

Main duties of the job

In the first instance, there will be a requirement to see otology patients in clinics. This will ensure departmental referral to treatment times for audiovestibular patients are met. Time will be set aside for development of specialist audiovestibular services and the expectation is that specialist clinics will develop and replace otology clinics throughout the year.

In addition to the challenges of the role, we can offer you a commitment to teaching, education, research and audit. Candidates for the post must be registered medical practitioners and on, or eligible to join, the Specialist Register within six months of the date of the Appointments Committee.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement. If it works for the service, we will do our best to make it work for you.

About us

Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of the busiest, largest and most successful teaching NHS foundation trusts in the country, with around 16,000 staff and an annual income of £1 billion. We have a long history of providing high quality care, clinical excellence, and innovation in medical research regionally, nationally and internationally.

We're also proud to be the second largest provider of specialised services in the country. This means we support people with a range of rare and complex medical, surgical and neurological conditions, cancers and genetic orders.

Our staff oversee around 1.84 million patients 'contacts' each year, delivering high standards of healthcare.

We are committed to promoting equality and diversity and recognise the benefit in providing an inclusive environment. We value and respect the diversity of our employees and aim to recruit a workforce which reflects the communities we serve, and is equipped to deliver the best service to our patients. We welcome all applications irrespective of people's race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion or belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity and in particular those from under-represented groups.

Job responsibilities

Clinical

• Develop services which address a broad range of neurotology issues, including dizziness, balance disorders, hearing loss, tinnitus, and hyperacusis, in both adult and paediatric patients. This will involve:
• Integrated care with audiologist colleagues for a holistic approach.
• Conducting bedside clinical examinations and coordinating necessary investigations and management.
• Initiating appropriate referral pathways, and treatment plans.

Etiological Investigation

• Perform thorough investigations for all types of hearing loss, focusing on genetic and hereditary factors.
• Utilize advanced diagnostic tests, including genetic testing, blood tests, CT, and MRI scans.
• Multidisciplinary discussions with different specialties, including ENT surgeons, neurologists, genetics team, paediatrics.
• Discuss tailored treatment and rehabilitation options with patients and their families.

Specialized Adult Care:

• Investigate complex cases of hearing loss in adults, assessing a wide range of underlying medical issues, including, hereditary, immunological and inflammatory conditions.
• Conduct risk assessments clinics for ototoxicity, particularly in oncology and immunocompromised patients, requiring regular use of aminoglycosides for adults and paediatrics.

Integrated Care Approach:

• Collaborate closely with multidisciplinary teams, including ENT, neurology, paediatrics and genetics, to deliver comprehensive patient care.
• Focus on combining clinical insights with counselling and rehabilitation strategies.
• Evaluate candidates for cochlear implants, ensuring timely and appropriate aetiological investigations, and interventions.
• Engage in the assessment of infants identified through the National New-born Hearing Screening Program.
• Establish / Improve programme for preschool hearing screenings to ensure early intervention, and identify children with hearing loss that is not identified at new-born hearing screen.
• Supervise automated brainstem audiology theatre lists.
• Develop protocols for brainstem audiology under sedation.

Administrative/ Development:

Service Development:

• Drive the development of audiology services, aligning national and international guidelines.
• Lead initiatives to update protocols and ensure the calibration of devices in keeping with the latest guidelines, thereby maintaining the highest standards of care.

Quality Improvement:

• Regularly review budget allocations and resource utilization to optimize operational efficiency.
• Address inquiries and complaints from patients and clinical staff promptly and effectively.
• Initiate and oversee quality improvement projects, ensuring continuous enhancement of service.

Research:

• Engage with the departmental research team to help facilitate studies with audiovestibular relevance.
• Develop novel ideas for research in the area of audiology/ audiovestibular medicine.

Teaching:

• Participate in the training and mentorship of resident doctors, nurse practitioners and medical students.

Person Specification

Education, Qualifications and Specialist Skills

• Primary Medical Qualification.
• Full GMC Registration.
• Entry onto the GMC Specialist Register for audiovestibular medicine (within 6 months from the date of the AAC).
• Higher Degree.
• Special skills training in the specialty.

Clinical Experience

• Evidence of experience in the specialty.
• Evidence of a substantial commitment to the specialty.
• Ability to offer an expert clinical opinion within the speciality.
• Ability to take independent responsibility for the clinical care of patients referred to a tertiary centre.

Management and Administration Experience

• Involvement with management and project leadership within the specialty.
• Evidence of involvement in authoring or reviewing clinical guidelines.
• An understanding of Clinical Governance.
• Proven management and administrative experience and understanding of management goals.
• Evidence of leadership / project management.
• Evidence of having implemented change.
• Experience in developing and implementing new technologies.

Teaching

• Experience of supervising junior medical staff.
• Experience of participation in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching.
• Ability to teach clinical / technical / practical skills.
• Attendance at courses to develop teaching skills.
• Postgraduate qualification in medical education.

Research

• Evidence of involvement in and understanding of research methodology and publication of findings.
• Research/critical review of literature.
• Publications in the last five years.

Audit

• Evidence of participation in audit.
• Evidence of having changed practice as a result of audit.
• Evidence of having revisited the audit to assess improvement.

Personal Attributes

• Alignment with the Trust's values.
• Flexible approach to service delivery and committed approach to development.
• Committed to share in professional, managerial and teaching responsibilities necessary to fulfil the obligations of the Directorate to the Trust and its workforce.
• A commitment to personal / unit CPD.
• Ability and willingness to work the on-call rota.
• Ability and willingness to work a more flexible pattern of working in the future if required, including evening and weekend work.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

£105,504 to £139,882 a year per annum pro rata.