Job overview

·       To be responsible for the day to day orthoptic clinics and management of the Orthoptic services in the department and be able to do extended role within ophthalmology using Ophthalmic Practitioner Training (OPT) training programmes.

·       To take the lead of orthoptic services across other service boundaries including Neuro-ophthalmology, Glaucoma, Paediatric and Eye Emergency clinics and other sub-specialities within ophthalmology.

·       To provide an Orthoptic service as an autonomous practitioner in assessing, diagnosing, planning management and supervising treatment of orthoptic patients at the Princess Alexandra hospital (PAH),

·        As lead to work with strategic planning, development and delivery of a quality driven Orthoptic, Paediatric, and Neuro-ophthalmology service in line with the overall objectives and strategy of the department.

·       To be responsible for line managing AHP (Allied Health professionals) team of orthoptist, optometrist and recording, inputting and reporting and managing sickness, absence, annual leave, study leave, yearly appraisals, 6 monthly reviews, training programmes and maintaining competencies and deal with any issues related to the team. In addition, provide training, supervision and assessment of undergraduate and post graduate orthoptists.

Main duties of the job

·       To provide high quality Orthoptic services as an autonomous practitioner and manage own clinical workload. Clinics include; Orthoptic led follow up clinics, Joint Orthoptic and neuro-ophthalmology, paediatric clinics Ophthalmologist/Optometrist clinics, eye casualty and visual fields.

·       To take part as extended roles within ophthalmology using Ophthalmic Practitioner Training (OPT) programme.

·       To assess, diagnose, treat and manage (including discharge when clinically appropriate) the patients referred to the Orthoptic service. These include Paediatric visual disorders (squint, amblyopia, and reduced visual responses), ocular motility disorders, neuro-ophthalmology and other ophthalmic conditions and congenital developmental abnormalities.

·       To take managerial role as lead orthoptist for fellow colleague, junior orthoptist and optometrist including: management of sickness absence and reorganisation of workload according to clinical priority of patient needs, dealing with any issues or complaints that may arise, leading orthoptic staff meetings and representing the head orthoptist at meetings

Working for our organisation

Our Organisation

The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust (PAHT) provides a full range of general acute, outpatient and diagnostic services at The Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, the Herts and Essex Hospital in Bishop’s Stortford, and St Margaret’s Hospital in Epping.

We employ 3,500 staff and serve a local population of around 350,000 people living in west Essex and east Hertfordshire, centred on the M11 corridor and the towns of Harlow, Bishop’s Stortford and Epping. Our extended catchment area incorporates a population of up to 500,000 and includes the areas of Hoddesdon, Cheshunt and Broxbourne in Hertfordshire.

Our Values

The Princess Alexandra Promise to our patients as identified by our 3 values which will contribute to improving our patient experiences:

Patient at heart – Always holding the patient and their wellbeing at the centre of our thoughts and efforts

Everyday excellence – Sharing and celebrating our successes, being honest when we get it wrong, giving us the ability to learn from both

Creative collaboration – Knowing strength comes from diversity, we combine our experiences, skills and talents, working together to find new and better ways to care

The Trust believes in investing in all our staff and rewarding high standards of care whilst building for excellence and in return we expect our staff to uphold the Trust values to the highest level.