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Detailed job description and main responsibilities

KEY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

1.     Together with other colleagues, to provide a high quality care service to patients.  This includes all aspects of treatment and relevant management duties for the proper functioning of the Care Group.

2.     Shared responsibility with other colleagues for providing 24 hours, 7 days a week cover for the Unit on a rota basis.  Responsible also for covering colleagues’ periods of annual leave and short-term sickness as detailed in your contract.

3.     Provide clinical supervision of junior medical/dental practitioners as a shared responsibility with other consultant colleagues.

4.     Responsible for carrying out teaching, examination and accreditation duties as required and contributing to CPD and clinical governance initiatives.

5.     Responsible for outpatient clinic commitments in peripheral hospitals as agreed with the Care Group’s management team where part of the service structure.

6.     Contribute to the Care Group’s research interests in accordance with the Trust’s R&D framework.

7.     Contribute to the audit programmes, Morbidity and Mortality, Clinical Governance programmes and Learning from Deaths.

8.     Take an active role in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of the Care Group’s Business Plan.  This may include assisting with discussions regarding service plans and developments with internal and external agencies.

9.     Conduct all activities within the contracted level of service and operating plan for service(s). 

10.  Exercise professional leadership for all staff working in the specialty.  This will include fostering and developing projects focused towards these ends and ensuring that the momentum of post-qualification professional education and other appropriate training is maintained. 

11.  Work in conjunction with clinical and other professional colleagues to ensure that the productivity of staff within the specialty is maintained and their job satisfaction is enhanced.  This may include involvement in the appraisal process for peers and/or junior colleagues.

12.  Undertake Care Group management duties as agreed with the Care Group/Departmental Manager/Clinical Director.

13.  Be aware of, and comply with, all Trust infection prevention and control policies, to include hand hygiene, personal hygiene, environmental and food hygiene. 

14.  Prepare for and undertake the protective interventions that you are responsible for in a manner that is consistent with evidence-based practice and maintaining patient safety.

15.  King’s is committed to providing Consultant led 7-day services and in the event of future developments the post holder would be expected to contribute equally with other Consultant colleagues.

GENERAL INFORMATION

1.     You have a general duty of care for the health, safety and well-being of yourself, work colleagues, visitors and patients within the hospital in addition to any specific risk management or clinical governance responsibilities associated with this post. 

2.     You are required to observe the rules, policies, procedures and standards of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust together with all relevant statutory and professional obligations, including complying with statutory and Trust core training.

3.     You are required to observe and maintain strict confidentiality of personal information relating to patients and staff.

4.     You are required to be responsible, with management support, for your own personal development and to actively contribute to the development of colleagues.

5.     The postholder has an important responsibility for, and contribution to make to, infection control and must be familiar with the infection control and hygiene requirements of this role. These requirements are set out in the National Code of Practice on Infection Control and in local policies and procedures, which will be made clear during your induction and subsequent refresher training.  These standards must be strictly complied with at all times.

6.     All employees must hold an 'nhs.net' email account, which will be the Trust's formal route for email communication.  You are therefore required to check this regularly and to deal with such communication promptly.

7.     The Trust is committed to the Health and Wellbeing of all its staff and offer a range of guidance and services to support them, including

• Local occupational health support
• Employee Assistance Programme which provides a wide range of support for work and personal issues, including relationship problems (personal and at work); anxiety/depression; finance/debt; work overload; legal matters; bullying; consumer issues; bereavement; pressure/stress; child care; and care of the elderly/disabled.
• Wellbeing hubs
• Proactive local organisational systems to support staff following a serious incident
• Availability of local initiatives and resources to promote workforce wellbeing
• Coaching and mentoring, peer review groups and participation

8.     This job description is intended as a guide to the general scope of duties and is not intended to be definitive or restrictive. It is expected that some of the duties will change over time and this description will be subject to review in consultation with the postholder.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND RESPONSIBILITIES

1.               MEDICAL STUDENT TEACHING

The appointed practitioner will normally participate in teaching medical students, post-graduate doctors/dentists and other groups at King's College Hospital NHSFT and King’s College London (KCL) School of Medicine.

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, as a major teaching Trust, works in partnership with King’s College London to provide the highest possible quality of medical education. 

All consultants are expected to be committed to teaching and to play their part in the delivery of the undergraduate curriculum. These activities would include the planning and review of teaching, and the assessment of students, which could, where properly structured, be undertaken simultaneously with service delivery commitments, including ward rounds and outpatient clinics.

Of necessity, the requirements of the undergraduate medical curriculum change over time and it is not always possible to identify specific teaching commitments in job plans. Some specific roles will be job planned.

The need for flexibility is acknowledged by the Trust and within a Care Group. It is possible that the overall teaching commitment can be unevenly allocated amongst staff to achieve optimal teaching and service quality.  

2.               POST-GRADUATE TEACHING

The Trust has over 700 training posts and over 400 Trust doctors/dentists across all specialties. The postholder will be expected to participate in teaching and training postgraduate doctors/dentists, which in addition to direct clinical supervision is likely to include acting as an ‘educational supervisor’ to one or more individuals, providing them with regular appraisal and support. Consultants that undertake educational supervision will be provided with appropriate training in accordance with national requirements and accredited by the Director of Medical Education. Allocation of time for post-graduate education is normally job planned as a team. 

3.               RESEARCH AND INNOVATION 

Involvement in high quality research is strongly encouraged at King’s NHSFT, as this supports both the delivery of high quality clinical care, and our role as a partner in a major Academic Health Science Centres. 

Support for Research

An important component of the Trust’s Research and Development (R&D) strategy is to strengthen the support available to researchers, to make it as easy as possible to participate in, and to lead in clinical research – both commercial and academic.

Each Care Group is aligned with a Research Delivery Unit (RDU) that has a designated R&D Lead, Matron or Manager and a team of R&D research delivery staff. The R&D Office provides support for governance, contracts, costings and research Quality Assurance. The. Care Groups and RDUs are encouraged to maintain a mixed model balanced portfolio of research activity, including Clinical Research Network (CRN) studies, research grants, commercial studies, charity funded studies and health services research. 

Commercial trials are costed and set up supported by the KHP Clinical Trials Office (KHP CTO) and this office also provides support for applications to the regulatory bodies for all non-commercial CTiMP studies, and Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training. Multi-disciplinary involvement in the research process is strongly encouraged. 

Research and Job Planning

The undertaking of research within a job plan should be discussed as part of job planning activities. All staff should be aware of the research being undertaken within their Care Group and in the Trust, and actively support recruitment into all studies, whether or not they have a primary research component to their job plan. All individuals undertaking research are expected to have a good working knowledge of research governance standards, and are required to undertake GCP training as appropriate for the research they are involved in.

Governance of Research  

All R&D projects are required to go through the Trust’s R&D office, which manages and co-ordinates the National R&D and ethics approvals process.  This ensures that all projects meet the required national standards of research governance and quality, and are in receipt of appropriate ethical approval and both national and local agreements, prior to R&D governance approval being issued.

Each RDU is required to convene a local research governance meeting chaired by the RDU research lead, where feasibility of new studies is discussed and agreed.