Consultant in Acute Medicine | Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

Company: Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

Salary: £113,565 - £150,569 + £2162 London weighting, per annum

The following is a non-exhaustive list of the duties of a consultant. The appointee is expected to:

• Deliver day-to-day clinical care and leadership in the acute medicine wards, SDEC and on the medical take in ED.
• Look at current acute medicine practice and patient pathways within North Middlesex Hospital and in conjunction with the Clinical Director further develop the service in line with best practice.
• Lead in ongoing development of clinical guidelines in acute medicine, audit and other key aspects of the clinical governance agenda.
• Show flexibility and undertake different appropriate clinical tasks at the request of the clinical manager, as the need arises.
• Actively participate in the Unit’s Teaching Programme and undertake supervision, teaching and training of medical trainees and other multi-professional staff, in line with guidance from the relevant Royal Colleges or specialty bodies.
• The successful applicant, as per trust policy, will take part in an active mentoring programme within the trust.
• SPA activities will include:
• Service Development – Acute medicine protocols and guidelines.
• Developing joint protocols/pathways and clinical governance with ED and other specialties.
• Teaching/Training including clinical and educational supervision.
• Individual CME/CPD.

CLINICAL RESPONSIBILITIES

• Participate in clinical governance activities.
• Provide senior clinical leadership and expert management for patients.
• Contribute to safe discharge planning in partnership with community and primary care services.
• Provide clinical supervision and training to resident medical staff.
• Show flexibility to undertake different appropriate clinical tasks at the request of the clinical manager.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR PATIENTS

• Support discharge planning and follow-up care in collaboration with primary care and community services.
• Ensure patients are fully informed about their conditions and treatment options, supporting shared decision making.
• Respond promptly to changes in patient condition, clinical risk or safeguarding concerns.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR POLICY AND SERVICE DEVELOPMENT

• Support the development of care pathways with community services and specialty teams.
• Participate in the development of acute medicine services to improve patient flow and quality of care.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR FINANCIAL AND PHYSICAL RESOURCES

• Participate in the management and utilisation of clinical areas and resources.
• Support cost-effective prescribing treatment in line with the Trust’s and national guidelines.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR LEADING AND MANAGING

• Support the development and supervision of resident doctors and other team members.
• Assist in managing performance against key targets and standards, including patient flow.

North Mid is part of North Central London integrated care system – consisting of the NHS and Local authority organisations in Camden, Islington, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey. As with other ICS's, we are working increasingly closely with partners and indeed many of our financial and performance objectives are measured at this system level. Whilst all organisations remain as standalone, statutory bodies we have an ICS infrastructure for making shared decisions and agreeing shared approaches.

We are proud of our staff and want to ensure their training allows them to provide excellent clinical care. We are also a training unit for medical students from UCL and St George’s University Grenada, and for nursing and midwifery students from Middlesex and City Universities.

Indicative job plan

An indicative job plan/timetable for this post with indicative Programmed Activities (PAs) is provided in the document attached, but this will normally be re-assessed after 3 months of appointment to ensure it meets the needs of the service.

For a whole-time 10 PA contract: the baseline split is:

• Direct Clinical Care: 8.0 PAs on average per week (Clinical activity, clinically related activity, predictable & unpredictable emergency work)
• Supporting Professional Activities: 1.5 core SPAs (CPD, audit, teaching & training) and 0.5 Quality and Service SPAs to be agreed with appointee (assumed to be educational supervision).

An additional 0.5 SPA is available to all Consultant Staff subject to review and agreement for quality and service roles which must be approved prospectively by the Clinical Service Lead, or by the Medical Director for Trust-wide roles. Job plans are reviewed annually, and applicants are encouraged to study the provisions of the Consultant Contract for England 2003 under which this post is offered.

Supporting Professional Activities (SPAs)

Delivery of the highest quality service possible is the main priority of this department. This means integrating evidence-based practice, research, audit, and other aspects of clinical governance, particularly the delivery of quality training and risk management. There are many areas for service development and requirements for working with all healthcare professionals and specialties.

There are a number of different shifts within the annualised acute medicine consultant rota: the following description covers the shifts duties, the average workload and the shift frequency.

AMU: (1.75 DCC PAs + 0.5 SPA PAs Mon-Thu, 2 DCC PAs + 0.25 SPA PAs Fri): 8-12 am AMU ward round (up to 16 patients), 12-13 MDT, 13-15 SPA, 15-17 board round and afternoon reviews (frequency: 65 shifts per year).

HOTSDEC: (2.0 DCC PAs + 0.25 SPA PAs/day): named consultant for SDEC (new patients) supporting ANPs and resident doctors, holding referral & advice hot phone (frequency: 16 shifts per year).

COLD SDEC: (2.0 DCC PAs + 0.25 SPA PAs/day): 8-10 am Post-Take Round in ED, 10-17 named consultant for SDEC (follow-up patients) and Virtual follow-up clinic (frequency: 16 shifts per year).

PTWR & Day Take: (2.25 DCC PAs): 8-10 am Post-Take Round in ED then named consultant for the medical take; 11 am and 3:30 pm MDT huddles. The average medical take is 50-70 patients/24h. (frequency: 33 shifts per year).

Additional standalone SPA activity (up to 2.25 SPA PAs/day), or otherwise combined with the Adult Hospital at Home shifts (0.75 DCC PAs + 1.5 SPA PAs/day).

Weekday Evening Take: (0.83 DCC PAs) (frequency: 1 shift per month (on a fixed evening between Monday and Thursday), plus 1 in 14 Fridays).

Saturday: (4 DCC PAs) and Sunday: (3 DCC PAs) alternate with: Saturday (3 DCC PAs) and Sunday (4 DCC PAs). Post-take round in ED then responsible for half of AMU (up to 16 patients), medical take in the afternoon until the end of the shift. AMU consultant supporting SDEC. 1.75 of SPA PAs for the rest of the week, on a day of own choice. Compensatory time off/zero hours is included following a weekend displacing normal clinical activity. (The weekend frequency is 1 in 8).

We have adopted annualised job plans and the exact timetable of shifts are allocated to take account of annual leave requests and other agreed specialty activities whilst maintaining cover in all clinical areas. There are opportunities to swap with colleagues where the need arises after the rota is written. The exact allocation of shifts on the rota also takes into account individual skills and preferences across the Consultants contributing to the Acute Medicine Rota, e.g. some consultants contributing to a higher proportion of SDEC or take shifts. Acute Medicine covers 50% of the Adult Hospital at Home weekday rota: the workload is shared between interested consultants.

On Call Duties

There is evening and weekend scheduled working as per above shifts description. This post does not currently include participation in the overnight or weekend out of hours on-call rota, therefore no on-call supplement applies.

This advert closes on Monday 24 Aug 2026.