Orthoptist

Leeds Teaching Hospitals has an opportunity for a full time Band 5 orthoptist fixed term for 2 years. Your role will be to provide routine orthoptic investigation and management for both children and adults. You will be supported by senior staff, have a mentor and we will facilitate completion of your preceptorship. You will be able to participate in multi-disciplinary meetings, professional development and audit. The Orthoptic and Children's Eye Clinic is based on the St James's University Hospital site in a dedicated unit in the Multispecialty Outpatients building. In addition to hospital sessions, the department provides sessions in Health Centres around Leeds and you may be required to attend these so a willingness to travel is essential.

Main duties of the job:

• The successful candidate will gain experience in a range of orthoptic clinics including standalone orthoptic clinics, joint clinics with ophthalmologists and/or optometrists.
• Your job plan will include early evening clinics and one Saturday a month.
• Our patients have a wide range of abilities/disorders e.g. infantile cataract, nystagmus, learning disabilities, autism, stroke, neuro.
• You will have allocated supporting professional activities (SPA)/CPD time.

About us:

Leeds Teaching Hospitals is one of the largest teaching hospitals in the country with 20,000 members of staff servicing 7 hospitals on 5 sites with a vision, philosophy and culture to be the best for specialist and integrated care. We are a team of 16 orthoptists who work closely with paediatric ophthalmologists/strabismologists and optometrists. We have some very experienced staff to support you. We will provide support, mentoring and training, including case and journal discussions. There will be opportunities to undertake audit and other projects. The department is accredited for orthoptic pre-registration placements.

At Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust our vision is based on values and behaviours known as the Leeds Way - Patient Centred, Fair, Collaborative, Accountable and Empowered. Leeds Teaching Hospitals is committed to our process of redeploying 'at risk' members of our existing workforce to new roles. As such, all our job adverts are subject to this policy and we reserve the right to close, delay or remove adverts while this process is completed. If you do experience a delay in the shortlisting stage of the recruitment cycle, please bear with us while this process is completed, and contact the named contact if you have any questions.

Job responsibilities:

• As an autonomous practitioner to be legally and professionally responsible and accountable for the management of patients, prioritise own workload and keep accurate contemporaneous records.
• To provide routine orthoptic assessment, diagnosis and management of new and review patients imparting information to patient/carer.
• Management includes the formulating of individualised treatment plans.
• Development of skills to provide orthoptic management of all types of ocular motility defects working within department guidelines and protocols.
• Effective communication with patients/carers to gain co-operation and handling complex, sensitive and contentious information regarding diagnosis, prognosis and treatment.
• Undertake patient data collection, paper and electronic, as required for the management of the service/audit/research and development.
• General administrative duties including dealing with telephone queries.
• Take an active part in departmental audit, clinical governance and professional development activities.

Person Specification:

• Qualifications: HCPC Orthoptic registration with appropriate qualification.
• Experience: Competence, knowledge and enthusiasm for core orthoptics gained on pre-registration clinical placements.
• Evidence of work towards preceptorship and CPD.