Consultant Paediatric & Perinatal Pathologist in London

This is a replacement post. The Department of Cellular Pathology is seeking a full-time (10 PA) consultant to join a dynamic and supportive team of colleagues. The post holder must have a demonstrable major interest in perinatal and paediatric pathology. The department is involved in many exciting initiatives and we are looking for an individual with appropriate skills to complement the teams and keep the service at the forefront of clinical and academic excellence. The laboratory has full UKAS/ISO accreditation status.

As an organisation, we are committed to developing our services in ways that best suit the needs of our patients. This includes asking certain groups of staff to work more flexibly so that we can offer services to patients in the evenings and at weekends. We regard this flexibility as essential if we are to continue to provide first class patient care in the future. As a result, any offer of employment to a consultant post will be subject to you agreeing to work a new more flexible pattern of working in the future if required and in accordance with the provisions of the new Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust consultant contract.

Main place of employment: This post will include working at both Guy's and St Thomas' sites as well as the new Synnovis Blackfriars Hub Laboratory (located near Southwark tube station).

Main duties of the job

• Perinatal and Paediatric Pathology: Together with other consultants provide a service for paediatric and perinatal pathology across GSTFT (Paediatric surgical reporting, Perinatal Autopsies).
• Carry out coronial paediatric post-mortem examinations.
• Supervising pathology trainees in relevant aspects of post-mortem dissection, surgical cut-up and reporting.
• Teaching, training, and audit and research in the specialist areas.
• Collaborating with other consultant colleagues in specialist areas and formally liaising with designated senior and junior staff to cover duties when absent from the Department.

About us

The Department of Cellular Pathology provides services to Guy's & St Thomas' Hospitals, local general practitioners in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham Strategic Health Authority and local Coroners. It is a major cancer and infection referral centre. The main Cellular Pathology Department is located at St Thomas' Hospital, 2nd Floor North Wing.

This very specialist children's cancer service is currently provided across two sites (The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust in Sutton and St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Tooting. Following a decision made by NHS England leaders in March 2024, planning is now underway for the service to move to Evelina London Children's Hospital (part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust), with conventional radiotherapy at University College Hospital (part of University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust). The move brings the service location in line with the national service specification that mandates that the PTC must be co-located with a paediatric intensive care unit.

Evelina London's role as the future provider is to deliver the safe transfer of care, successfully integrating very specialist children's cancer services and clinical trials into its existing outstanding-rated children's services. It is working closely with partners, patients and families, staff, and other key stakeholders to design the future service.

Job responsibilities

• Provide High Quality Care to Patients: The post holder must be medically qualified and maintain GMC specialist registration and hold a licence to practice.
• To develop and maintain the competencies required to carry out the duties required of the post.
• To ensure prompt attendance at agreed direct clinical care Programmed Activities.
• To provide expert histopathology services in with the object of ensuring a high standard of patient care.
• To participate in the provision of the perinatal and paediatric pathology service.
• To participate in clinical and other service activities with the object of ensuring a high standard of patient care.

Research, Teaching and Training

• Where possible to collaborate with academic and clinical colleagues to enhance the Trusts translational research portfolio, at all times meeting the full requirements of Research Governance.
• To provide high quality teaching to medical undergraduates and members of other health care professions as required by the Clinical Director.
• To act as educational supervisor and appraiser as delegated by the Clinical Director to ensure external accreditation of training post.

Performance Management

• To work with medical, nursing and managerial colleagues to ensure high performance in the following areas: Clinical efficiency e.g. LOS reductions, reducing cancelled operations and DNA rates.
• Quality of outcomes e.g. infection control targets, reducing re-admission rates.
• Financial management e.g. identification, implementation and achievement of cost improvement programmes and participating in efforts to ensure services are provided cost effectively.
• Operational efficiency e.g. day-case rates, waiting list activity and demand management.

Medical Staff Management

• To work with colleagues to ensure junior doctors hours are compliant in line with EWTD and New Deal.
• To ensure that adequate systems and procedures are in place to control and monitor leave for junior medical staff and to ensure that there is appropriate cover within the clinical areas, including on-call commitments.
• To participate in the recruitment of junior medical staff as and when required.
• To participate in team objective setting as part of the annual job planning cycle.
• To be responsible for the annual appraisal of all doctors in training, Trust doctors, Clinical Fellows and non-consultant grades as delegated by the Clinical Director/General Manager.

Governance

• To review clinical outcomes in designated area using external benchmarking data where appropriate, to identify and advise variances to the Clinical Director.
• Participate in clinical audit, incident reporting and analysis and to ensure resulting actions are implemented.
• To work closely with the Directorate, Patient and Public Involvement panels in relation to clinical and services developments as delegated by the Clinical Director.
• Participate in ensuring NICE requirements are reviewed and implemented and monitored in the speciality areas.
• To ensure clinical guidelines and protocols are adhered to by junior medical staff and updated on a regular basis.
• To keep fully informed about best practice in the speciality areas and ensure implications for practice changes are discussed with the Clinical Director.
• To role model good practice for infection control to all members of the multidisciplinary team.

Strategy and Business Planning

• To participate in the business planning and objective setting process for the directorate and Trust where appropriate.
• To represent the Trust at appropriate clinical networks/other external clinical meetings, as delegated by the Clinical Director.

Leadership and Team Working

• To demonstrate excellent leadership skills with regard to individual performance, clinical teams, the Trust and when participating in national or local initiatives.
• To work collaboratively with all members of the multi-disciplinary team and Kings Health Partners as required.
• To chair regular meetings for the specialties.
• To resolve conflict and difficult situations through negotiation and discussion, involving appropriate parties.
• Adhere to Trust/departmental guidelines on leave including reporting absence.

Person Specification

• Professional Qualifications
• Essential: Full and Specialist registration (and with a licence to practise) with the General Medical Council (GMC), or be eligible for registration within six months of interview.
• Applicants that are UK trained, must also be a holder of a Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT), or be within six months of award of CCT by date of interview.
• Applicants that are non-UK trained, will be required to show evidence of equivalence to the UK CCT.
• FRCPath or equivalent.
• Clinical Experience
• Essential: Comprehensive clinical experience in histopathology.
• Proven record of experience as a trainee in histopathology.
• Continuing and recent diagnostic practice experience in paediatric and perinatal pathology as a major specialist interest.
• Clinical Skills
• Essential: Ability to work as an effective member of a multidisciplinary team.
• Familiarity with modern morphological and molecular diagnostic techniques.
• Audit Management & IT
• Essential: Evidence of contribution to effective clinical governance, audit clinical risk management, and IT skills.
• Understanding of principles of audit.
• Evidence of understanding of the role of clinical management.
• Research, Teaching skill & experience
• Essential: Understanding of the principles and applications of clinical research.
• Evidence of original research.
• Ability to supervise junior staff in diagnostic work.
• Experience of teaching and training undergraduates, postgraduates and junior medical staff.
• Leadership/Management skills
• Essential: Communication; Ability to communicate with clarity and intelligently in written and spoken English; ability to build rapport, listen, persuade/ negotiate.
• Accountability; Ability to take responsibility, lead, make decisions and exert appropriate authority.
• Interpersonal Skills; Empathy, understanding, listening skills, patience and ability to work co-operatively with others.
• Able to change and adapt, respond to changing circumstances and to cope with setbacks or pressure.
• Ability to work as part of a team.
• Staff Management; Experience of performance management, developing and motivating staff.
• Finance; Knowledge of finance and budgets.

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration.

Employer details

Employer name: Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

Address: St Thomas' Hospital, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom