Consultant Geriatrician

We are seeking a Consultant Geriatrician, who would be dedicated and passionate in helping us to provide outstanding and exemplary care for frail older patients in the South West. Following development of our Frailty strategy and successful recruitment within the last year, this is a very exciting time to work within a progressive, dynamic and rapidly expanding department.

We can support you to develop your subspecialty interests (for example, in orthogeriatrics, major trauma, acute frailty care, dementia, delirium, movement disorders, falls, continence care, rehabilitation or community geriatrics) and we fully support the development of skills in education, management and leadership. The post-holder will work with nineteen other Consultant Geriatricians in providing a range of services for older people with complex needs, and so you will have a supportive and friendly team around you, providing plenty of scope for you to showcase your skills and to develop professionally.

North Bristol NHS Trust has an active appraisal and development programme, and all Consultant staff will take part in the process. The Trust has a list of identified mentors which is used to allocate suitable support to new Consultants during the first year in post.

Main duties of the job

Applicants should be able to demonstrate extensive experience in Medicine for Older People and must be in possession (or anticipated to shortly be in possession) of CCT in General Internal Medicine and Geriatric Medicine. Applicants are required to be on the Specialist Register for General Internal Medicine and Geriatric Medicine. Full Registration with the GMC is essential.

All departmental consultants (including those working on LTFT basis) participate in a weekend on-call rota working on the AFU, on a 1 in 9.5 basis. Two consultants are on duty each weekend, alternating their duties between one weekend day working 08:00-12:00, and one weekend day working 08:00-20:00. Weekend duties are compensated for with midweek days in lieu of weekend days worked. Midweek twilight sessions (Monday-Friday) on the AFU are also included in the job plan, on a 1 in 16 basis.

Working for our organisation

The Medicine for Older Person’s team comprises 27 WTE consultants with support from junior medical teams, Frailty therapists and ANP’s providing a range of services for older people with complex needs. North Bristol Trust moved to a state-of-the-art new hospital building in May 2014 and Older People’s services are being prioritised to provide a full range of services from acute frailty assessment, a complex care bed-base through to ‘transitional’ post-acute care.

Substantial commitment is made within the trust to cross-divisional working, and we provide liaison medical support to support the care of frail older patients admitted to trauma, surgical and oncology specialties, whilst also delivering community services, virtual wards and rapid access and movement disorder outpatient services.

This is also a great opportunity for you to live and work in or around the historic port city of Bristol: gateway to the South West England. Bristol has its own thriving art, music and cultural scene hosting several exciting annual festivals such as the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta and the Bristol Harbour Festival. Bristol is also ideally located for the outdoors, being within easy range of the Wye Valley, Forest of Dean, Mendip and Cotswold Hills.

Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities

The specialty currently manages patients across a number of inpatient services. These include the review of acute admissions in the Emergency Zone on Level 0 of the Brunel Building, a newly created Acute Frailty Unit on level 1 (32 beds), with post-admission short stay capacity. Two complex care wards are located on level 5 (32 beds on each) with a further short stay bed base (c.16 beds). Transitional post-acute care beds are located in the nearby Elgar House wards, which includes 70 beds.

A front door multidisciplinary team called the Frailty Team has been in place since September 2013 working with the Emergency Department and medical admission area providing early assessment and case management of frail older people. A 33 bed frailty unit focusing on comprehensive geriatric assessment opened in September 2015, incorporating the Frailty team. The most recent development of this ward has seen this move towards a direct admitting Acute Frailty Unit, working closely with the acute medicine team.

Proactive in-reaching liaison is currently offered to vascular, major trauma, burns and general surgical teams. There are many opportunities for the successful applicant to contribute to developing and delivering liaison services.

Community facilities post-acute intermediate care is delivered in the Elgar Enablement Unit on the Southmead site, and regional rehabilitation is provided by Sirona Care and Health: the provider for all of Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire since April 2020.

The North Bristol Care Home Interface team (NCHIP) provide a proactive advanced care planning service for older people residing in nursing homes, comprised of a multidisciplinary team led by a consultant community geriatrician. This service successfully reduces admissions from care homes and has recently secured recurrent, long-term funding. We are currently developing virtual ward, SDEC and hospital at home opportunities, and anticipate further growth of community services in the near future.

The successful applicant would be able to develop interests and skills in community liaison work, should this be an area of interest and expertise.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Applicants must be on the specialist register for General Medicine & Geriatric Medicine

Desirable criteria

• Higher academic qualification (e.g. MD or MS).