clinician London, England
Job description
Applications are invited for a full time Band 8A Principal Clinical Scientist post (Biochemistry) to join our Blood Sciences Department.
The Whittington is a welcoming and friendly workplace and the department benefits from excellent links with specialist clinicians and primary care. The department is ISO 15189:2012 accredited.
We are seeking an enthusiastic, highly motivated individual with excellent communication skills to take up the post with our friendly team. The post holder will collaborate and work closely with the Consultant Clinical Scientist to provide a clinical advisory service to staff at the Whittington Hospital, GPs and other service users, supporting the diagnosis and treatment of patients.
The successful applicant will be HCPC registered as a Clinical Scientist,will hold an MSc and/ or PhD in a relevant subject and havewide experience of clinical biochemistry. Individuals actively working towardsFRCPath Part 1are encouraged to express interest.
Please see the Job Description and the Persons Specification for further details about the job role. If you are unable to access the PDF, the details of the job description can also be found in the 'Detailed Job Description and Main responsibilities' section.
Medical services have been delivered on the Whittington Hospital site for over 500 years. On 1st April 2011, Whittington Health was launched as a new Integrated Care Organisation (ICO) comprising The Whittington Hospital NHS Trust, NHS Islington and NHS Haringey. The Whittington and the community health services in Islington and Haringey are award winning organisations, delivering acute and community based health services to a population of 443,000 people.
The organisation is the biggest employer in the area, with over 4,500 staff; delivering healthcare not only on the acute hospital site which has 420 beds, but also from a variety of other community based health centres and through visits to patients homes across the boroughs to address the health needs of the local population. Whittington Health also works with other health, social care and voluntary sector partners to support patients and service users from their initial appointment whether it be with a community health team or at the hospital, all the way through to treatment and tailored after care.
We are one of the three main teaching campuses for the Royal Free and University College Medical School.
Our ICARE (Innovation, Compassion, Accountability, Respect and Excellence) Values not only help us shape what we do, but also how we do it and why. They are fundamental to the way we do business and care for our patients.
For more information, please access the following link: https://www.whittington.nhs.uk/
Communication
- Required to attend and participate in appropriate meetings both within the departments, the Trust and with colleagues outside the Trusts and to deputise for the Consultant Clinical Scientist as required.
- Provides and receives highly complex information to colleagues and other healthcare professionals both within and outside the Trust.
- Communicates any difficulties, problems, accidents or incidents affecting the delivery of the service or the department to senior management as appropriate.
- Required to demonstrate excellent teaching / presentation skills
- Required to demonstrate excellent written communication skills in the form of scientific reports and in the production of controlled laboratory documentation
- Required to participate in the reporting and responding to clinical incidents.
- May be required to assist with visits to the department from groups including medical students and other Health Care Professionals from both within and outside the Trusts.
- Have an understanding of the concepts of safe handling of blood, faeces, other body fluids, and hazardous chemicals
- Have an understanding of the concepts and general issues surrounding automated instrumentation and manual testing.
- To assist in the troubleshooting of analytical problems as they arise.
- To take responsibility for service development in accordance with National guidelines and other markers of good clinical practice.
- To develop and evaluate new methods and undertake complex investigations where required.
- To advise on point of care testing as deputy for the Consultant Clinical Scientist
- To participate in the evaluation and selection of equipment.
- To engage in monitoring the quality and efficiency of service delivery, through internal quality control, external quality assurance and local and national audit activities.
- To collaborate in biochemical and clinical research activities within the department and across the organisation.
- To participate in the clinical academic activities of the Department.
- Under the supervision of the Consultant Clinical Scientist discuss and provide advice for clinical staff on the complex interpretation of general biochemistry results e.g. advise on differential diagnoses, monitoring, treatment and therapy.
- To advise where appropriate on the best combination of tests included in request profiles, the method of requesting, sample handling and result reporting.
- To review abnormal results on the Laboratory information system, notifying all requestors of unexpected clinically significant abnormal results in accordance with local written procedures.
- Where appropriate append clinically relevant interpretive and advisory comments to the computer record and when necessary to immediate patient management, discuss results with the requesting clinician.
- Complete familiarity is required with the local analytical systems, IT systems and procedures.
- To answer general enquiries from clinicians, laboratory and reception staff.
- To develop good working relationships with service users.
- To give technical and clinical advice out-of-hours if necessary.
- To undertake local and collaborative clinical audit; to register any audit undertaken and present findings at the clinical audit meetings and external departments as required.
- To keep abreast of innovations and developments in analytical chemistry, and to be proactive in the development of new techniques, tests and instrumentation.
- To be able to participate in the co-ordination of R & D activities.
- To develop, validate and implement new methods and assays in to the laboratory.
- To liaise with colleagues from other pathology disciplines and senior hospital management on any issues relating to the service.
- To liaise with users on service related issues including turnaround times, test availability, sample types and integrity and the delivery of results.
- To select suitable laboratories (UKAS accredited where possible) for referral tests.
- To deputise for the Consultant Clinical Scientist on the Board of Pathology and Pathology Team meetings.
- To participate in clinical governance and risk management activities both within and outside the Department to ensure delivery of a high quality analytical service.
- To investigate incidents which have had real or possible adverse effects on patient care.
- To work with the service manager to seek alternative arrangements for service provision in the event of service failure.
- To support the service manager in implementing corrective actions following service failure.
- To be aware of and comply with relevant budgetary control systems within the departments.
- To record, monitor and report on all statistical information when required by senior management of the Trust, Department of Health and other official bodies as directed.
- To participate in demand management initiatives including monitoring of reference laboratory tests.
- To be familiar and proficient with the use of the information technology systems within the departments and to keep up to date with upgrades or changes to systems.
- Extensive knowledge of laboratory systems for result reporting is required.
- To use the Laboratory Information Systems according to the authorised protocols.
- To contribute to the development of systems and processes for recording and storing laboratory information.
- To recommend new software where appropriate.
- To be familiar and proficient in the use of standard office software and to create and format databases and spreadsheets when required.
- To be familiar and proficient in the use of statistical software for the purposes of research, evaluations and clinical audit.
- To comply with local and national policies for the safe, secure and confidential processing and storage of patient and other laboratory information.
- To comply with the Trust’s IT policies
