Clinical Fellow in Heart Muscle Disease

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust; Leeds; On-site; GBP 37,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Heart Muscle Disease Clinical Fellow at the West Yorkshire Heart Centre, Leeds. This fixed-term position focuses on diagnosing and managing heart muscle diseases, offering training and development opportunities in a dynamic, supportive environment. The candidate will play a crucial role in service evaluation, clinic participation, and collaboration with experienced consultants.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience in core cardiology.
• Eligible to work in the UK and licensed to practice.
• Evidence of regular audit and quality improvement participation.

Responsibilities

• Participate in heart muscle clinics to evaluate and manage a wide spectrum of heart failure.
• Work closely with consultants on patient management and service development.
• Engage in MDT meetings and contribute to research and service evaluation.

Skills

Teamwork

Leadership

Time Management

Education

MRCP (UK)

European Examination in Core Cardiology

Completion of Internal Medical Training

Job description

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Heart Muscle Disease Clinical Fellow, with an interest in Cardiac Amyloidosis to join the West Yorkshire Heart Centre, Leeds General Infirmary.

The post will be fixed term for 1 year, commencing August 2025.

The LGI houses the largest tertiary cardiac centre in the UK, providing services to 2.8 million in West Yorkshire and supraregional services to broader Yorkshire & Humber, constituting 5.8 million. The Heart Failure service is led by Dr Alex Simms and offers regional care for specialised conditions including amyloidosis, sarcoidosis, inflammatory and inherited conditions. Furthermore, the LGI contains tertiary complex device, imaging and quaternary ICC services.

The Heart Muscle Clinic is a regional service for diagnosis and management of Cardiac Amyloidosis and other acquired and inherited diseases. This involves interpretation and delivery of imaging and nuanced heart failure care alongside highly skilled specialist heart failure, ICC and valve nurses and specialised physiologists. We liaise with our Amyloid MDT as well as the National Amyloidosis Centre, to ensure patients are given access to cutting edge therapies. Given the evolving diagnosis and referral patterns, there is a need for pathway coordination in this dynamic service and the successful candidate will have a key role in research, QI and service development.

Dr Anshu Sengupta [e-mail]

Dr Alex Simms [e-mail]

Dr Kate Gatenby [e-mail]

Main duties of the job

This post is suited to trainees experienced in core cardiology, including those approaching CCT (or equivalent). The successful candidate will usually have a subspecialty interest in heart failure, potentially alongside ICC and/or imaging.

The fellow will work closely with the consultants running the HMDC (Drs Simms, Gatenby and Sengupta) as well as the remainder of the heart failure team (Drs Saunderson, Walker, Cubbon, Witte, Profs Gale and Kearney, our specialised physiologists and heart failure nurses). Furthermore there will be opportunities to work with our large team of cardiac imaging and ICC specialists.

The fellow will participate in heart muscle clinics, seeing a wide spectrum of heart failure as well as amyloidosis. There will be training in evaluating complex heart failure, gene testing and interpret/deliver imaging. There will be time for service evaluation, design and improvement, with opportunities for research. Further training will be tailored to the candidate, allowing a day a week to explore a subspeciality of choice (e.g. imaging, genetics/ICC). There will be commitments to MDT, triage, clinic, meetings, research and conferences.

There are no on-call or medical commitments. The applicant should be aware that this will incur a basic ST6 salary. There will be opportunities to support the StR on-call rota out of hours, but without interfering with the Fellow post.

Applicants are encouraged to contact or visit the department (details above).

About us

Come and join our team in Leeds and become part of The Leeds Way sharing our vision and values. Our Trust is recognised for our staff engagement, great care and rated GOOD by the Care Quality Commission.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is one of the largest acute health providers in the UK and based in one of the fastest growing and vibrant cities in the north.

At Cardio-Respiratory CSU, we aim to be a fair and supportive CSU with positive, caring teams who are champions of the Leeds Way values. Our values are part of what make us different from other trusts, so we see this as a strength, as well as a responsibility. They have been developed by our staff and set out what they see as important to how we work. Our five values are:

Patient-centred

Collaborative

Fair

Accountable

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 description

Job responsibilities

This appointment will be based at the Yorkshire Heart Centre, Leeds General Infirmary.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals is one of the largest teaching hospital trusts in Europe. It serves a tertiary population of 3 million across the West Yorkshire region. There is a team of 33 full or part time Consultant Cardiologists.

We care for people from all over the country as well as the 780,000 residents of Leeds. The Trust has a budget of £1 billion. Our 15,000 staff ensures that every year we treat 1,500,000 people in our 2,000 beds or out-patient settings, comprising 100,000 day cases, 125,000 in-patients, 200,000 A& E visits and 1,050,000 out-patient appointments. We operate from 7 hospitals on 5 sites all linked by the same vision, philosophy and culture to be the best for specialist and integrated care.

Currently the Yorkshire Heart Centre is supported by 12 specialist registrars training in Cardiology, 4 CMT/IMTs, 7 JCFs, 1 GPVTS, 6 FY2s and 4 FY1 trainees. There are often a number of Clinical in post in coronary intervention, devices and structural intervention. There are also research fellows in post in the CMR department.

The Heart Failure team in Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust comprises 9 consultants: Dr Alex Simms, Dr Kate Gatenby, Dr Anshu Sengupta, Dr Chris Saunderson, Dr Andy Walker, Dr Ric Cubbon, Prof Chris Gale, Dr Klaus Witte and Prof Mark Kearney. We are joined by a team of Heart Failure CNSs (Sarah Winsor, Mel McGinlay, Emma Goodman, Issy Simmons and Georgina Davison) and physiologists (Charlotte Knowles, Maria Paton, Zara Paterson). The Heart Failure team liaises closely with our Inherited Cardiac Conditions consultants (Dr Alex Simms, Dr Anshu Sengupta, Dr Stephen Page and Dr Nick Jex) and CNSs (Rachel Walker and Annabel Nixon).

Within the Heart Muscle Disease Clinic (HMDC) we work across medical specialities with MDTs including cardiac amyloid, cardiac sarcoid and cardio-rheumatology. The Leeds Amyloidosis MDT includes representatives from haematology (Dr Chris Parrish, Dr Frances Seymour), nephrology (Dr Richard Hoefield), neurology (Dr Agam Jung) and histopathology (Dr Kathryn Griffin). We are also a quaternary Cardiac Genetics centre with the ability to pursue mainstream diagnostic genetic testing for ICC and amyloidosis, as well as family screening and predictive testing (coordinated by genetics colleagues).

The Cardiac imaging department in Leeds offers all cardiac imaging modalities including Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (CMR), Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (CTCA) and is led by Dr Dominik Schlosshan, clinical lead for cardiac imaging. The Cardiac imaging department is supported by 10 imaging consultant cardiologists dedicated to cardiovascular imaging with a broad range of expertise.

The department actively participates in Heart Failure multidisciplinary meetings, including representation from our active research and trials team.

There are active Teaching and Research links with the Leeds School of Medicine and the University of Leeds, both well situated on adjacent sites. The Heart Failure and CMR research groups have a world leading reputation for clinical research including large single and multi-centre trials.

The post is fixed term for one year.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• MRCP (UK) (or equivalent)
• European Examination in Core Cardiology (or equivalent)
• Completion of Internal Medical Training (or equivalent)

Desirable

• Achieved or working towards a higher degree (MD or PhD)
• Formal qualification in teaching and / or training
• BSE TTE or Level 2 CMR accreditation

Clinical Experience and Career Progression

Essential

• Demonstrate high level of experience in core cardiology e.g. NTN
• Experience of, or higher training in, heart failure or imaging
• Good Clinical Practice trained and in date

Desirable

• Experience of managing patients with heart muscle, valve or ICC diseases
• Research publications and presentations

Eligibility, Fitness to practice, and Language Skills

Essential

• Fully registered with the GMC with licence to practise
• Eligible to work in the UK
• Up to date and fit to practise safely
• Demonstrable written and spoken English skills (undergraduate medical training in English or IELTS scores as documented in person specification)

Clinical, Academic, and Personal Skills

Essential

• Evidence of participation in regular audit and QI
• Organised and able to demonstrate time management
• Able to demonstrate teamwork and leadership skills

Desirable

• Supervising trainees in research or clinical arena

C9298-MED-770