Consultant Neonatologist

The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust; Wolverhampton; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust is seeking a neonatal specialist to join our Level 3 NICU team at New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton. The post involves delivering high‑quality care for term and preterm babies, on‑call duties, and close collaboration with neonatology and obstetric colleagues.

The successful applicant will hold GMC registration, have neonatal life support training, and a track record of working in a Level 3 unit, with a commitment to audit, research and teaching within a busy

Qualifications

• Essential: Full GMC registration and licence.
• Essential: On GMC Specialist Registrar or within 6 months of CCT in Paediatrics (Neonatology).
• Essential: Neonatal Life Support & Provider Safeguarding Children training at level 3.
• Experience: Wide Neonatal experience in managing babies in a level 3 unit.
• Experience: Experience of working in a level 3 neonatal intensive care unit in the last 2 years.
• Experience: Wide experience of managing extreme premature babies.
• Experience: Advanced clinical skills in Neonatal medicine.
• Research & Audit: Presentation at clinical meetings.
• Research & Audit: Understanding of research methodology and critical appraisal.
• Research & Audit: Evidence of audit and the implementation of change following audit.
• Research & Audit: Evidence of quality improvement work.
• Management Skills: Demonstrate effective team working skills.
• Management Skills: Ability to manage own time.
• Management Skills: Proven knowledge of NHS systems and processes.
• Management Skills: Ability to lead and manage others in a pressurized environment.

Responsibilities

• In conjunction with Consultant and Senior colleagues, to provide a service in Neonatal.
• In conjunction with Consultant and senior colleagues, to play a full part in the out-of-hours On-Call service for the department. This includes being on-call for telephone advice and major incidents.
• To provide cover for Consultant and senior colleagues in respect of periods of leave.
• In conjunction with Consultant and Senior colleagues, to take part in medical audit, quality improvement and research as appropriate.
• In conjunction with Consultant and Senior colleagues, to ensure that the requirements of clinical governance are met.
• To ensure that there are adequate arrangements for hospital staff involved in the care of your patients to be able to contact you when necessary.

Education

Full GMC registration and licence

On GMC Specialist Registrar or within 6 months of CCT in Paediatrics (Neonatology)

Neonatal Life Support & Provider Safeguarding Children training at level 3

Job description

Main duties of the job

• In conjunction with Consultant and Senior colleagues, to provide a service in Neonatal.
• In conjunction with Consultant and senior colleagues, to play a full part in the out-of-hours On-Call service for the department. This includes being on-call for telephone advice and major incidents.
• To provide cover for Consultant and senior colleagues in respect of periods of leave.
• In conjunction with Consultant and Senior colleagues, to take part in medical audit, quality improvement and research as appropriate.
• In conjunction with Consultant and Senior colleagues, to ensure that the requirements of clinical governance are met.
• To ensure that there are adequate arrangements for hospital staff involved in the care of your patients to be able to contact you when necessary.

About us

The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust is one of the largest NHS trusts in the West Midlands providing primary, acute and community services and we are incredibly proud of the diversity of both our staff and the communities we serve. We are building a workforce that can help us to fulfil our values, improve the quality of care for patients, and solve the health care problems of tomorrow. We're passionate about the value that diversity of thinking and lived experience brings in enabling us to become a learning organisation and leader in delivering compassionate care for our patients.

We are delighted that we have been rated as Good by CQC. We have achieved numerous awards The Nursing Times Best Diversity and Inclusion Practice and Best UK Employer of the Year for Nursing Staff in 2020.

The Trust is a supportive working environment committed to creating flexible working arrangements that suit your needs and as such will consider all requests from applicants who wish to work flexibly.

Job description

Please see attached a copy of the job description and person specification

The Unit has facilities to provide NICU care for Wolverhampton as well as the surrounding Black Country hospitals. A daily neonatal and maternity video huddle helps to facilitate the timely transfer of extreme preterm infants ideally in utero to New Cross. The neonatal unit has all the expected facilities for an NICU including high frequency oscillation and nitric oxide, and the facility to provide therapeutic hypothermia for up to 2 babies at a time. General and specialised neonatal surgery, when required, is undertaken at Birmingham Children's Hospital, as are complex cardiac and other paediatric speciality reviews. There is good liaison with all departments at Birmingham Children's Hospital and KIDS/NTS teams. Birmingham Children's Hospital PICU, Surgical and Cardiology teams have provided outreach bedside support to us for complex neonatal babies. The neonatal unit continues to provide initial care for infants with congenital heart disease and for surgical cases such as Gastroschisis and Oesophageal Atresia. Longer term care of infants with stoma is supported by surgical outreach nurses. The unit engages closely with the Obstetric Team at New Cross Hospital, including in perinatal mortality, risk management, maternity and neonatal forums, intrapartum committee meetings and fetal multidisciplinary meetings. The Unit is staffed and equipped to standards required for Level 3 intensive care, as recommended by the Clinical Standards Advisory Group for Neonatal Intensive Care. This unit uses full Badger electronic patient recording system. To capture all patient data and is paperless. Weekly ward rounds are undertaken with Consultant. Microbiologists who offer support and guidance on management. There are weekly Nutrition ward rounds. Investigations are analysed in the main laboratories which are equipped to deal with small volume samples. Clinical Chemistry, Haematology, Microbiology and Radiology results are available by computer link. Standardised TPN is available in line with BAPM recommendations. The large array of electronic equipment is maintained by a dedicated, full time medical electronics technician. There are cerebral function monitoring equipment and equipment to perform total body cooling. We are one of the centres for Total Body Cooling for babies with moderate to severe HIE for in born as well as other babies in West Midlands. Neonatal transfers are carried out by the Newborn Transport Service and KIDS retrieval team. A transport system for emergencies is available within the department. There are twice weekly cranial ultrasound sessions by trained ultrasonographers using the Units own machine. Depending on clinical need cranial ultrasound scans could be obtained on any week day. The team also undertakes renal ultrasound scanning for antenatally detected renal pelvic dilatation. There is a weekly echocardiography clinic for babies with suspected congenital heart disease. There exists very close collaboration with the Cardiology team at Birmingham Children's Hospital and all patients are discussed and managed jointly with the Birmingham Cardiology team. Acute echocardiography is performed by our team of 5 consultant neonatologists with additional expertise. A hip ultrasound scanning service which is supervised by two paediatric orthopaedic surgeons who have clinical duties at New Cross & Birmingham Children’s Hospital, exists. Retinopathy screening is carried out on site by a Consultant Ophthalmologist based at New Cross. The ROP treatment is done locally by Ophthalmic surgeons based at Birmingham Children’s Hospital. Short term and illness-based follow up is offered by the neonatal consultants. As well as developmental follow up till 2 years. Babies discharged from NNU who need admission to the paediatric ward will be managed by the on take paediatric consultant but the overall Consultant responsibility will be borne by the baby's neonatal consultant. Babies with on-going complex needs who will require paediatric follow up will generally be referred to the appropriate general paediatric or community consultant . We have dedicated full time in house neonatal physiotherapists, Speech and Language, Psychology, Dietetics and Pharmacy. An Occupational therapist is awaiting appointment. Bereavement service is delivered by 2 bereavement nurses. We currently collect neonatal data on the Badgernet neonatal database, and utilise NIPE SMART (for New-born Infant Physical Examination). The Badger data provides information for clinical purposes, audit, bench marking of services, activity data for Specialised Service Commissioners & NNAP project. There are excellent opportunities for linked research with obstetrics and the community paediatricians on epidemiology and follow up of preterm babies. The NNU is benchmarked against international standards via Vermont-Oxford Network. The maternity department is also now using a fully electronic patient record Badgernet maternity system. Research involvement with national studies is supported by a dedicated research team. Consultants are encouraged to be involved in research and develop their skills in this area. Teaching and Education is central to the service. Over the recent years we have developed a dedicated neonatal teaching schedule with 3 sessions per week of consultant supported teaching as well as 1 session per week of skills teaching provided by our Advanced Neonatal Nurse Practitioners. This aims to compliment the regional teaching sessions provided to trainees and the network education sessions for nurses.

Weekly meetings: NNU Consultant Business Meeting. Departmental Clinical Meeting/Journal club. Local Neonatal Teaching. Monthly meetings: NNU ward meeting. Neonatal Mortality Review Meeting. Acute services Risk Management Meeting. Maternity Services Liaison Committee meeting. PMRT meeting. Fetal Medicine Meetings. Intrapartum Care Meeting. Obstetric Risk Management Meeting. Cranial ultrasound review meetings. Echocardiography peer review. Joint Perinatal Forum. Directorate management meeting. WMNODN (West Midlands Neonatal Operational delivery Network) meetings - The post holder is expected to contribute, and represent New Cross Hospital at such meetings, or alternately to provide unit cover enabling other critical team members to participate in Network meetings.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Full registration and license GMC
• On GMC Specialist Registrar or within 6 months of CCT, in Paediatrics (Neonatology) from date of interview
• Neonatal Life Support & Provider Safeguarding Children training at level 3

Desirable

• Higher Medical Degree

Experience

Essential

• Wide Neonatal experience in managing babies in a level 3 unit
• Experience of working in a level 3 neonatal intensive care unit in the last 2 years
• Wide experience of managing extreme premature babies
• Advanced clinical skills in Neonatal medicine

Desirable

• Education qualification

Research & Audit

Essential

• Presentation at clinical meetings
• Understanding of research methodology and critical appraisal
• Evidence of audit and the implementation of change following audit
• Evidence of quality improvement work

Management Skills

Essential

• Demonstrate effective team working skills
• Ability to manage own time
• Proven knowledge of systems and processes of NHS
• Ability to lead and manage others in a pressurized environment