Senior Clinical Fellow in Neurosurgery - Skull Base and Vascular

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust; Birmingham; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent UK health institution is seeking a Senior Clinical Fellow in Neurosurgery, focusing on skull base and neurovascular surgery. This role involves managing complex cases in a multidisciplinary environment, with opportunities for professional development and leadership training. Candidates must hold a GMC registration and have substantial clinical experience in emergency neurosurgery. The position offers an annual salary of £73,992, along with additional on-call allowances.

Qualifications

• Clinical experience in emergency neurosurgery is essential.
• Proven teaching ability and willingness to teach undergraduates & postgraduates.
• Experience with UK hospital systems and practices is required.

Responsibilities

• Manage pre-operative and post-operative patients with neurosurgical conditions.
• Involve in multi-disciplinary management of patients with skull base and neurovascular pathology.
• Develop leadership and communication skills through mentoring.

Skills

Emergency neurosurgery

Ability to work in teams

Communication skills

Leadership

Education

Full GMC registration

ST 6+ level training

Job description

Go back University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust

Senior Clinical Fellow in Neurosurgery - Skull Base and Vascular

The closing date is 26 October 2025

Applications are invited for a Senior Clinical Fellow to work within Neurosurgery. The Fellowship will be based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, which is one of the busiest hospitals in the UK. In the financial year 2022/23 the Neurosurgery department treated: 246 day cases, 1052 elective cases and 1235 emergencies. Outpatient activity over the same period included: 4426 new and 14,700 follow-up patients.

The hospital has been designated as a level one trauma unit, leading to increased emergency work in the department. QEHB already has special expertise in the management of all forms of trauma, through its links with the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM) located in the hospital. There are 16 neurosurgical trainees and an in-house fellowship in spinal surgery. However, currently there are no Royal College recognised fellowships in cranial neurosurgery.

The Queen Elizabeth vestibular schwannoma (VS) service has the highest number of VS referrals in England according to the VS National Audit. The Skull base service provides approximately 100 transphenoidal approaches for pituitary, 50 craniotomies for anterior skull base, and 50 craniotomies for lateral skull base cases per year.

The neurovascular service provides 30-40 open neurovascular procedures (aneurysms, AVMs, cranial dAVFs), 250-300 endovascular neurovascular procedures and 150-200 mechanical thrombectomy procedures.

Main duties of the job

The Fellowship curriculum is consistent with the four domains of Good Medical Practice:

• Knowledge, skills and performance
• Safety and quality
• Leadership, communication, partnership, and team-working
• Maintaining trust

Our aim is to help you reach mastery in skull base, or vascular neurosurgery, so that you can perform complex cases with autonomy and clarity of purpose.

By the end of the fellowship the trainee will be able to demonstrate:

• Theoretical and practical knowledge related to Skull Base Neurosurgery and / or Neurovascular Surgery.
• Appropriate technical and operative skills
• Clinical skills and judgement
• Generic professional and leadership skills
• An understanding of the values and responsibilities that underpin Skull Base Neurosurgery and /or Neurovascular Surgery.
• The specific attributes needed to be a Skull base surgeon or/and neurovascular surgeon
• A commitment to their ongoing personal and professional development and practice using reflective practice and educational processes having as high priority developing the successful candidate as a trainer and future leader.
• An understanding and respect for the multi-professional nature of the care of patients with skull base and/or neurovascular pathologies
• An understanding of the responsibilities of being an employee in the UK NHS

About us

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust strives to have an inclusive culture where everyone feels like they belong, can thrive, knows that they add value and feels valued. We do this by developing compassionate and culturally competent leaders, being values driven in all that we do and by creating a welcoming and inclusive workplace that thrives on the diversity of our people. As such we want to attract and recruit talented individuals from all backgrounds, and for each of you to feel supported for the diversity you bring, to achieve your full potential. For those staff with a disability, including physical disability, long term health condition, mental health or neurodiverse condition, this also means being committed to making reasonable adjustments needed for you to carry out your role.

Job responsibilities

This is a ST6+ and above fellowship. At entry to the fellowship the Fellow will have demonstrated generic competencies in the assessment and peri-operative management of patients with Neurosurgical pathology and will be competent to support the on-call team functioning at the level of senior registrar (senior tier of the rota). Candidates of exceptional aptitude who are at an earlier stage of their career and appropriate for the first tier of the rota may also be considered on a case-by-case basis. Understanding the basics of Skull base and Neurovascular surgery are a requirement for application. The ability to detect and manage post-operative cerebral swelling, hydrocephalus, intracranial haematomas, and intracranial sepsis, post-operative seizures and post-operative metabolic & endocrine disorders will be required. You will become confident managing intra-operative complications such as vascular injury and post-operative complications such as tension pneumocephalus, CSF leak, facial palsy, bulbar dysfunction, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and brainstem injury.

In addition, the fellow will have demonstrated interest and aptitude in Skull Base and Neurovascular Surgery including the multi-disciplinary management of patients with skull base pathology and Neurovascular lesions. The fellowship will provide the opportunity to work with experienced teams who are supportive and happy to share their experience and thoughts on highly complex cases.

The Fellow will participate fully in the multidisciplinary management of Skull Base and Neurovascular patients. The Fellow will develop leadership and communication skills through engagement with mentoring. For appropriately skilled and experienced candidates there may be opportunities to "act up" as a consultant, including as part of the on-call rota, in a supportive environment. Such experience can be a vital bridge to achieving the skills, experience and confidence when starting out as a consultant neurosurgeon.

Refer to the attached Job Description for more details.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Qualifications of ST 6+ level of training
• Full GMC registration with a licence to practice (or application process in progress)
• Clinical Experience
• Research / Teaching / Publications
• Proven teaching ability
• Willingness to undertake teaching of medical undergraduates & post-graduates.
• National / International presentations
• Evidence of relevant publications in peer reviewed journals.

Experience

• Recent experience and familiarity of UK hospital systems and practices (or equivalent).
• A minimum of 3 years at ST level in a substantive post within the UK or equivalent service
• Competent in all aspects of emergency neurosurgery
• Evidence of interest in surgical neuro-oncology
• Training in diagnosis and treatment of Neurosurgical conditions including emergency presentations.
• Proven ability to work as a member of a team.
• Ability to organise and prioritise busy workloads effectively and cope under pressure.
• Ability to communicate effectively with patients, senior medical staff and other health professionals.
• Proficient and efficient handling medical problems
• Evidence of safe sound practical procedures

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.

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust

£73,992 a year ST6-8 equivalent, plus allowances for Tier 2 on-call rota