Band 8b Lead Orthoptist

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the Ophthalmology at BHRUT as Lead Orthoptist, The lead orthoptist will provide professional leadership and operational management for the optical service team orthoptists and ophthalmic technicians and also share leadership of the optometrists as part of the multidisciplinary ophthalmology service. As a key member of the ophthalmology team, the postholder will provide effective competent management of clinical and other resources in accordance with the surgery directorate and ophthalmology service business plans including effective use of the optical services budget, managing change in response to developing service needs and to meet new developments and promote delivery of evidence-based practice across a range of subspecialist areas within ophthalmology. We are looking for someone with excellent communication skills, works well as part of a multidisciplinary team and is innovative, always looking for ways to improve the service we provide for
our patients., The postholder will also have major contribution to teaching to both the orthoptic team and as part of the wider ophthalmology teaching programme both internally within the Trust as well as to external community health providers. They will also be lead clinical tutor responsible for provision of undergraduate orthoptic placements.

They will also contribute to departmental audit and research programmes within ophthalmology. In addition, they will play a role in support, development other colleagues within ophthalmology and lead by example to motivate and empower other colleagues, e.g. nursing colleagues, junior doctors, administrative colleagues to work together in the provision of high standards of service.

We're an organisation that is getting better and better. We were the most improved Trust in England for A&E performance in 2023/24; we're no longer in special measures; and Matthew Trainer, our Chief Executive, has been named the top CEO by the Health Service Journal. Our improvements are driven by a determination to deliver care we're proud of and that our patients are happy with.

Many of our 8,000 staff - who come from 146 different countries - live in the three diverse London boroughs we serve and the majority are from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups. More than 400 of them are on apprenticeship programmes and we're proud to be a London Living Wage employer.

We operate from two main sites - King George Hospital (KGH) in Goodmayes and Queen's Hospital in Romford. We have two of the busiest emergency departments in London - more than 300,000 people visited our A&Es in 2023.

Patients across north east London are benefitting from two new state of the art theatres at KGH and our Community Diagnostic Centres at Barking Community Hospital and St George's Health and Wellbeing Hub will significantly increase the number of scans that can be carried out.

We're looking forward to introducing an electronic patient record next year. This will mean the records of any patient visiting one of the seven hospitals run by BHRUT and Barts Health will be accessible to the clinical teams. It'll make things easier for staff and will be better for patients.