Consultant Community Geriatrician & Virtual Ward Clinical Lead

This is an exciting opportunity to provide senior medical leadership and clinical oversight across the adult community teams and virtual ward (hospital at home) services across West Suffolk. You will work with our locality based, multi disciplinary Integrated Neighbourhood Teams and other services to provide high quality, holistic medical care to enable frail older people to receive treatment safely in community settings. Our virtual ward (hospital at home) service provides specialist led care for a variety of patients including those with respiratory conditions, frailty, renal, oncology and heart failure. Care is provided in patients' homes using an advanced personal remote monitoring platform, enabling them to avoid hospital and/or to go home sooner. We are looking for a talented and innovative consultant to make this role their own as our inspirational and forward-thinking community services continue to expand and develop. 9 PAs per week would be preferred, however part time/job share arrangements will be considered. Interviews to be held on Thursday the 27th February 2025,

• Work in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders to ensure that patients are fully involved in making decisions about their treatment and care, and that patients, staff and other stakeholders are engaged and involved in the development of services.
• Establish good communication and effective working relationships with colleagues internal and external to the Trust including Primary Care Networks, Suffolk & North East Essex Integrated Care Board, West Suffolk Alliance, NHS England, and clinical and non-clinical colleagues across all sectors of health and care.
• Motivate, influence and persuade clinical and non-clinical colleagues as part of service development and transformation initiatives and projects.
• Develop and deliver training programmes, workshops, briefings and presentations.
• Communicate sensitive or difficult news and challenge existing beliefs and working practices as required., We are a team of geriatricians looking to expand our services further across the hospital and into the community to enable more older people to benefit from specialist geriatric assessment. We provide acute in-patient services on an elderly care ward, ortho-geriatric services, medical and surgical liaison services, front door assessment and out-patient clinics at the West Suffolk Hospital site. In addition, we provide a falls clinic at a community hospital in Sudbury and oversee care of intermediate care beds in the community hospital at Newmarket and in a nursing home in Bury St Edmunds.
Our priorities for the next 2 years include the establishment of an acute frailty assessment unit to take direct admissions from the community, establishing falls and frailty clinics in peripheral sites, developing models of closer working with community matrons and advanced clinical practitioners in frailty to enable patients to receive comprehensive geriatric assessment closer to home, establishment of a virtual ward and using new technology to provide remote assessment of patients in care homes.

#BeKnown at West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. By us. By our patients. By our community We are a busy, friendly, rural NHS Trust providing high-quality care and compassion to more than a quarter of a million people across west Suffolk. We care for, treat and support people in hospital, at home and in various community settings. The West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds provides acute and secondary care services (emergency department, maternity and neonatal services, day surgery unit, eye treatment centre, Macmillan unit and children's ward). It has 500+ beds and is a partner teaching hospital of the University of Cambridge. Adult and paediatric community services, provided in collaboration with West Suffolk Alliance partners, include a range of nursing, therapy, specialist, and ongoing temporary care and rehabilitation, some at our Newmarket Community Hospital. We do our utmost to achieve outstanding clinical outcomes for patients and our values of fairness, inclusivity, respect, safety and team work guide how we work and behave as a team. With nearly 5,000 staff, from all over the world, we strive to make our organisation a great place to work. Whatever your role or ambition, we want to help you be the best you can be. We promote a diverse and inclusive community where everyones voice counts and you can #BeKnown for whoever you are. Join us. What will you #BeKnown for?