Locum Consultant in Paediatric Intensive Care Medicine

Go back Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust Locum Consultant in Paediatric Intensive Care Medicine

The closing date is 14 July 2025

This is an exciting opportunity to join an enthusiastic, well-motivated and generally awesome team - as a full time 10 Programmed Activity (PA) locum post in Paediatric Intensive Care Medicine at Alder Hey Children's Hospital is open for application. Applicants for this post must have in-depth experience of general medical, neonatal surgical, neurosurgical & cardiac paediatric intensive care. In particular they must have extensive experience in the provision of extra-corporeal support for children with extreme cardio-respiratory failure.

There may also be the opportunity for a locum consultant appointment.

Main duties of the job

• Direct Clinical Care
• Teaching & academic
• Managerial responsibilities
• Audit & Clinical Governance
• Research

About us

PICU

Alder Hey is a designated Lead Centre for Paediatric Intensive Care within the UK. The 21-bedded unit cares for children aged 0 - 16 years of age from all specialties including Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, Neurology, Burns, Infectious Diseases and Oncology. The PICU is an approved RCPCH national grid training centre for up to six Grid Trainees in Paediatric Intensive Care Medicine. On average there are 1100 admissions to PICU of which approximately 400 are post-operative cardiac surgical patients. Other specialist tertiary services accessing PICU include neurosurgery, major neonatal surgery, craniofacial surgery, cleft palate surgery and patients needing ECMO & CVVH support. The hospital is a designated Major Paediatric Trauma Centre and a paediatric ECMO Centre.

PHDU

PHDU at Alder Hey was commissioned in 2003 as a stand-alone facility to increase PICU capacity and efficiency. It is a co-located and separately staffed 15 bedded Unit which averages approximately 650 admissions a year. Patients are admitted as both a step-down from PICU and a step-up from the general wards as appropriate. Patients requiring a PHDU level of care are also admitted from referring hospitals throughout the region for ongoing specialist paediatric tertiary care. Patients may receive acute non-invasive respiratory support or increased invasive support via home ventilators on this unit.

Job responsibilities

The post holder will contribute to a rota which will provide 24/7 cover for PICU in combination with other Consultant colleagues. A total of 10 PA's are payable with a breakdown as follows: 8.5 DCC + 1.5 SPA (as detailed in the Job Plan section of this document). Additional clinical PA's may be available by mutual agreement.

The PICU Consultants direct the day to day clinical management of all patients in the PICU with close working relationships with other Consultants in the hospital. Patients are admitted under the joint care of the duty PICU Consultant and another appropriate Alder Hey Consultant, the latter taking charge of care when the patient is discharged from PICU.

The Consultants in Paediatric Intensive Care work a system where daytime cover for the PICU is provided on a rotating basis, with a 1st on PICU Consultant having prime responsibility for running the unit each day. Additionally, there are supporting 2nd and 3rd on Consultants. The Consultant out of hours on-call commitment will be a one in 6 rota with prospective cover as either 1st on or 2nd on. Daily morning hand-over rounds start at 8.30AM. There are further rounds at 5:00PM and an evening hand-over round at 8.30PM. Consultants do not have any clinical responsibilities in the 24 hours following being on-call. Job plans take into account the full spectrum of clinical commitments. There is personal desk space and unit secretarial support.

In order to cover a growing ECMO Service and be compliant with the PICS Standards we are expanding Consultant numbers to ensure that there are 2 PICU Consultants on call (i.e. available) at all times. The job plan is displayed later.

The PHDU currently has a clinically open model of care, it is co-located with PICU and separately staffed from a nursing and medical perspective. Children in PHDU are under the care of either their admitting paediatric medical or surgical teams or the most appropriate clinical team at the time of transfer from PICU. The current model of PHDU care is changing with the appointment of HDU Consultants.

Person Specification All

• Education & Training
• Experience
• Skills
• Personal Attributes
• Knowledge
• Education & Training
• Experience
• Skils
• Personal Attributes
• Knowledge
• Other

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.

Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust

Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust