Consultant Gastroenterologist

The successful candidate will be a permanent full-time appointment in Gastroenterology. The main requirement of this post is to support the Gastroenterology & Hepatology service, particularly sustainability for out of hours working (currently 1:8 which is at times supported by an Advanced Endoscopy Practitioner), with plans for a 1:10, including development of a 7-day in-patient service as well as facilitation of the 18-week referral to treatment target for outpatients.

The candidate will be expected to integrate within the team of Gastroenterology Consultants to provide a comprehensive service. We would be willing to support the development of new services within Gastroenterology.

The appointee will support the existing Consultants in providing a comprehensive Gastroenterology service. The inpatient work is provided by the Gastroenterologist of the week (GOW) with support from the post GOW consultant.

The appointee will be offered a 10 PA contract. As the GOW and post GOW weeks are busier, adjustments are made in the subsequent elective care weeks to reclaim extra PAs worked.

Clinics and endoscopy are cancelled during the GOW week.

The Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust provides services to West Cheshire and to Welsh patients covered by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. The Trust works collaboratively within the wider Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership. Its services are provided from three locations:

• The Countess of Chester Hospital: providing 438 general and acute beds
• Ellesmere Port Hospital: providing 56 beds as a rehabilitation, intermediate and outpatient facility
• Tarporley War Memorial Hospital: a base for community services which serve the local rural population.

The Trust employs over 6258 staff (headcount) which includes temporary bank staff and provides acute emergency and elective services, primary care direct access services and obstetric services to a population of approximately 407,000. This includes 357,000 residents in Chester and West Cheshire which includes Ellesmere Port and Neston as well as the Deeside area of Flintshire which has a population of approximately 50,000.

The Trust is a busy district general hospital and in 2022/2023, there were more than 503,342 patient attendances (inpatient, outpatient and diagnostic) ranging from a simple outpatient appointment to major cancer surgery. This is an increase of nearly 10,000 compared to the previous year when there were 494,387 patient attendances.

See Job Description for further details.

Recruitment selection processes are based on competence (see Person specification) and values.

Please note applicants will be required to pay for their DBS check. Costs are deducted from salary following appointment. The cost of the DBS application is £27.50(standard) or £55.50(enhanced), this cost will be deducted from your salary over the first three months of employment.

You are encouraged to enrol for the DBS Update Service. A small annual fee of £16per year applies.

New entrants to the NHS will commence on the minimum of the scale stated above.

Applicants are advised to apply early as if a large number of applications are received for this post, we reserve the right to close the vacancy prior to the advertised date.

Good luck with your application.

• MB ChB or equivalent
• MRCP or UK equivalent
• On Specialist Register of the General Medical Council (GMC) or within six months of anticipated CCT in Gastroenterology date on the date of interview
• Certificate of Eligibility for Specialist Registration (CESR)

• Wide clinical experience in General (Internal) medicine
• Experience /Interest teaching
• Able to demonstrate the use of clinical audits within the service
• Teaching Skill Courses
• Relevant experience in undertaking and organisation of Audits
• Research and publications relevant to post

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.

Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust