Bank SARC Sexual Offences Examiner

Hope House Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) in Gloucester and Swindon & Wiltshire SARC in Swindon provides forensic, medical and aftercare services to victims of rape and sexual assault who either self-refer or are referred via the police or other agencies.

The main responsibility of the post-holder will be to carry out Forensic Medical Examinations (FME) of adults and children aged 16-17 years old, in accordance with GHC, FSR, FFLM, and NMC guidelines, in a trauma informed manner which minimises further distress.

The examination of victims of sexual assault and rape includes case triage to ensure safe timely attendance to SARC (or out of SARC examination when appropriate), full incident, medical, surgical, mental health, gynaecologic, obstetric (and for children, developmental) history taking, systems examination, body surface examination (including documentation and classification of injuries for court), performing intimate examinations, formulating the forensic strategy and obtaining forensic samples (ensuring anticontamination processes are adhered to), specialist imaging using the colposcope, risk assessments to prevent pregnancy (selecting and dispensing appropriate emergency contraception methods as required), Sexually Transmitted Infections, Blood-borne Viruses (including dispensing HIV post exposure prophylaxis and administering Hepatitis B vaccine as required), mental health and safeguarding.

Main duties include:

To provide telephone information, support and specialist advice to police, professionals, crisis workers and victims/carers; handling information that is highly sensitive and often distressing in nature.

To provide specialist advice, assessment and aftercare including delaying attendance where medical needs should take priority and taking part in best interest discussions and involving families when a victim lacks capacity to consent to the forensic medical examination.

To independently carry out Forensic Medical Examinations of victims of rape and sexual assault for Police and self-referrals in accordance with Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust, Faculty of Forensic & Legal Medicine (FFLM), Forensic Science Regulator (FSR) and NMC guidelines. This should include obtaining consent for the examination and information sharing (including with police and the criminal justice system) details of the reported crime, ascertaining whether any activities may have affected the potential forensic yield, obtaining a medical, surgical, mental health, gynaecologic, obstetric (and for children, developmental) history.

The qualification, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification.

We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people's homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.

Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us. In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that:

72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.

76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.

81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust's priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.

This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement. However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.

The post-holder will provide on-call availability, contributing to the night-time rotas, weekends and bank holidays; and will be available to attend both SARC's (Hope House in Gloucester & The Gables SARC in Swindon), and on occasion at other off-site locations within an agreed time of 90 minutes.