Locum Consultant Microbiologist

at  University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Locum Consultant Clinical Microbiologist
University College London Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
An exciting opportunity has arisen for a 6-month (renewable by mutual agreement to up to 12 months) 10 PA Locum Consultant Medical Microbiologist post at UCLH due to retirement of colleagues to start May 2024. This post is likely to be advertised as substantive in due course after departmental restructuring.
This is a full-time post supporting Clinical Microbiology services at UCLH with a leading role in overseeing the clinical infection service to urology and thoracic surgery at the UCLH Westmoreland Street Hospital. This includes aspects of diagnosis and management of infection, antimicrobial stewardship and infection prevention and control.
The post holder will also have a leading role in providing microbiology support to maxillofacial surgery and share a role in microbiology liaison with oncology and paediatric haematology.
They will also contribute to the activity of the microbiology department in the rest of the Trust, including contributing to microbiology advice for Moorfields Eye Hospital, and support specialty training and undergraduate teaching for UCL medical students.
There is an on-call commitment associated with this post that will involve out-of-hours working that is included as scheduled activity in the total PAs.
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) is one of the most complex NHS trusts in the UK, serving a large and diverse population. We provide academically led acute and specialist services, to people from the local area, from throughout the United Kingdom and overseas. Our vision is to deliver top-quality patient care, excellent education, and world-class research.
We provide first-class acute and specialist services across eight sites:
University College Hospital (incorporating the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing)
National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery
Royal National ENT and Eastman Dental Hospitals
University College Hospital Grafton Way Building
Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine
University College Hospital Macmillan Cancer Centre
The Hospital for Tropical Diseases
University College Hospital at Westmoreland Street
We are dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of many complex illnesses. UCLH specialises in women’s health and the treatment of cancer, infection, neurological, gastrointestinal and oral disease. It has world class support services including critical care, imaging, nuclear medicine and pathology.
At UCLH, we have a real ‘One Team’ ethos, and our values – safety, kindness, teamwork and improving, are central to the way we work. This is supported by our staff, who voted us as the #1 NHS Acute Trust to work for in the whole of England.
For the full Person Specification and more information regarding the main responsibilities of this role, please refer to the attached Job Description.
The Consultant’s job plan is expected to comprise 10 Programmed Activities per week on average including the on-call commitment (8.0 PAs Direct Clinical Care and up to 2.5 PAs Supporting Professional Activities). The majority of the job plan - for Programmed Activities related to direct patient care - follows a team-based approach. The part of the job plan related to wider departmental activities, supporting professional activities and personal objectives is more individually tailored. The post holder will be expected to discuss and agree a detailed job plan including personal and professional objectives with the Clinical Lead within three months of their start date; and the Consultant may be required to undertake a prospective diary exercise to inform this process.
The Clinical Microbiology department provides a liaison to the diagnostic microbiology laboratory, while providing clinical teams in the various hospitals that make up UCLH NHS Foundation Trust with clinical advice and antimicrobial stewardship input. The department works with the teams in Infection Prevention and Control as well as Infectious Diseases and Virology to provide a comprehensive Infection Service.
The Clinical Microbiology department is the largest centre for specialty training in Medical Microbiology in the ‘Bloomsbury Infection Training Hub,’ which is part of the London Deanery. The Bloomsbury hub infection rotation offers a wide range of experience to train Medical Microbiology/Virology/Infectious Diseases Specialist Registrars to the standards required Core and Higher Specialty Infection Training for the Part 1 and Part 2 FRCPath examinations. UCLH Clinical Microbiology is a training centre with 4-5 microbiology trainees at any one time and a comprehensive training programme.
The departmental leads for specialty training in Microbiology are Dr Sophia de Saram and Dr Ana Soares. Consultants are expected to undertake an educational and clinical supervisory role for the specialty trainees.
The department is also involved in teaching undergraduate medical students, biomedical scientists and nurse specialists.
The post holder will have a commitment to high quality patient care, clinical governance, innovation, delivery of performance targets and excellence in training.
This post would be ideal for someone who is completing specialist training and looking to gain experience at Consultant level in specialist Microbiology.
The laboratory service for UCLH is supplied by Heath Services Laboratories (HSL) and the post holder will, together with the team of consultant colleagues, provide oversight of the processing of specimens in the laboratory including participation in laboratory working groups, as well as provide high quality reporting and clinical advice.
HSL is a partnership between The Doctors Laboratory (TDL), Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust (the Royal Free London) and University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH). The laboratory staff are HSL personnel.
The Infection Sciences laboratory participates in all the appropriate national EQA schemes and has an ongoing quality management programme.
The Infection Sciences laboratory is UKAS accredited. The Head of the Infection Sciences Laboratory is Alan Spratt. The HSL Specialty Lead for Microbiology is Dr Robin Smith (Consultant Microbiologist, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust). UCLH Microbiology consultant staff contribute to several meetings HSL: HSL Infection Sciences Clinical leads meeting, UCLH HSL Governance meeting and working groups, which cover each laboratory section.
We are committed to sustainability and have pledged to become a carbon net zero health service, embedding sustainable practice throughout UCLH. We have set an ambitious target of net zero for our direct emissions by 2031 and indirect emissions by 2040

Please refer the Job description for details