Locum Consultant Microbiologist

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

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.