Employer The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust Employer type NHS Site PAH Town Harlow Salary £53,755 - £60,504 Per Annum plus 5% high cost area supplement Salary period Yearly Closing 25/04/2025 23:59
Lead Orthoptist & AHP Lead (Ophthalmology)
NHS AfC: Band 8a
The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust (PAHT) provides a full range of general acute, outpatient and diagnostic services at The Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, the Herts and Essex Hospital in Bishop’s Stortford, and St Margaret’s Hospital in Epping.
Our values
The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust (PAHT) promise to our patients, as identified by our three values which will contribute to improving our patients’ experiences, is:
Patient at heart – Always holding the patient and their wellbeing at the centre of our thoughts and efforts.
Everyday excellence – Sharing and celebrating our successes, being honest when we get it wrong, giving us the ability to learn from both.
Creative collaboration – Knowing strength comes from diversity, we combine our experiences, skills and talents, working together to find new and better ways to care.
Job overview
1. To be responsible for the day to day orthoptic clinics and management of the Orthoptic services in the department and be able to do extended role within ophthalmology using Ophthalmic Practitioner Training (OPT) training programmes.
2. To take the lead of orthoptic services across other service boundaries including Neuro-ophthalmology, Glaucoma, Paediatric and Eye Emergency clinics and other sub-specialities within ophthalmology.
3. To provide an Orthoptic service as an autonomous practitioner in assessing, diagnosing, planning management and supervising treatment of orthoptic patients at the Princess Alexandra hospital (PAH).
4. As lead to work with strategic planning, development and delivery of a quality driven Orthoptic, Paediatric, and Neuro-ophthalmology service in line with the overall objectives and strategy of the department.
5. To be responsible for line managing AHP (Allied Health professionals) team of orthoptist, optometrist and recording, inputting and reporting and managing sickness, absence, annual leave, study leave, yearly appraisals, 6 monthly reviews, training programmes and maintaining competencies and deal with any issues related to the team. In addition, provide training, supervision and assessment of undergraduate and post graduate orthoptists.
Main duties of the job
1. To provide high quality Orthoptic services as an autonomous practitioner and manage own clinical workload. Clinics include; Orthoptic led follow up clinics, Joint Orthoptic and neuro-ophthalmology, paediatric clinics Ophthalmologist/Optometrist clinics, eye casualty and visual fields.
2. To take part as extended roles within ophthalmology using Ophthalmic Practitioner Training (OPT) programme.
3. To assess, diagnose, treat and manage (including discharge when clinically appropriate) the patients referred to the Orthoptic service. These include Paediatric visual disorders (squint, amblyopia, and reduced visual responses), ocular motility disorders, neuro-ophthalmology and other ophthalmic conditions and congenital developmental abnormalities.
4. To take managerial role as lead orthoptist for fellow colleague, junior orthoptist and optometrist including: management of sickness absence and reorganisation of workload according to clinical priority of patient needs, dealing with any issues or complaints that may arise, leading orthoptic staff meetings and representing the head orthoptist at meetings.
Working for our organisation
Our Organisation
The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust (PAHT) provides a full range of general acute, outpatient and diagnostic services at The Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, the Herts and Essex Hospital in Bishop’s Stortford, and St Margaret’s Hospital in Epping.
We employ 3,500 staff and serve a local population of around 350,000 people living in west Essex and east Hertfordshire, centred on the M11 corridor and the towns of Harlow, Bishop’s Stortford and Epping. Our extended catchment area incorporates a population of up to 500,000 and includes the areas of Hoddesdon, Cheshunt and Broxbourne in Hertfordshire.
Our Values
The Princess Alexandra Promise to our patients as identified by our 3 values which will contribute to improving our patient experiences:
Patient at heart – Always holding the patient and their wellbeing at the centre of our thoughts and efforts.
Everyday excellence – Sharing and celebrating our successes, being honest when we get it wrong, giving us the ability to learn from both.
Creative collaboration – Knowing strength comes from diversity, we combine our experiences, skills and talents, working together to find new and better ways to care.
The Trust believes in investing in all our staff and rewarding high standards of care whilst building for excellence and in return we expect our staff to uphold the Trust values to the highest level.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please see the attached Job description and person specification for the full job details. This is available to download at any time.
Person specification
Interview
* Registered Orthoptist with HCPC
* Ophthalmology Knowledge and Experience
* Master’s degree or leadership courses
* Previous experience in all aspects of Orthoptics (adults/paeds)
Interview
* Excellent analytical skills and ability to resolve problems
* Single handed clinics- management of patients in hospital settings
* Experiencing of dealing with incidents, serious incidents, harm reviews and writing Rapid review reports and closing incidents and managing risk register
* Supervising and assessing in a clinical setting
What we can offer you:
* Full induction and onboarding process in our organisation
* Free car parking for our staff
* Structured pay scheme, including additional living supplement to your basic salary
* Minimum 27 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays (pro rata for part time staff)
* Access to our Alex Lounge, our staff only rest area with free tea and coffee
* Access to NHS Pension scheme
* Flexible working options available, in line with our flexible working policy
* Onsite creche facilities
* Annual appraisals with career pathways
* In-house training courses
* Discounted hospital restaurant
* Staff health and wellbeing health services and complimentary health provision
* Our Trust is committed to promoting equality of opportunity for all its employees. We welcome applications from anyone who meets the specific criteria of the post regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender reassignment, marital status, pregnancy, religion or belief or sexual orientation. Reasonable adjustments to the interview process can also be made for any candidates with a disability.
* All new colleagues joining PAHT will be subject to a probationary period of six months.
* The closing date given is a guide only. There may be some occasions where we have to close a vacancy once sufficient applications have been received. It is therefore advisable that you submit your application as early as possible to avoid disappointment.
* Our Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people, and vulnerable adults. Offers of employment are subject to pre-employment NHS screening checks.
* Providing false or misleading information or unsatisfactory pre-employment checks may result in the offer of a post being withdrawn.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
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