Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist – Lead for Critical Care Job Vacancy in South Tyneside, England, UK

Job summary

An opportunity has arisen for a Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist to join the Liaison Psychiatry service at King’s College Hospital, Denmark Hill, leading on Critical Care Liaison Psychiatry.

This substantive post joins two established, integrated and dynamic liaison psychiatry services at KCH, and has come from the fixed term Critical Care Psycho-Social Team being awarded permanent funding.

This is an exciting opportunity for an enthusiastic and committed consultant psychiatrist to work across mental and physical health in specialist settings, providing clinical leadership and working closely with other members of the multidisciplinary team.

The Dept of Psychological Medicine at KCH (made up of working age, older age, perinatal and neuropsychiatry liaison) has close links with allied services at King’s College Hospital, including the Dementia and Delirium Team, Alcohol Care Team, Homeless Team, Brain Injury Team and many others. There are close working relationships with the KCH Associate Director for Mental Health Nursing and medical colleagues from KCH.

Alongside clinical work, there are multiple opportunities to get involved in research, quality improvement, teaching and training and other development opportunities. There are a large number of consultant colleagues active in these areas already, and the postholder would be expected – and welcomed – to join them.

Main duties of the job

The post-holder will work across two teams:

• the multidisciplinary team of liaison psychiatry, psychology and social work covering the Critical Care Units at King’s College Hospital
• the general liaison psychiatry team at King’s College Hospital, Denmark Hill

The post-holder will:

• Deliver high quality medical and psychiatric assessments, including risk assessments, to all patients referred to the liaison psychiatry service from the Emergency Department, inpatient wards and outpatient clinics at KCH; and to supervise the multi-disciplinary team to do the same;
• Deliver evidence-based treatments to patients referred to the team;
• Make treatment recommendations and referrals to other services and teams for follow-up care if required;
• Ensure clinical activities are documented on the SLAM and KCH electronic record systems (ePJS and EPR) and assist in the collection of clinical outcome data;
• Provide clinical guidance and advice to other clinicians within KCH, SLAM, from other agencies and primary care;
• Act as the Responsible Clinician for patients detained under the Mental Health Act at KCH and undertake clinical duties which require approval under Section 12 of the MHA;

About us

South London and Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Foundation Trust is part of King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC), which includes seven hospitals and over 150 community based services. It is responsible for seeing 2 million patients each year, has 25,000 employees and 19,500 students, and a £2 billion annual turnover. It brings together the best of basic and translational research, clinical excellence and world-class teaching to deliver groundbreaking advances in physical and mental healthcare.

The South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust is committed to innovation, effective interventions and improved service user outcomes. The Trust has a broad range of staff in all disciplines with the widest range of skills and interests that provides many opportunities for new consultants to thrive and develop. It provides mental health and substance misuse services to the people of Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham and Croydon, as well as substance misuse services for people in Bexley, Greenwich and Bromley. We also provide specialist services to people from across the UK.

The post is based in King’s College Hospital, a 1000 bed flagship university teaching hospital in London with a busy Emergency Department and multiple tertiary specialist services.