Optometrist Specialist (Band 7) - Optometry - East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust

Are you passionate about patient care? Do you want to expand your clinical knowledge and experience? Do you want to work with a fantastic multi-disciplinary team? We are looking for an enthusiastic, motivated and compassionate individual to work in an extended clinical role in our Optometric Services Team within Ophthalmology in East Kent.

The post will involve triage and managing patients in the urgent eye service, paediatric refractions, specialist contact lens fitting, virtual glaucoma review and much more. Our clinics generally run Monday to Friday between 8am and 6pm.

Main duties of the job

The specific extended roles we are currently recruiting are:

Acute eye referral triage/advice and assessment of patients as part of the Urgent Eye Service team at the William Harvey Hospital, Ashford (training will be provided for this role)

Paediatric cycloplegic refraction and fundus examination at William Harvey Hospital in Ashford and Royal Victoria Hospital in Folkestone with autonomous clinical management plan.

Possible training in the glaucoma service including face to face independent optometrist clinics and virtual review.

Optometric examination of patients enrolled with clinical trials at EKHUFT

Assist in the training of Ophthalmic Technicians and other staff as necessary

Assist in the collection of data for Clinical Audit, when requested

Working for our organisation

We are one of the largest hospital trusts in England, with five
hospitals and community clinics serving a local population of around 800,000 people. Our vision is 'great healthcare from great people'. Everything we do is guided by our values: 'People feel cared for, safe, respected and confident that we are making a difference'. We have a new way of working at East Kent Hospitals, called 'We care'. It's about empowering frontline staff to lead improvements day-to-day. We're looking for compassionate people to be part of our improvement journey for the patients, families and carers we care for every day.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please scroll down to access the full Job Description and Person Specification located in 'Documents to download'.

If you have further queries please don't hesitate to contact the line manager using the contact details below.

Person specification Qualifications

• General Optical Council registration
• Higher Degree

Clinical Skills and Experience

• Autonomous working, guided by board optometric policies
• Diagnostic drug use/instillation of ophthalmic drugs
• Working with elderly and children
• Slit Lamp Assessment
• Eye casualty assessment
• Anterior Segment disease assessment
• Experience of research and audit

Knowledge

• NICE guidelines
• Assessment of paediatric patients e.g. emmetropisation
• Interpretation of ophthalmological test results e.g. visual fields/OCT

Filmed in William Harvey and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother hospitals, the 'We are the NHS' campaign highlights the extraordinary work that staff across EKHUFT do every single day. As one of the largest hospital trusts in England, with five hospitals and community clinics serving a population of over one million people, EKHUFT was perfectly placed to demonstrate the care, cutting-edge treatments, research, innovations and life-saving operations that the campaign needed.

There are lots of great opportunities at East Kent Hospitals, where staff are caring and put patients first, innovation flourishes and you can develop your career. We're on an exciting journey of transformation. With a new Medical School at the centre of our community, a focus on research, clinical leadership and making our trust a rewarding and friendly place to work,
there's never been a better time to join us.To find out more about east Kent visit our website at. The Trust fully supports the SAS Doctors Charter and is committed to their development through its CPD Framework.

We'll close this job advert once we've received sufficient applications which may be before the closing date so please apply as soon as possible. We only accept online applications. If you have any difficulty with this please contact our Resourcing Team on who are happy to help.

We have a relocation policy for eligible candidates, parking available at Trust sites but we encourage other options, like car sharing or public transport.

The Trust is committed to supporting flexible working to fulfil our pledge as part of The Trust's People Strategy to help staff to achieve a healthy work/life balance. Please speak with your Recruiting Manager for further information on how this can be managed alongside department expectations and requirements.

The ability to converse easily and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for all customer facing roles.

Most positions require a Disclosure and Barring check and will be exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. Posts working regularly or unsupervised with children or vulnerable adults require an enhanced check.

Applicants for eligible roles requiring Tier 2 sponsorship must meet UK Visas and Immigration eligibility criteria.

We operate a no-smoking policy on all our sites and grounds.

You can search for and apply for roles directly on our website.

If you are applying via NHS Jobs your application will be sent to our recruitment system TRAC. All subsequent information will be generated from TRAC so you won't be able to see the progress of your application or receive messages through NHS Jobs and we won't be able to respond to e-mails sent to us via the NHS Jobs website. By applying for this post you are agreeing to us transferring your application and details to our system. If you are offered a job information will also be transferred into the NHS Electronic Staff Records. Good luck with your application, we'll contact you via email so please check your junk/spam folders.

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.

Name Jennifer Casey Job title Optometrist Principal Email address Telephone number Additional information

Please email if you are interested to have a detailed chat about the offered position.