Job Overview

This is an opportunity to join a dynamic, forward-looking department where change and evolution of Obstetrics & Gynaecology is a priority. We are seeking to fill three permanent posts. The primary focus of the post is general obstetrics and gynaecology including management of labour ward and gynaecological emergencies with an opportunity to develop subspecialty interests according to the applicant’s particular areas of interests and the requirements of the service. The essential elements of the role will be to deliver a comprehensive high level obstetric service and support gynaecological services, in particular emergency gynaecology.

Jersey benefits from a health system separate to the constraints and targets of the NHS although we work closely with NHS Hospitals. Working in Jersey provides the successful candidates with an enhanced remuneration framework compared to the NHS reflected in the salary scale, as well as benefiting from very attractive income tax rates.

For a informal discussion about the role please email the Clinical Lead Mr Famoriyo on a.famoriyo@health.gov.je. To speak to our Medical Staffing HR about relocation and recruitment, please contact c.haynes@health.gov.je 

Interview date is confirmed as the afternoon of Friday 25th April 2025.

Job Purpose

Clinical Duties
The post holder will be one of seven Obstetrics and Gynaecology consultants delivering secondary health care to the women of Jersey. The post holder is expected to be a generalist obstetrician and gynaecologist.
The successful candidate should be adaptable, flexible and innovative in order to meet the ongoing challenges within the service.
Each successful candidate will fulfil a clinical role and participate in administrative, management and teaching responsibilities shared within the Consultant cohort.
Specific duties include clinical responsibilities for patients presenting to the Obstetrics and Gynaecology department and administrative responsibilities for efficient functioning of the Department.
There is an understanding that successful candidates will have an appreciation that the scope of current practice within the Obstetrics and Gynaecology department is changing and this will influence the delivery of care to patients and Consultant working practices.
As such this job description is intended as a guide to the general scope of duties and is not intended to be definitive or restrictive. It is expected that some of the duties will change over time and this job description will be subject to review in consultation with the post holder.
 

Duties

All duties will be based at the Jersey General Hospital or peripheral sites.
The unique location, geography and constitution of the Island means that the Department provides a much wider range of services than would be expected in a comparative health authority in the United Kingdom.
Close links are maintained with the Wessex Deanery and other major centres in the UK such as Southampton. The post holder will be expected to participate in the training of Junior Middle Grade Staff and Medical students for whom he/she is responsible and ensure that training and learning needs are identified and facilitated.
The post holder will be expected to take part in management and audit activities and represent the service at Hospital meetings, as agreed with colleagues. The post holder will be expected to be fully involved in a Risk Management programme and support the Governance agenda. There will also be an expectation that they will take on leadership roles where necessary and within their area of expertise.
The post holder will deputise from time to time for absent colleagues, performing additional duties in occasional emergencies and unforeseen circumstances. Being available for such irregular duties is essential for the continuity of patient care.
The post-holder must have their own full indemnity insurance for this role, as there as is no crown indemnity in Jersey.  

On-call rota

On call rota
The post holder will be required to participate in a 1:6 on–call rota with prospective cover. Currently there is requirement to be on site between 08:00 -20:00 hours on weekdays and 8:30 to 12:30 on a Saturday and Sunday. Off site with on-call cover at other times is expected. There are plans to move to a 1:8 on call rota in the future with further expansion of the service.

Speciality information
The Gynaecology service carries out approximately 2,000 operations a year, and there are over 350 emergency cases a year admitted through the Gynaecology Ward. The Gynaecology Department carries out a considerable amount of laparoscopic surgery, with
facilities available in both Day Surgery Unit and Main Theatre. A nurse-led pre-admission service operates for gynaecology.
Each year there are approximately 3500 referrals to the Gynaecology Outpatient Department. There is a shared Surgical Ward (Rayner Ward) that serves as the base for Gynaecology. Attached to the ward is the Gynaecology Outpatient Department. There is an excellent community contraception service provided on the island with a dedicated family planning clinic at Le Bas Centre and for the under 21-year-olds, Brook Jersey. There are close working relationships with the Genito-Urinary Medicine clinics.

Services

Nursing staff rotate between the ward and the Outpatient area providing continuity of care. There is a fully equipped Colposcopy and Outpatient Hysteroscopy Unit. There is a dedicated Early Pregnancy Service for five days a week. There is an Assisted Reproductive Unit (ARU) supported by an Infertility Specialist Nurse. There are approximately 300 referrals each year. A satellite Assisted Reproductive service exists between Jersey and UK Fertility Units for egg recovery and embryo transfer for IVF patients.
The gynaecology outpatient department runs regular special interest clinics in Urogynaecology, Colposcopy, Outpatient hysteroscopy, Psychosexual Medicine and Gynae-Oncology. In addition, there are nurse-led smear clinics and nurse-led pessary clinics. The service is supported by an Oncology Specialist Nurse. 

Jersey established a service to provide for termination of pregnancy after the relevant law was passed in 1997. Social terminations can be carried out until the end of the 12th week although, in cases of severe fetal abnormality or serious maternal health problems, terminations can be carried out until 24 weeks gestation. Depending on gestation, women are offered medical or surgical terminations. The termination service is led by a consultant and assisted by staff grade doctors, family planning nurses, counsellors and nurses with a special interest.

Services cont:

The Obstetric Service
There are approximately 1000 births per annum in Jersey and maternity services are delivered in a variety of settings. Most of the low-risk antenatal care is shared care between General Practitioners and Community Midwives, with increasing numbers of low-risk women requesting home births.
There are dedicated Antenatal Clinics for women with multiple pregnancies, diabetes in pregnancies, high risk cases and perinatal mental health clinics. It is intended that there will be more consultant clinics with the new appointments. There are five delivery rooms on Labour Ward at the hospital with intrapartum monitoring and blood gas analysis available. One of the delivery rooms is equipped to facilitate the use of a birthing pool. There is a designated Maternity Operating Theatre within the main operating theatre complex.
and the refurbishment of the Neonatal and Maternity areas has recently been completed.

Private Practice

Jersey is a well-developed mixed healthcare system with around 30% of the Island' population holding some form of private medical insurance with additional private patient demand for self-funding services. HCS supports many consultants to practise privately through provision of a dedicated ring-fenced ward for inpatients, plus access to theatres, day surgery, outpatients, imaging and other departments and resources across the organisation. In addition, many consultants wish to independently develop their own services outside of Jersey General Hospital and there are well developed locations that offer access to consulting rooms to support this that offer a great deal of choice about where to practise.
HCS's governance structures involve consultant participation, and the service is led by a dedicated private patient leadership team that works with Care Groups and departments to support consultants with their private practice alongside delivering their agreed public service job plan. The private patient leadership team are happy to answer any questions candidates may have and on appointment will assist with establishing private practise within HCS.

Related services

Twenty-four hours on call anaesthetic cover is provided. There is a mix of obstetric cases with the Unit having to deal with high-risk obstetrics as well as low risk because of the geographical isolation of the island. Every antenatal patient is offered a booking scan and combined screening for aneuploidy. All fetal abnormalities are recorded, and the Unit is involved with the National Congenital Anomaly and Rare Disease Registration Service (NCARDRS) run by Public Health England. Responsibility for fetal medicine currently rests with two of the Consultants. Invasive investigative procedures including Chorionic Villus Sampling and Amniocentesis are available on Island. All obstetric outcomes are monitored and the department reports outcome data to the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit for Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK (MBRRACE), and to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists for Each Baby Counts.
 

The Neo-natal Service

The Paediatric specialist supports a level 1 Neonatal Unit located next to our Labour Ward. The team frequently need to stabilise preterm babies prior to transfer to tertiary unit. Appropriate cases are transferred to NICU by our own team, but the Southampton PICU will retrieve particularly unstable newborns. Our policy is that complicated pregnancies, including antenatally diagnosed malformations, and deliveries expected before 30 weeks gestation, deliver in tertiary units in the UK. Similarly, the paediatric teams will occasionally need to provide urgent care to critically ill children prior to the arrival of the PICU retrieval team.

Theatres and Physiotherapy Services

Operating Theatres
The main theatre suite is made up of six theatres including the designated maternity theatre, each with an adjoining anaesthetic room. There is a patient reception area and a recovery unit. There is availability to perform one elective caesarean section every weekday morning. Elective surgery in Gynaecology and other specialties is carried out Monday- Friday, an emergency theatre is available 24/7. The theatre unit undertakes an average of 4500 elective and emergency procedures per annum. There is a sterile services department separate to the hospital which processes all surgical instruments.

Physiotherapy Services
The physiotherapy services aim to provide effective rehabilitation for patients with a variety of musculoskeletal, neurological and respiratory conditions. Treatment may take place on the ward, in an out-patient setting or in the community. There are specialist physiotherapists who provide pelvic floor assessments for women who have sustained perineal trauma in childbirth, and they are an important part of the Urogynaecology service.

Radiology and Care Group Information

Radiology Services
The radiology department provides CT, MRI, ultrasound, mammography and general X-ray services. An on-call service is provided for CT, ultrasound and general X-ray. There is a separate obstetric ultrasound service. An obstetric ultra-sonogapher provides a first, second and third trimester ultrasound scanning service, supported by two midwife sonographers to perform third trimester scanning, and obstetric consultants who provide a fetal medicine opinion in Jersey.
Care Group information
Consultant Staff – ,Dr Adebayo Famoriyo, Prof Enda McVeigh (part time, 0.5 WTE), Dr Fiona Nelson, Locum Consultant Christian Alabi plus 3x vacant posts.
Other Medical Staff 6 Staff Grades, 3 GP Trainees, 3 Clinical Fellows, 2 F2s

Graduate Education and Governance

Graduate Education /Governance
There is a weekly clinical risk management meeting in Obstetrics to discuss clinical incidents and risk issues. This occurs monthly for gynaecology. There are also weekly clinical risk management meetings for paediatrics which incorporates our neonatal clinical incidents.
There is a quarterly peri-natal morbidity and mortality meeting with attendance from across the Women’s and Children’s care Group.
There is a weekly gynaecology Multi-Disciplinary team meetings (MDT) linking in with the Royal Marsden Hospital in London to discuss Gynaecological /Oncology cases and with UK fertility units to discuss subfertility cases.There are monthly Colposcopy MDT meetings. The colposcopy clinicians in Jersey link in with Gateshead who currently provide the cervical screening services for Jersey.
There are monthly Fetal Medicine MDT meetings with the Fetal Medicine Consultants, Paediatric Consultants, Fetal Medicine midwives and the obstetric ultra-sonographer.
There is a weekly dedicated departmental post graduate teaching meeting.
There are bimonthly hospital wide Mortality and Morbidity meetings where routine clinical activity is cancelled in order to facilitate maximum attendance from clinical and nursing staff.
In house Practical Obstetric Multi Professional Training (PROMPT), Basic Life Support and Public Health study days are held at which annual attendance is mandatory.

Job plan and Rota

All consultants have a 10 PA contract for public work with additional PAs agreed according to the needs of the service. The rota currently is a 6-week rolling pattern, with variable fixed commitments during each of the 6 weeks. In each cycle, one week is designated as a ‘hot week’ when the consultant is based on labour ward and is responsible for all emergency activity across obstetrics and gynaecology. There are plans to change the pattern of working later this year to move away from the ‘hot week’ to individual days of emergency cover.
Activities - DCC = 8.5 PAs, SPAs = 1.5 (1.5 Basic PAs.)
There is a 1 in 6 rolling rota with a ‘hot week’ of daytime acute cover, during which week the consultant on the hot week (‘Resident on call’ on the job plan) does not have any elective activity.
There is no payment for on call activity in Jersey, instead, time in lieu is granted, which is reflected as ‘Off site’ on the Job Plan. When on duty ‘hot week’ for the labour ward, consultants will not be timetabled for other clinical duties, such as antenatal, theatre or gynaecology clinics. The final job plan will be agreed with the Chief of service for Women’s and Children’s Care Group, and the Executive Medical Director. The post holder’s job plan will be reviewed annually and will be appraised according to the current guidance.

Person Specification

Essential Criteria

Primary Medical Degree
Higher Specialty qualification: MRCOG or equivalent
Full Registration with the General Medical Council (GMC) with a Licence to practise (for overseas candidates it is mandatory that a licence is obtained prior to appointment).
Inclusion on the GMC Specialist Register/Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) or equivalent in the relevant Specialty (or be within 6 months of obtaining this at the date of the interview - documentary evidence of this must be provided to support your application) Recent experience in Obstetrics and Gynaecology with ability to manage labour ward including instrumental and operative delivery, common gynaecology emergencies, elective gynaecology cases independently, completion of LW ATSM or equivalent.

Desirable Criteria

Clinical Experience in an NHS environment
Additional academic qualifications (MD/ MS etc)
ALS/ATLS/MOET trained

Completion of the LW Lead ATSM and/or Acute Gynaecology and Early Pregnancy ATSM or equivalent

Previous Management Responsibility / Leadership Experience

Experience of postgraduate education/ training

Additional information

All consultants have a 10 PA contract for public work. This may be worked flexibly to allow private practice on and off site during the normal working week in lieu of time spent on public work during early mornings, evenings, or weekends. The Obstetrics and Gynaecology consultants currently receive an additional 2 PAs for providing resident on-call cover between 5 and 9pm when on-call during the week.
The Consultant is not on duty for the labour ward whilst covering services on another site or doing private practice.
When on duty ‘hot week’ for the labour ward (review due in 2024 to go to a hot day), consultants will not be timetabled for other clinical duties, such as antenatal, theatre or gynaecology clinics.