Consultant in Geriatric Medicine

Transformationunitgm; Cambridge; On-site; GBP 80,000 - GBP 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading healthcare organization is looking for a Consultant in Geriatrics & Acute Frailty Medicine to join their team in Bury St Edmunds. The role includes providing high-quality care to frail older patients, leading service development, and teaching junior staff. Candidates must possess GMC registration and relevant postgraduate qualifications. This position not only emphasizes clinical excellence but also promotes innovative approaches to frailty care to enhance patient outcomes. Situated in a charming town, this post offers a chance to impact community health substantially.

Benefits

Supportive work environment

Professional development opportunities

Focus on innovative healthcare practices

Qualifications

• Entry on the GMC specialist registers in General Internal Medicine and Geriatric Medicine.
• Full GMC registration with a license to practice.
• Experience in a geriatric subspecialty.

Responsibilities

• Provide holistic medical care to frail older people.
• Develop geriatric medicine services.
• Teach and train junior staff and medical students.
• Participate in clinical governance and audit.

Skills

Clinical training in General/Geriatric Medicine

Communication skills in English

Ability to manage multidisciplinary teams

Teaching clinical skills

Education

MBBS or equivalent

Higher postgraduate degree (MD, PhD, etc.)

Job description

Consultant in Geriatrics & Acute Frailty Medicine – Shape the Future of Frailty Care!

Join our pioneering Care of the Elderly team at West Suffolk Hospital, where innovation meets compassionate care. This is an opportunity to lead transformative change in frailty care both regionally and nationally.

What We Offer:

• Inpatient Geriatrics Ward: Oversee care on our 32‑bed ward and develop the ward to have outstanding care for our frail populations.
• Acute Frailty Service: Conduct specialist assessments in ED, AAU, and SDEC (Monday–Friday, 9 AM–7 PM).
• Community Impact: Collaborate with the Virtual Ward and community teams.
• Weekend Rounds: Participate in a 1 in 7 rotation (Saturday–Sunday, 8:30 AM–12:30 PM).

Why Join Us?

Frailty care is a top priority for our trust. Under new leadership, we are pioneering eFrailty Alerts, electronic clinical frailty scores, and patient‑led pathways. By empowering patients, families, and healthcare professionals through education and innovation we are shifting away from traditional hospital‑based care. Our approach fosters patient ownership of health, reduces ED waiting times, and delivers high‑quality, person‑centred frailty care. You will be working in Bury St Edmunds, a charming town in the heart of Suffolk with excellent transport links to Cambridge and London.

Main duties of the job

• Provide high‑quality, holistic medical care to frail older people in both hospital and community settings.
• Develop services in a subspecialty area within geriatric medicine.
• Offer advice and support to local GPs and community matrons.
• Work with appropriate community services to enable frail older people to receive treatment safely in their own home.
• Support the active case management of frail older as part of the acute Frailty assessment unit.
• Teach and train junior staff, medical students from Cambridge university, clinical nurse specialists based in geriatric medicine.
• Participate actively in both Departmental and Trust Clinical Governance and Audit.
• Ensure active participation in continuing professional development (CPD), appraisal and revalidation.

Working for our organisation

#BeKnown at West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. By us. By our patients. By our community.

We are a busy, friendly, rural NHS Trust providing high‑quality care and compassion to more than a quarter of a million people across west Suffolk. We care for, treat and support people in hospital, at home and in various community settings.

The West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds provides acute and secondary care services (emergency department, maternity and neonatal services, day surgery unit, eye treatment centre, Macmillan unit and children’s ward). It has 500+ beds and is a partner teaching hospital of the University of Cambridge.

Adult and paediatric community services, provided in collaboration with West Suffolk Alliance partners, include a range of nursing, therapy, specialist, and ongoing temporary care and rehabilitation, some at our Newmarket Community Hospital.

We do our utmost to achieve outstanding clinical outcomes for patients and our values of fairness, inclusivity, respect, safety and teamwork guide how we work and behave as a team.

With nearly 5,000 staff, from all over the world, we strive to make our organisation a great place to work. Whatever your role or ambition, we want to help you be the best you can be.

We promote a diverse and inclusive community where everyone’s voice counts and you can #BeKnown for whoever you are.

Join us. What will you #BeKnown for?

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

We are a team of geriatricians looking to expand our services further across the hospital and into the community to enable more older people to benefit from specialist geriatric assessment. We provide acute in‑patient services on an elderly care ward, ortho‑geriatric services, medical and surgical liaison services, front door assessment and out‑patient clinics at the West Suffolk Hospital site. In addition, we oversee care of intermediate care beds in the community hospital at Newmarket.

Our priorities for the next 2 years include the establishment of an acute frailty assessment unit to take direct admissions from the community, establishing falls and frailty clinics in peripheral sites, developing models of closer working with community matrons and advanced clinical practitioners in frailty to enable patients to receive comprehensive geriatric assessment closer to home, enhancement of our virtual ward pathway and using new technology to provide remote assessment of patients in care homes.

This role offers a unique opportunity to shape the future of frailty care beyond traditional inpatient settings. Our geriatricians work across hospital and community settings—or a combination of both—playing a vital role in admission avoidance strategies for frail and elderly patients.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Entry on the GMC specialist registers in General Internal Medicine and Geriatric Medicine or be eligible for entry (within six months of attaining Certificate of Completion of Training) at the time of interview.
• Full GMC registration with a licence to practise.
• MBBS or equivalent.
• A higher post‑graduate degree such as MD, M. Phil, PhD or PG Cert in medical education.

Clinical Expertise

• Clinical training and experience equivalent to that required for gaining UK CCT in General/Geriatric Medicine.
• Ability to offer expert clinical opinion on a range of problems in adult medicine.
• Ability to take full and independent responsibility for clinical care of patients.
• Training & experience in a geriatric subspecialty.

Management and Administrative Experience

• Ability to manage and lead a multidisciplinary team.
• Ability to contribute to development of services.
• Experience of clinical governance.
• Ability and willingness to work within the Trust and NHS performance framework and targets.
• Experience of quality improvement.
• Experience of service development.

Teaching Experience

• Experience of supervising junior trainees.
• Ability to teach clinical skills to students and trainees.
• Experience of teaching basic clinical skills to undergraduates.
• Experience of teaching other professional groups.

Knowledge

• All applicants to have demonstrable skills in written and spoken English that are adequate to enable effective communication about medical topics with patients and colleagues. This could be demonstrated by one of the following: PLAB 1, PLAB 2. If applicants believe that they have adequate communication skills but do not fit into one of these examples, they need to provide evidence.

Research Experience

• Ability to apply research outcomes to clinical problems.
• Experience of conducting research projects.
• Publications in peer‑reviewed journals.

Other Attributes

• Ability to work in a multidisciplinary team.
• Enquiring, critical approach to work.
• Ability to communicate effectively with patients, relatives, GPs, nurses and other agencies.
• Commitment to Continuing Medical Education and the requirements of Clinical Governance and Audit.
• Has ability to travel to rural locations.

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.