Highly Specialist Physiotherapist - Upper Airways and Severe Asthma

Transformationunitgm; Plymouth; On-site; GBP 47,000 - GBP 55,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading healthcare provider in Plymouth seeks a Highly Specialist Physiotherapist to join their team focusing on upper airway disorders associated with severe asthma. The position demands expert assessment, therapeutic intervention, and collaboration with multidisciplinary teams. Candidates must have a BSc in Physiotherapy, HCPC registration, and substantial postgraduate experience. The role offers a permanent contract, full-time hours, and competitive salary in a supportive environment prioritizing career development and work-life balance.

Qualifications

• Extensive post graduate experience across cardiorespiratory specialities.
• Demonstrable experience at a senior level within respiratory medicine.
• Proven evidence of high-level specialist knowledge relating to upper airway disorders.

Responsibilities

• Deliver highly specialist clinical skills for airway disorders management.
• Conduct comprehensive patient assessments and formulate management plans.
• Provide clinical decision-making for complex respiratory conditions.

Skills

Clinical assessment and diagnosis

Therapeutic intervention

Working as part of a multidisciplinary team

Communication skills

Empathy

Education

BSc in Physiotherapy

Registered with HCPC

M.Sc. in relevant area

Job description

Main area Highly Specialist Physiotherapist - Upper Airways and Severe Asthma Grade NHS AfC: Band 7 Contract Permanent Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week Job ref 216-NB-DA7696246

Employer University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust Employer type NHS Site Derriford Hospital - UHP NHS Trust Town Plymouth Salary £47,810 - £54,710 £47,810 - £54,710 per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 15/02/2026 23:59

Highly Specialist Physiotherapist - Upper Airways and Severe Asthma

NHS AfC: Band 7

Job overview

Working as part of the Severe Asthma multidisciplinary team (MDT), the post holder will be the Advanced Clinical Specialist Physiotherapist for patients with upper airway disorders due to severe asthma. Responsible for providing highly specialist assessment, differential diagnosis and therapeutic intervention for people with a range of complex respiratory disorders arising from severe asthma. This includes chronic cough, airway clearance with those with an overlap mucus hypersecretion, breathing pattern disorders, complex breathlessness, and working in partnership with Speech and Language Therapists with patients with joint Inducible Laryngeal Obstruction (ILO).

Preference will be given to internal Trust staff, as well as ‘Priority’ and 'At Risk' status including NHS At Risk staff throughout Devon who are able to display recent relevant experience as dictated by the Person Specification.

Main duties of the job

Streamline the pathway to access biologics in a timelier way, and improving the management of co-morbidities associated with asthma.

Be an integral part of the MDT team linking with acute and community services and contribute towards reducing acute presentations / admission avoidance.

The post-holder is responsible for their own workload within the designated clinical area on a day-to-day basis. Caseloads will be flexible and at times of Trust critical incident may involve the provision of service to other areas of the Trust if caseload pressures demand.

As this is a newly funded post, there will be a focus on service development and monitoring including collection and analysis of data and outcome measures. This will be vital to ensuring the success of the post and the development of the service.

Develop the Physiotherapy role within the Severe Asthma service, alongside Respiratory Consultants, Clinical Nurse Specialists, Speech and Language Therapists, Psychologists and ENT.

Have a specialist advisory role for the Trust in this specialty area, giving service-wide second and expert opinions, training others and supporting students.

Working for our organisation

We are a people business – where every member of staff matters and can make a difference. Patients are at the heart of everything we do. Joining University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust means becoming part of a team of dedicated staff, who are committed to leading the way through innovation, clinical excellence and great customer care. The Trust has great opportunities for career development in a highly progressive working environment. We offer all of this in a vibrant, modern city with a historic reputation for adventure. PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL COMMUNICATION WILL BE ELECTRONIC, PLEASE CHECK YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT REGULARLY. If you have any issues with applying online and need additional support including reasonable adjustments with the application process please contact the recruitment manager for this post who will put you in touch with the recruitment team. We recognise that work life balance is important for our colleagues and so we invite requests from applicants around less than full time/flexible working for our advertised roles. Please contact the recruiting manager to discuss this prior to your application submission. We commit to giving this full consideration in each case. We encourage people from diverse backgrounds to apply for our roles, as diversity strengthens our teams. It is sometimes necessary to close vacancies before the closing date. If you have not heard from us within 4 weeks of the closing date, please assume that you have not been shortlisted.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

1. To deliver highly specialist clinical skills to identify, assess, diagnose and manage a specialist caseload of adults with airway disorders arising from severe asthma and the treatment thereof, in both inpatient and outpatient settings.

2. To undertake the comprehensive assessment of patients, including those with a complex presentation, using investigative and analytical skills, and to formulate individualised management and treatment plans, using clinical reasoning, and utilising a wide range or treatment skills and options to formulate a specialised programme of care and to support junior staff in this work.

3. To interpret and analyse clinical and non-clinical facts to form accurate clinical diagnosis and prognoses in a wide range of highly complex conditions, to recommend the best course of intervention, and to develop comprehensive management plans.

4. To assess, develop and implement specialist treatments. To make appropriate clinical decisions following assessments, including differential diagnosis based on evidence from assessment. To develop specialist care plans and reports based in best practice and expert knowledge.

5. To provide appropriate specialist intervention and evaluate outcomes. To use skills and knowledge to generate appropriate strategies for caseload management for complex clinical issues.

6. To provide advice to others regarding the management and care of patients/clients with asthma / severe asthma disorders, including SLT’s and the adult respiratory teams. To provide specialist advice in relation to the relevant care group.

7. To attend and contribute to the Severe Asthma MDT meetings, providing relevant information regarding upper airway, communication and swallowing disorders to support the development of specialist care plans.

8. To independently manage personal / shared clinical caseloads with reference to theory, published research and evidence, and agreed best practice. This includes following appropriate referral and discharge criteria.

9. To develop the Upper Airways Physiotherapy service in relation to severe asthma, including data collection and analysis, and the completion of outcome measures and service improvement projects.

10. To maintain up-to-date and accurate case notes in line with CSP and HCPC professional standards and local Trust policies. To share information with others, observing data protection guidelines.

For further details please see attached JD and PS.

Person specification

Knowledge and Skills

• Extensive post graduate experience across cardiorespiratory specialities
• Demonstrable experience at a senior level within; Respiratory medicine, Respiratory out-patients’ specialities with a broad range of complex cardiorespiratory and rehabilitation needs.in a healthcare setting
• Proven evidence of high level of specialist proven knowledge/skills relating to upper airway disorders and severe asthma due to demonstrable experience/CPD
• Well established proven knowledge of specialist Physiotherapy assessment tools relevant to the specialist client group
• In-depth proven knowledge of a range of appropriate therapeutic interventions and ability to compare relative benefits
• Demonstrable experience working as an integral member of a multidisciplinary team
• Previous working at Band 7 level within a healthcare setting.
• Demonstrable experience of complex MDT working and admission avoidance.
• Demonstrable experience of delivering physiotherapy provision within the acute setting.

Qualifications

• BSc in Physiotherapy
• Registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
• Proven evidence of successful completion of significant specialist post graduate training.
• Proven evidence of involvement with audit and research
• Computer Literate
• Willingness to maintain own development and encourage others to do likewise
• M.Sc. relevant to the area.
• Leadership and Management training.
• Member of the CSP / ACPRC

APTITUDE & ABILITIES

• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Able to listen well and counsel patients and carers
• Able to demonstrate empathy with patients, carers, families and colleagues
• Able to communicate effectively particularly where barriers to understanding exist

DISPOSITION / ATTITUDE / MOTIVATION

• Demonstrates ability to be a good team member and assume leadership responsibilities.
• Has personal traits and characteristics congruent with the Trust values
• Able to be flexible to the demands of the post, including unpredictable work patterns/caseloads, deadlines, limited planning/organisation time, the need to multitask and make immediate complex decisions
• Flexible
• Self-motivated

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL COMMUNICATION WILL BE ELECTRONIC, PLEASE CHECK YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT REGULARLY INCLUDING YOUR JUNK FOLDER.

If you need support with the online application process or require reasonable adjustments with the application and/or interview process please contact the Recruiting Manager for this post.

We recognise that work life balance is important for our colleagues and so we invite requests from applicants about less than full time/flexible working for our advertised roles. We recommend contacting the manager of the role prior to applying and we commit to giving requests full consideration.

We welcome and encourage applicants who identify with all protected characteristics to apply for our roles. We believe that diversity strengthens our teams and improves our patients' experience. At UHP we aim to create an inclusive workplace and hospital where everyone feels they belong and included .

It is sometimes necessary to close vacancies before the closing date. If you have not heard from us within 4 weeks of the closing date, please assume that you have not been shortlisted.

Providing false information is an offence & could result in the application being rejected or summary dismissal/police action if an applicant is successful.

Please note that if you are successful in your application & accept the position you agree that the Staff Health and Wellbeing Department can access your health records from your current/previous employer in order to check the status of your inoculations & screening tests. This is an automated process & the information will only be used for these purposes prior to your taking up the position with us.

For Doctors Roles:

Unsolicited CVs and Candidate Profiles/Details
University Hospitals Plymouth has a commitment to sourcing candidates directly and as such we do not accept speculative CVs from agencies.

We do, however, work with a defined list of preferred HTE Framework suppliers who may be invited to support us in sourcing candidates for particular roles.

In line with our preferred supplier list, we only pay agency fees where we have a signed agreement in place and an agency has been instructed by a member of the Trust’s Medical Workforce team.

We do not pay agency fees where speculative and unsolicited CVs are submitted to the Trust or Trust employees by any other means than the official route above. Where this is not observed the Trust reserves the right to contact these candidates directly and initiate discussions without payment of any agency fee.

Any candidate details (whether written or spoken) or CVs that are referred directly will not constitute an introduction. The Trust will under no circumstances be responsible for any recruitment fees in relation to these contacts.

Submission of any unsolicited CVs, candidate’s details and/or proposals to the Trust will not be considered further and will be deemed evidence of full and unlimited acceptance of this Agency Protocol.

In order to establish and maintain good working relationships with the Trust’s agency suppliers, we ask that this Protocol is adhered to and thank you for your co-operation.

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 Donna Pike Job title Therapies Directorate Manager and Clinical Lead Email address [e-mail] Telephone number 01752 432230 Additional information

Mitesh Patel

Consultant Respiratory Physician via email: [e-mail].