Consultant Biomedical Scientist / Cervical Screening Provider Lead

Job overview

Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust are one of eight centres in England providing Primary HPV Cervical Screening covering the whole of the North East and Yorkshire area.  An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Consultant Biomedical Scientist/Cervical Screening Provider Lead (CSPL) position to support Primary HPV Screening within the department.

The level of responsibility for this post is equivalent to the duties of a Consultant Cytopathologist. Issuing a positive diagnosis on pathological specimens has traditionally been the responsibility of Consultant medical staff. The role of Advanced Practitioner transfers this responsibility to suitably qualified technical staff. Consequently the post holder will be expected to have undergone and fulfilled additional specialised training in the microscopic interpretation of cervical samples, and obtained the IBMS Certificate in Advanced Practice in Cervical Cytology.

• The post holder will work directly with and as part of a team of Consultant Pathologists and Consultant Biomedical Scientists will report cervical cytology samples, clinically interpret the results and provide guidance to service users on subsequent clinical action or intervention, e.g. referral to Colposcopy.
• Provide specialist expert interpretative skills to the training of Cytology staff.
• To act as the Cervical Screening Provider Lead (CSPL) and co-ordinate the quality and effectiveness of the screening programme linked to the laboratory.

Main duties of the job

• To have direct responsibility, equivalent to that of a Consultant Pathologist, for providing a clinical diagnostic reporting service, based on their own interpretation of gynaecological cytology specimens precipitating clinical action e.g. treatment, colposcopy or surgery.
• To be responsible for the mandatory audit of cervical cancers as outlined in NHSCSP Publication 28.
• To annually review programme failsafe procedures in conjunction with the screening commissioner.
• To co-ordinate the cytology, histology and colposcopy correlation meetings across the NEY footprint.
• To act as a liaison and point of contact with the Screening Quality Assurance Service (SQAS) to disseminate and collect information to and from all parts of the screening programme.
• To ensure that appropriate follow up action is taken for all women with abnormal samples.
• To work with colleagues to ensure that the quality of services provided to GPs and other sample takers meets quality standards.
• Attend either in person or via video conference and actively contribute to the cervical/colposcopy and gynaecological multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meetings. This will be in conjunction with Consultant colleagues from the department and Consultant and Colposcopy nursing staff from Colposcopy units in NEY Cervical Screening Area.
• To assist with the mandatory audit of cervical cancers as outlined in NHSCSP Publication 28.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To have direct responsibility, equivalent to that of a Consultant Pathologist, for providing a clinical diagnostic reporting service, based on their own interpretation of gynaecological cytology specimens precipitating clinical action e.g. treatment, colposcopy or surgery. To act as the Cervical Screening Provider Lead (CSPL) and co-ordinate the quality and effectiveness of the screening programme linked to the laboratory.

Job description attached