Mayday Healthcare NHS Trust
SENIOR HOUSE OFFICER IN ELDERLY CARE MEDICINE
The Care of the Elderly Department contributes to a comprehensive programme of care. Interlinking hospital-based care with community provision to provide acute assessment and treatment, rehabilitation, long-stay care and respite facilities for older people. The catchment area is coterminous with that of the Borough of Croydon. 168 beds are designated for Care of the Elderly patients on the Mayday site including a 20 bedded Stroke Ward for all ages which is staffed by the Elderly Care Department and an Orthogeriatric unit. Most admission come through the Accident and Emergency department where an age related policy operates with people over 80 being looked after by the Elderly Care Team. The department also accepts inpatient referrals aged over 65 on a needs-related basis. Changes to the admitting policy and bed numbers for Elderly care are possible during the next six months.
Geriatric Day Hospital
A 15-place Day Hospital functions on the Mayday site.
Outpatient Clinics
Take place within the Day Hospital. There were over 5000 attendances during the last year.
Medical Staffing
Consultants:
- Dr P Diggory (Lead Consultant) (Orthogeriatrics)
- Dr D Griffith
- Dr V Jones (Stroke Consultant) – Job Share
- Dr P O’Mahony (Falls)
- Dr A Mehta (Part time) (Parkinson’s Disease)
- Dr E Lawrence (Stroke Consultant) – Job Share
- Dr P Navan
- Dr S Lim (Intermediate care)
Associate Specialist:
- Dr S Morgan (Day Hospital)
Staff Grade:
- Dr O Abili
- 3 Specialist Registrars
- 14 Senior House Officers (including StRs) + 4 F1 doctors
Educational
Included in the scheme will be:
- An induction session on joining the unit.
- Discussion of individual educational requirement.
- A formal programme of teaching:
| Monday | 1 – 2 p.m. | Elderly Care Department Journal Club and Audit Meeting |
| Wednesday | 1-2 p.m | Grand Round |
| Wednesday | 2-4 pm | SHO Teaching |
| Thursday | 1.15 – 2 p.m. | X ray meeting. |
| Monthly Clinical Governance – ½ day |
A syllabus of elderly care-related topics will be included in the above formats.
Good library facilities are available on site in the Postgraduate Medical Centre.
The Duties of the Post
A shift system for the SHOs has been designed to separate emergency work from routine ward work and to cover holiday leave by rostering it into the rota. The SHO shift system is a rolling 13 week rota. During each 13 week block each SHO will spend 8 weeks working on the wards for one or two different consultants and 2 weeks working in A&E admitting emergencies. The remaining 3 weeks comprise time off for annual leave and compensatory rest. A few extra evening short shifts (5-9pm) in A&E are built in to cover the wards and the busiest period of the day in A&E, and ward cover at weekends is also built in.
Two parallel 13 week shift rotas will operate, one for medicine and one for elderly care. At any one time 13 SHOs will be working in General Medicine / Medical specialties and 14 SHOs will be working in Elderly care
Holiday, sickness and Study Leave arrangements
The shift rota system includes holidays within it and the post holder will be expected to take holiday as per this rota. There is a cross-cover arrangement for
in the event sickness of one SHO with locum cover provided if possible if more than one SHO is away.
Funding for locum cover to attend job interviews is no longer available and cross cover arrangements or swapping of on-call duties will be required. If locum cover is required this will be funded by the SHO attending interview.
Study leave entitlements and arrangements are not affected by internal cover. In line with Royal College of Physicians guide lines, the Wednesday half day protected teaching is considered part of study leave allocation. Study leave may not be taken when working as the A & E Day or Night Shift SHO.