Job summary
- Main area
- Ophthalmology
- Grade
- Band 8b
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 387-S7952-LB
- Employer
- University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Bristol Eye Hospital
- Town
- Bristol
- Salary
- £58,972 - £68,525 pa pro rata
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 21/04/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Lead Optometrist – Core Optometry
Band 8b
As an organisation we recognise the value of a healthy work-life balance. When applying, speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate flexible working, so your work life fits around your home life.
We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates as they are under-represented within the Trust.
Click on this link to find out about our values https://www.uhbw.nhs.uk/p/about-us/our-trust-values
Job overview
A fantastic opportunity has arisen at Bristol Eye Hospital as we recruit to the role of Lead Optometrist – Core (including low vision, contact lenses and paediatric services).
This is a senior 8B post that is a crucial member of the Optometry and wider Bristol Eye Hospital leadership team. If successful, you will lead a group of Core Optometrists, working closely with multidisciplinary teams within Bristol Eye Hospital to ensure services are innovative, patient focused, clinically and cost effective. You will be an experienced optometrist who can evidence their excellent clinical, management and leadership skills. You will have the skills and abilities to supervise both junior and more experienced members of staff. You will be a compassionate, skilled and experienced clinician who is able to work autonomously.
Main duties of the job
About us:
The Optometry Department at Bristol Eye Hospital is well established and integrated into the multidisciplinary environment of Bristol Eye Hospital, providing clinical management of eye health to people in Bristol, Weston and across the South West of England.
Optometrists in the department are a diverse team of highly capable clinicians who work across a broad range of multi-professional services from highly skilled core optometry to complex and specialised services, including cornea, medical retina, glaucoma, paediatrics and ED.
Frequently engaged with the broader aspects of optometry and eye health, including education, research and leadership, optometrists in the department are encouraged to develop professionally as well as personally.
A glimpse of life at Bristol Eye Hospital: https://youtu.be/he7-XrxIopo
Working for our organisation
University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust (UHBW) is one of the largest acute Trusts in the country, bringing together a combined workforce of over 13,000 staff and over 100 different clinical services across 10 different sites, serving a core population of more than 500,000 people across South West England. UHBW has been rated by the CQC as ‘Good’ overall and our staff are proud to deliver excellent care to the people of Bristol, Weston and beyond.
As a forward-thinking multi-award winning Trust and a digital exemplar committed to improving patient care, our world-leading research and innovations are having a positive local and global impact. Our hospitals are spread across Bristol and Weston, join us and you can enjoy the very best of both worlds; city living within a stone’s throw of the countryside or beside the seaside, both with easy access to all that the South West has to offer.
UHBW is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. As an equal opportunities employer actively working towards a diverse workforce we aim to recruit and retain a workforce which represents the rich diversity of the local population at all levels and are committed to designing our services around the needs of individual patients and those around them. Anonymous information will be used from your application in order to ensure we’re meeting our pledge.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Bristol Eye Hospital has a large Optometry department including over 40 individuals. The service is led by the Head of Optometry along with 5 Lead Optometrists across the different specialty areas, including this post which leads on Core Services. Bristol Eye Hospital is a vibrant, innovative and supportive place to work where all disciplines are highly valued. The hospital includes an Emergency Department, outpatient services seeing more than 120,000 patients a year, a ward, a Clinical Research Unit and 4 operating theatres. There are a number of exciting estate developments happening in the near future including the redesign of the ground floor of the Hospital which includes space for delivering Optometry services -this role will be crucial in helping to design layouts that are fit for coming generations.
See yourself at Bristol Eye Hospital – this video explains more about the benefits of working at Bristol Eye Hospital.
Person specification
Knowedge and Experience
Essential criteria
- Highly developed and proven specialist knowledge, at Masters level or above, across multiple areas of specialist clinical practice beyond conventional hospital or community optometry.
- Significant specialist clinical experience in assessment & management of patients with active and sight-threatening disease across multiple of areas of-specialist clinical practice.
- Previous evidence of operational management.
- Significant experience in staff management.
- Significant specialist clinical experience in assessment & management of patients with active and sight-threatening disease across multiple of areas of-specialist clinical practice.
- Significant specialist clinical experience in management of patients with ocular/visual manifestations of systemic disease that may threaten general health.
- Previous hospital eye service experience
- Advanced understanding of all relevant national clinical guidance (e.g. NICE guidelines; College of Optometrists guidance; Royal College of Ophthalmologist’s guidelines).
Skills and Abilities
Essential criteria
- Specialist clinical practice beyond conventional hospital or community optometry.
- Ability to quickly interpret complex and potentially conflicting clinical information.
- Can autonomously provide and directly deliver patient-specific specialist clinical program of care (‘clinical management plan’).
- Specialist clinical assessment skills for patients with active and sight-threatening disease across multiple of areas of sub-specialist clinical practice.
- Specialist ancillary test interpretation skills (e.g. visual function and ocular imaging tests) as used by specialist medical staff.
- Can teach or; supervise trainees; & address queries from support staff whilst performing clinical duties.
- Must be able to travel to and perform peripheral clinics as required (i.e. locations away from Bristol Eye Hospital).
- Flexibility to use IT systems for recording patient related clinical measures, and for audit.
- Possesses precise, fine-motor physical examination skills.
- Normal binocular vision
Aptitudes
Essential criteria
- Multidisciplinary team working.
- Capable of performing sustained high intensity work in a pressurised clinical environment.
- Capable of quickly resolving operational issues whilst performing clinical duties
- Ability to empathise regarding loss of sight and prognoses including blindness and threats to general health from systemic disease with ocular/visual manifestations.
- Able to organise and motivate a multidisciplinary team & retain credibility with all staff.
- Highly developed interpersonal and communication skills; ability to communicate complex, sensitive and potentially conflicting information to patients and other stakeholders in an appropriate manner independent of their level of understanding.
- Capable of quickly resolving operational issues whilst performing clinical duties.
Qualifications and Training
Essential criteria
- Registration with the General Optical Council
- BSc Hons Optometry or equivalent
- Professional post-graduate specialist qualification(s),at masters level or higher, relevant to job plan.
- GOC Specialty Registration in Independent Prescribing)
- Postgraduate masters (or higher) level clinical audit or research experience relevant to sub-specialist practice
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
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.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Susan Carter
- Job title
- Service Lead Optometrist
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 01172329111
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