Job overview

This is an opportunity to join a small friendly and welcoming international team of anaesthetists at Withybush General Hospital in West Wales. We provide anaesthetic services for operating lists, a critical care unit, an emergency department, resuscitation and inter-hospital transfer.

Our post would suit international candidates with significant anaesthesia & critical care experience seeking a soft landing in their first post in the UK. It would also appeal to candidates already working in the UK and who are seeking to settle in a long-term non-consultant career post in a beautiful part of the world.

Our department of 11 consultants, 1 associate specialist and 15 specialty doctors provides anaesthesia in a modern suite of 5 theatres and a 9-bedded critical care unit that combines high dependency and intensive care. The surgical specialties served are general surgery, orthopaedics and trauma, and gynaecology. The hospital emergency department receives adult emergency medical & surgical admissions and has a paediatric minor injuries unit. We do not have obstetric anaesthesia duties.

Main duties of the job

This post serves the elective theatres, an emergency on-call rota for theatres and the critical care unit and facilitates inter-hospital road and air transfers.

Daytime work is supervised by resident consultants. Out-of-hours specialty doctors are part of a resident multi-disciplinary emergency team with a consultant available for telephone advice and will attend any complex cases and if the specialty doctor requires support. Our specialty doctors and consultants support the training of interns and medical students from Swansea and Cardiff University.

We use a rolling rota system in which each doctor works through an eight-week cycle before starting again at week 1. The rota is designed to provide a good work-life balance. All our specialty doctors work flexibly helping each other by swapping duties when needed.

While the NHS does not require any doctor to work more than an average of 10 sessions per week all our current specialty doctors choose to work a 13-session week which suits our rota structure. (This comprises an average of 10.7 sessions of direct clinical care, 1 session of supporting professional/administration activity and 1.25 sessions for prospective cover of colleague’s annual & study leave)

Working for our organisation

Hywel Dda University Health Board plans and provides NHS healthcare services for people living in Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire, and bordering counties.

We have over 13,000 staff and together we provide primary, community, in-hospital, mental health and learning disabilities services.

We work in partnership with the three local authorities, as well as public, private and third sector colleagues, including our valued team of volunteers.

Our services are provided in:

• Four main hospitals: Bronglais Hospital in Aberystwyth; Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen; Prince Philip Hospital in Llanelli; and Withybush Hospital in Haverfordwest
• Five community hospitals: Amman Valley and Llandovery hospitals in Carmarthenshire; Tregaron Hospital in Ceredigion; and Tenby and South Pembrokeshire hospitals in Pembrokeshire
• Two integrated care centres: Aberaeron and Cardigan in Ceredigion, and several other community settings
• 47 general practices (six of which are health board managed practices); dental practices (including four orthodontic); 97 community pharmacies; 43 general ophthalmic practices; and 8 ophthalmic domiciliary providers
• Numerous mental health and learning disabilities services