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Job summary

Main area
Diabetes and Endocrine
Grade
NHS AfC: Band 6
Contract
12 months (Fixed-term)
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
196-RD324
Employer
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital
Town
London
Salary
£44,806 - £53,134 p.a. inc HCA
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
10/07/2025 23:59

Employer heading

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust logo

Research Associate

NHS AfC: Band 6

Guy’s and St Thomas’ is among the UK’s busiest and most successful NHS foundation trusts. We provide a full range of hospital and community services for people in south London and as well as specialist care for patients from further afield including cancer, renal, orthopaedic, respiratory and cardiovascular services.

Guy’s is home to the largest dental school in Europe and a £160 million Cancer Centre opened in 2016. As part of our commitment to provide care closer to home, in 2017 we also opened a cancer centre and a kidney treatment centre at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup. St Thomas’ has one of the largest critical care units in the UK and one of the busiest emergency departments in London. It is also home to Evelina London Children’s Hospital.

Evelina London cares for local children in Lambeth and Southwark and provides specialist services across south east England including cardiac, renal and critical care services. We lead a number of specialist service networks aiming to ensure children are treated locally where possible, but have access to specialist expertise when they need it. Our community services include health visiting, school nursing and support for families of children with long-term conditions. 

Our adult community services teams deliver care at the heart of the local communities we serve, working in partnership with GPs, local authorities and other healthcare and voluntary sector organisations. Working with our partners in Lambeth and Southwark, we are focusing on new ways of working to improve care for local patients.

In February 2021 the Royal Brompton and Harefield joined Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, bringing together world-leading expertise in the care and research of heart and lung disease. Our merger provides a once in a generation opportunity to build a lasting, world-renowned heart and lung centre, providing the highest quality care for patients and conducting world-leading research.

We have a reputation for clinical excellence and high quality teaching and research. We are part of King’s Health Partners, one of eight accredited UK academic health sciences centres. In partnership with King’s College London we have dedicated clinical research facilities including an MHRA accredited Phase I clinical trials unit.

Patients are at the heart of everything we do and we pride ourselves on ensuring the best possible patient experience as well as safe, high quality care. We are proud to have one of the lowest mortality rates in the NHS. Following a comprehensive Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection in 2019 we maintained our overall rating of ‘good’. Our adult community services achieved a rating of ‘outstanding’.

The commitment of our 23,500 staff is key to our success. We are one of the largest local employers and we aim to develop and support all our staff so they are able to deliver high quality, safe and efficient care. The 2019 NHS staff survey results show that we have one of the most engaged and motivated workforces in the NHS. We know this has a positive impact on the care provided to our patients.

We have one of the most ambitious capital investment programmes anywhere in the NHS.



Job overview

This is an exciting opportunity for an enthusiastic and motivated individual with a research record and interest in diabetes, particularly in younger adults and pregnancy, to gain excellent research experience by contributing to research projects supported by NIHR and Diabetes UK, and to prepare new fellowship and other applications.

People with young onset type 2 diabetes historically have been an overlooked group, despite their increased risks of morbidity and mortality. Research in the department focuses on designing and implementing novel models of care that improve outcomes for young people with diabetes, including during pregnancy.

Main duties of the job

The postholder will work with Dr. Dulmini Kariyawasam and Dr. Anna Brackenridge to support existing research activity, including recruiting patients to clinical research studies, supporting data collection and helping with data analysis. They will liaise with other centres involved in research collaboration. They will assist in identifying and applying for further funding to carry the work forward, undertaking data and literature review, working in collaboration with academics/researchers at Kings College London and across the ARC. The post-holder will work on improving care for people with diabetes, engaging with young and pregnant people with diabetes, preparing and implementing innovative models of care and decision support tools and promoting effective self-management.

The post provides an opportunity for the post-holder to hone their methodological skills and develop practical and theoretical research expertise. You will participate in all aspects of research, including development of protocols, application to ethics committees, focus groups, interviewing and data collection, analysis and reporting, wider engagement, liaison with clinical services and dissemination of research outputs.

Working for our organisation

The Department of Diabetes and Endocrinology is part of the Clinical Directorate of Medical Specialties, which sits within the Integrated and Specialist Medicine Clinical Group. The Diabetes and Endocrinology Department is an important element of local and tertiary medical services.  It treats approximately 20,000 patients each year including many tertiary referrals for diabetes, lipid, obesity, metabolic and endocrine disorders.  The clinics are accommodated in modern purpose-built Day Centres on both the Guy’s and St. Thomas’ sites. The Diabetes service also provides community-based clinics.

The Department has a very active and expanding research programme supported by our own research nurses and administrative staff and also the state of the art Clinical Research Facilities.  We have very active clinical and translational research programmes including trials of peptide therapy to try to preserve beta cell function in type 1 diabetes and research into complications of diabetes particularly diabetic kidney and vascular complications and novel treatments for obesity. There is ongoing collaborative research developing innovative models of care for young people with diabetes, and trying to improve outcomes for women with diabetes in pregnancy.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical research delivery

  • Contribute to the smooth running of existing clinical trials in the department: identifying participants, liaising with clinical team to ensure that trial protocol is adhered to, recording observation and assessments required according to the protocol.
  • Ensure that proposed patients for clinical trials are enrolled in accordance with unit standard operating procedure.
  • Participate in the informed consent process of all study types, acting as a resource and support to patients and their families.
  • Lead & take informed consent for observational research studies where appropriately trained and delegated.
  • Contribute to study data collection, for example by collecting clinical data, or by interviewing patients, carers, professionals and other relevant individuals, according to study protocol.

Data analysis

  • Manage and execute all delegated areas of project and literature reviews, keeping to agreed deadlines
  • Draft research reports and papers, including progress reports, final reports and publications, and update reporting databases
  • Maintain and update research datasets
  • Analysis of data using appropriate statistical and other packages e.g. SPSS, Excel
  • Contribute to the dissemination of study results, knowledge mobilisation and implementation of good practice. 

Organisational

  • Liaise with funders, clinical staff at GSTT, academic colleagues at KCL, and collaborating organisations
  • Work flexibly and in collaboration with staff in relevant organisations involved in the projects
  • Participate in departmental staff meetings, seminars, appraisal and team building exercises and the general research quality and administrative duties within the department
  • Any other duties consistent with the grade of the post, as agreed with line managers. This may include undertaking ad hoc reports and representing the projects at meetings or conferences

Education and Training

  • Take responsibility for identifying personal training and educational needs within the context of the service and those identified during the appraisal process.
  • Attend national and international Investigator Meetings and conferences as required.
  • Disseminate research by assisting in the preparation of posters/research papers for meetings, conferences and publications.

Person specification

Knowledge/Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • A degree in health, life sciences, social sciences or similar
Desirable criteria
  • Higher degree (Masters or PhD in related field)

Previous experience

Essential criteria
  • Relevant research experience (e.g. applied health research) – in particular literature reviews, interviewing, protocol development, conducting studies, analysing results, reporting findings
  • Previous experience in analysing research data to a high degree of accuracy, with a good level of numeracy – with commitment to rigour of analysis, and sound research computing skills, and ability to learn new packages – e.g. word-processing, databases, Reference Manager, SPSS, graphics packages
  • Demonstrated understanding of research methods, including quantitative and qualitative research
Desirable criteria
  • Research or clinical experience in diabetes
  • Experience of interviewing users about sensitive issues
  • Experience of making submissions to funders for research grants

Skills

Essential criteria
  • Excellent presentation and communication skills, and ability to adapt to different audiences, evidenced by presenting at relevant meetings, research publications
  • Commitment to high quality research and teaching
  • Commitment to improving care of younger people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Timewise helps businesses to attract and develop the best talent through flexible working.Care quality commission - GoodDisability confident employer

Applicant requirements

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

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Dr Dulmini Kariyawasam
Job title
Consultant in Diabetes and Endocrinology
Email address
[email protected]
Additional information

Dr Anna Brackenridge

Consultant in Diabetes and Endocrinology

[email protected] 

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