General Practitioner with Enhanced RoleNHS

Job summary

This is an exciting opportunity for a GPwER who wants to make a real difference to people living with severe and complex obesity, while helping to shape and evaluate a new model of community-based care.

About the service

The Lincolnshire Community Weight Management Service is a new, multidisciplinary community service for adults living with severe and complex obesity.

Funded through the Obesity Pathway Innovation Programme, the service is commissioned by NHS Lincolnshire ICB and supported by Innovate UK funding. It is designed as an innovative, community-based model that works alongside existing Tier 1 and Tier 2 weight management provision and provides an important interface with specialist and Tier 4 services.

The service brings together a range of expertise, including:

• Medical assessment and clinical decision-making
• Dietetic support
• Behavioural and psychological support
• Health and wellbeing coaching
• Structured group-based education
• Weight management pharmacotherapy where clinically appropriate
• Physical health and cardiometabolic risk assessment
• Longitudinal follow-up and personalised care planning
• Step-up and step-down pathways across the wider health and care system

The service is particularly focused on addressing health inequalities. An important part of the initial caseload will be adults living with severe mental illness (SMI), recognising the significant physical health inequalities and increased cardiometabolic risk experienced by this population.

Main duties of the job

The role will include:

• Providing comprehensive medical assessment and clinical review of patients with severe and complex obesity.
• Supporting risk stratification and development of individualised, shared care plans.
• Providing clinical leadership and medical input to the multidisciplinary team.
• Assessing suitability for, initiating, titrating, monitoring, reviewing and discontinuing weight management medication in accordance with relevant NICE guidance and local prescribing arrangements.
• Supporting the safe use of GLP-1 and GLP-1/GIP therapies where clinically appropriate.
• Reviewing concurrent medication where significant weight loss may alter treatment requirements.
• Providing specialist medical input into the physical healthcare of people living with severe mental illness.
• Working collaboratively with primary care, mental health services, secondary care and specialist/Tier 4 weight management services.
• Supporting escalation and onward referral where clinical risk or complexity requires specialist intervention.
• Delivering face-to-face, telephone and video consultations.
• Participating in and, where appropriate, chairing multidisciplinary team meetings.
• Acting as a source of clinical advice and support to the wider MDT and referring clinicians.
• Contributing to clinical governance, audit, quality improvement and service development.
• Supporting the education and development of colleagues across the service and wider primary care system.
• Contributing to the formal evaluation of this programme.

Job description

LADMS is seeking an experienced and enthusiastic General Practitioner with Extended Role (GPwER) in Weight Management to join the new Lincolnshire Community Weight Management Service, delivered through the Obesity Pathway Innovation Programme (OPIP).

This is an exciting opportunity to provide senior medical expertise within a new multidisciplinary community-based service supporting adults living with severe and complex obesity.

The post holder will provide medical assessment, clinical decision-making, prescribing and clinical leadership within the service. They will work closely with dietitians, behavioural and psychological practitioners, health and wellbeing coaches and other members of the multidisciplinary team.

A particular focus of the service is improving the physical health of people living with severe mental illness (SMI), who experience significant health inequalities and increased cardiometabolic risk.

Main ResponsibilitiesThe post holder will:

• Provide comprehensive medical assessment and clinical review of adults referred to the service.
• Undertake clinical assessment of obesity-related comorbidities, cardiometabolic risk, medication and potential secondary or contributory causes of weight gain.
• Contribute to risk stratification and individualised, shared care planning.
• Arrange, interpret and act upon appropriate investigations.
• Provide senior medical input and clinical decision-making within the multidisciplinary team.
• Assess suitability for, initiate, titrate, monitor, review and discontinue weight management pharmacotherapy in accordance with relevant NICE guidance and local prescribing arrangements.
• Provide clinical expertise in the use of weight management pharmacotherapy, including GLP-1 and GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist therapies where clinically appropriate.
• Review concurrent medication where weight loss may affect treatment requirements.
• Provide medical leadership in relation to the physical health and cardiometabolic needs of people living with severe mental illness.
• Recognise and appropriately escalate deterioration in physical or mental health.
• Provide advice to referring GPs, Primary Care Networks and other professionals.
• Support appropriate referral and escalation to secondary care and specialist/Tier 4 weight management and bariatric services.
• Deliver face-to-face, telephone and video consultations.
• Participate in and, where appropriate, chair multidisciplinary team meetings.
• Provide clinical advice to the wider MDT and respond appropriately to clinical queries.
• Contribute to clinical governance, safeguarding, audit, significant event review and quality improvement.
• Support education, teaching and clinical supervision within the service and wider primary care system.
• Contribute to the development and review of clinical pathways, protocols and prescribing arrangements.
• Contribute to the programme's monitoring, reporting and formal evaluation.
• Maintain accurate, contemporaneous clinical records and ensure appropriate communication with patients, carers and other professionals.
• Work flexibly across the service's community locations in Spalding, Lincoln and Skegness, with remote working where appropriate.

The service operates as a community-based model working alongside existing local authority weight management provision and specialist services. It provides an important step-up/step-down interface across the wider system and is being delivered as an innovative proof-of-concept programme subject to formal evaluation.

The post holder will be expected to work in accordance with relevant NICE guidance, GMC standards, local clinical governance arrangements and agreed service protocols.

About us

At LADMS, we actively include, involve and empower all those we serve and work alongside, treating everyone with fairness, respect and dignity.

We are looking for someone who shares these values and who understands the importance of delivering weight management care in a way that is compassionate, evidence-based and free from stigma.

If you are an experienced GP with an interest in obesity and weight management and would welcome the opportunity to help build something new, we would be delighted to hear from you.