Therapeutic Radiographer: Sponsorship Available

Job summary

Applications are invited from newly qualified therapy radiographers to join the Sussex Cancer Centre Radiotherapy team, to be based at Brighton. Radiotherapy provision for Sussex is currently provided across two hospital sites – Brighton and Eastbourne. There are CT Philips Widebore facilities and two Elekta versa HD machines sited at Eastbourne, and a further matched CT and two Elekta Linacs at the Royal Sussex in Brighton, and Two Tomotherapy machines, opened in 2016 in Preston Park, Brighton. There is a High Dose Rate brachytherapy facility in Brighton at the Cancer Centre, currently treating prostate, boost and monotherapy, skin and gynaecological malignancies. We welcome international applications but require score 7 IELTS

Main duties of the job

The post holder provides professional radiotherapy services within all the Sussex Cancer Centre locations covering the planning, simulating, calculating and treatment of cancer patients as well as liaising effectively with the multidisciplinary team. Once experienced the post holder will have the responsibility for the daily running of the Linear Accelerator through set competency training.

The post holder requires advanced clinical knowledge of radiotherapy procedures, tissue tolerances, and physiological reactions due to radiation exposure. The post holder practises in accordance with current legislation governing the use of ionising radiation IR(ME)R. High level of competence is required in the use of a wide range of highly complex technical and computerised systems, including;

• Linear accelerators for the delivery of radiation treatment,
• Computerised patient information and appointment management system
• Image matching programmes for verification and evaluation procedures during treatment QA equipment for daily tolerance checks
• Equipment for the delivery of high dose radiation: dual energy, dual modality Linear Accelerators Computerised Tomography (CT) scanners.
• Computerised treatment planning systems
• QA equipment for daily tolerance checks
• £2,000 Retention & Recruitment bonusClose association with Brighton and Sussex Medical School and Sussex Universities
• Staff discounts in Sussex.

Job description

Job responsibilities

• Use electronic imager to confirm patient positioning at start of radiotherapy course and during treatment as part of QA protocol.
• Calculate accuracy of patient position and use clinical judgement to adjust positioning, taking into account contour of patients, progression and regression of tumour.
• In case of discrepancies and inability to treat patient refer for changes in calculation or refer back to CT/planning for re-planning.
• To ensure that prior to each treatment, provide expert assessment to whether each patient is fit for treatment, and take appropriate action if unfit for treatment by referral to a clinician.
• Making judgements when speciality support is required by other disciplines due to the nature of the patients problems and referral on to dieticians and Macmillan team.
• Arrange for blood / urine sampling and analyse results before treatment, Responsible for continuing or suspending patients treatment, depending on result. Inform patient of highly sensitive result and refer to clinician if treatment is suspended.
• Permanent skin mark patients to ensure accurate and reproducible daily treatment set-up.
• Use spatial awareness, visual precision and manual dexterity in the precise and safe manipulation of both patient and equipment for optimal daily set-up. The result is an accurate irretrievable radiation beam set within three millimetres tolerance which ensures that as a consequence no vital structure is treated.