Cardiology Technician job description

Clinical

The post holder will act as chief-technician for invasive cardiac services. As such he/she will oversee the angiography, pacing and
device services as well as being responsible for the management, supervision and training of junior technicians.

• Provide support to the medical teams by contributing highly specialist clinical/technical procedures.

• Provide comprehensive pacemaker/ICD outpatient follow-up services, including device interrogation and programming; managing clinic size and staffing, maintaining accurate paper and electronic records.

• Provide rapid and accurate interpretation and reporting on patient conditions and disease states using complex clinical data from diagnostic cardiology testing. Record personally generated clinical observations.

• Accountable for own professional actions. Responsible for appropriate assessment and diagnosis of patients during testing, and continuing or terminating testing modalities on patients with significant or life threatening medical conditions.

• Manipulate complex, expensive instruments ensuring safe use of equipment.

• Responsible for the patient whilst under your care, maintaining their dignity, physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual needs.

• Deal confidently and professionally with patients; including elderly, confused, heavily medicated, aggressive or patients with special needs etc. Deal with extremely ill, and highly emotive patients undergoing cardiac testing, eliciting patient understanding, co-operation and effort.

• Ensure all invasive cardiology equipment in the department is maintained regularly and ensure maintenance records are kept. Evaluate needs and procure new/replacement equipment as necessary.

• Ensure all equipment used is maintained in a good, clean and safe order at all times and any loss or defect is reported appropriately.
• Responsible for ensuring the safe use of expensive equipment.

• Able to work under pressure in complex and emergency situations.

Educational.
• Maintain and help develop a structured training programme for invasive cardiology, in line with SCST and HRUK guidelines.

• Provide direct clinical supervision and specialised training for other qualified staff, junior physiologists and students ensuring that guidelines are followed for each of the investigations.
• Carry out assessments and audits to make sure all staff are capable of performing investigations accurately and professionally, treating the patient with dignity at all times.

• Undertake training to act as formal work based assessor for staff undertaking qualifications.

• Ensure prompt and accurate submission of data as required by the Department of Health for national databases.

• Co-ordinate and deliver training and development programmes.

• Monitor and document the progress and technical performance of staff to ensure that they are functioning to agreed levels of professional standards, conduct and that the agreed protocols and policies are adhered to.

• In liaison with others, set standards for the department so that the quality of service delivery can be monitored, evaluated and improved.

Managerial
• Provide overall leadership and management for invasive cardiac investigations, liaising with the Invasive Consultant lead, other medical staff, Head of cardiac Department and other members of the cardiology team.

• Line manage a number of qualified technicians, students and other members of the team in line with Trust policies and protocols.

• Create and support an atmosphere of cohesiveness and co-operation within the Department, encouraging teamwork and open communication between all levels of staff and students.

• Effectively communicate both verbally and in writing with patients, department members, students and other staff.

• Monitor the day-to-day workload and ensure the highest standard of patient care is delivered.

• Ensure all staff are familiar with all departmental and relevant Trust policies and procedures.

• Ensure all tasks delegated to other staff are actioned appropriately, e.g. equipment maintenance, inventory and ordering of stock and mandatory training.

• Plan and coordinate an on-call rota as required for urgent/emergency cardiology coverage, working weekends, holiday and unsocial hours independently.

Professional.
• The post holder will remain professional at all times and act as a representative of the department and Trust. Liaise with managers and other clinical teams and maintain good pubic relations on a one to one basis with the general public and other interest
groups.
• The post holder will liaise with other hospitals to discuss developments in cardiology and to promote training within the region.
• The post holder will maintain their professional development, knowledge of new techniques and protocols; attending courses where necessary, in line with the service demand. Maintain a record of, and report any untoward incidents in accordance with
the Trust’s procedures.

• Ensure self and reporting members of the department participate in all mandatory training and that this is centrally recorded.

• Ensures self and all direct reporting staff participate in the appraisal and development
planning process and this is centrally recorded.
• Ensures self and all direct reporting staff adhere to Departmental and Trust policies
and procedures.
• Evaluate input from staff and creating changes to improve working practices or
procedures, where appropriate