Chief pharmacy information officer in London

The Chief Pharmacy Information Officer (CPIO) is the organisation's senior subject matter expert for digital medicines including multi-disciplinary medicines use and pharmacy services, providing national leadership across NHS Wales. The postholder leads a specialist digital team of pharmacy and medical professionals within Digital Health and Care Wales and plays a pivotal role in shaping, influencing, and assuring digital systems that support safe prescribing and the effective management of medicines. Operating in a senior leadership role, they provide expert clinical and technical advice, mentor colleagues across the healthcare system, and contribute to the development and delivery of national strategies.

The CPIO supports the digital transformation discussions with the Directors of Pharmacy, the pharmacy profession and works in partnership with service and product owners in DHCW. The role holds national responsibility for advising programmes, portfolios, clinicians, and system developers on medicines related content and digital design, ensuring that solutions deliver safe, evidence-based practice for patients and professionals across Wales.

The postholder works with a wide range of stakeholders to provide expert clinical and technical advice for digital pharmacy and prescribing systems across NHS Wales. As a professional leader, they support the digital transformation agenda for medicines and wider pharmacy services, supporting research and service improvement, shaping information and professional standards, and contributing to Welsh Government policy development. They work in a clinical leadership role in DHCW in partnership with other CXIOs. They lead consultations and contribute to national clinical and professional networks, programme boards and design discussions, ensuring that clinical requirements are translated into safe, effective digital solutions.

A key aspect of the role is driving a user-centred design approach for pharmacy and medicines related products, achieving national consensus where views differ to support a once for Wales approach. The postholder assesses system designs, manages clinical risk, advises on patient safety, supports incident investigations, and ensures compliance with medicines legislation. The role also includes managing pharmacy and medicines team informatics staff.

Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) is part of the NHS Wales family and has an important role in changing the way health and care services are delivered through technology and data. The organisation supports frontline staff with modern systems and access to important information about their patients, while empowering the people of Wales to manage their own health through digital NHS Wales services. Working for DHCW offers lots of employee benefits, including flexible working, a competitive salary, 28 days of annual leave plus Bank Holidays and opportunities for career development. We are committed to recognising and celebrating our staff as the most valuable part of our organisation. Join our game-changing, life-saving team and start making a real difference to health and care services in Wales.

The postholder works in partnership with relevant teams and bodies including, Digital Medicines Transformation Portfolio Leads, Programme Directors and Programme Managers, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer Welsh Government, Health Board Directors of Pharmacy, Community Pharmacy Wales, Welsh Pharmaceutical Committee, Royal Pharmaceutical Society (Wales), Hospital Pharmacists, Primary Care Teams, and other relevant organisations. They provide subject matter expertise in pharmaceutical matters in the specialist field of digital technology. This includes areas of medicines management, medication records, coding, nomenclature, dispensing, prescribing and evidence-based best practice.

They contribute to the development of digital quality assurance and technical design documentation including design briefs and specifications, ensuring they can be understood by all stakeholders, translating clinical requirements into technical design. They have extensive knowledge of medicines information within the NHS Wales national architecture, to lead on the development of pharmacy and medicines design content within NHS Wales and linking with other bordering systems within the UK. Analysing evidence-based clinical information and requirements from multiple sources to interpret into business need for individual organisations and all Wales.

Qualifications and Knowledge

• Registered as a Pharmacist with the General Pharmaceutical Council
• Registered with a relevant informatics professional body.
• Professional knowledge acquired through vocational master's degree in pharmacy (4 years) + 1 year pre-registration training + specialist knowledge acquired through post-graduate master-degree level or equivalent training, experience in pharmacy information systems.
• Knowledge of digital clinical risk management and digital clinical safety e.g. understanding of key clinical risk management processes, activities and documentation required to be compliant with DCB0129 and DCB0160 standards.
• Knowledge of project and programme management methodologies e.g. PRINCE2, Agile, MSP
• Detailed knowledge and understanding of complex/transformational change

Experience

• Extensive experience to understand the challenges facing the NHS.
• Management and leadership experience
• Experience of delivering systems to support medicines management and prescribing
• Extensive experience of leading stakeholder engagement activities
• Experience of working within a Digital Clinical Programme

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.