Clinical Coding Divisional Lead in Ipswich

ESNEFT is seeking an experienced, motivated, and forward-thinking Clinical Coding Divisional Lead for Surgery, Gastroenterology & Anaesthetics to join our dynamic and high-performing Clinical Coding Department. This post provides an exciting opportunity for established Senior Clinical Coders to step into a leadership role supporting the delivery of high quality coded clinical data that underpins patient care, Trust income, and national reporting.

As a Clinical Coding Divisional Lead for Surgery, Gastroenterology & Anaesthetics, you will play a pivotal role in leading and managing coding activity within your allocated clinical division. You will work closely with divisional managers, clinicians, auditors, BI teams, and the wider coding service to ensure that all coded activity is accurate, timely, complete, and compliant with National Clinical Coding Standards. You will also champion continuous improvement, support professional development within the team, and act as a key point of expertise for complex or challenging coding queries.

Main duties of the job:

• Lead and manage a designated section of the Clinical Coding Department, ensuring the delivery of a high-quality, end-to-end coding service.
• Provide coding leadership for your allocated clinical divisions, attending relevant meetings and acting as the primary specialist point of contact.
• Ensure accurate abstraction of clinical data from patient electronic records and application of ICD 10 and OPCS 4.10 in line with national standards.
• Monitor performance, ensuring adherence to deadlines and Trust KPIs.
• Support implementation of new coding standards, releases, and organisational changes.
• Assist in clinical coding audits, data quality checks, and remedial action planning.
• Contribute to training and mentorship of new staff, including supporting trainees and Band 4/5 development coders.
• Work collaboratively across sites (Ipswich and Colchester), promoting consistency and best practice.

About us: We are ESNEFT and we provide hospital and community health services to almost one million people across east Suffolk and north Essex. Our dedicated staff deliver care from acute hospitals in Colchester and Ipswich, community hospitals, surgeries, community clinics and in patients' own homes. We are one of the largest NHS organisations in England, employing more than 12,000 staff. We pride ourselves on supporting our staff. We offer a wide range of training and development opportunities, as well as flexible working options. Along with supporting you to achieve your career goals we offer a generous pension scheme, unsocial hours payments (where applicable), 27 days annual leave on commencement (pro rata) and access to a range of NHS discounts. Our Staff Health and Wellbeing programme offers a variety of services. Our philosophy is that Time Matters to everyone. Across the Trust, we concentrate on improving the things we do and removing those which cause time delays for our staff and patients. We are investing in our commitment to Time Matters with a partnership with leading electronic patient record (EPR) supplier Epic. This digital transformation will bring what's widely regarded as the world's best EPR system to ESNEFT, transforming life in hospital for staff and patients.

If you are passionate about patient care and want to develop your skills and knowledge, then we want to hear from you.

Job responsibilities: For full details of the responsibilities and duties of this role please see the attached job description.

Person Specification:

• Accredited Clinical Coder (ACC)
• ECDL
• A university degree preferably in Medicine related studies
• NHS Digital approved Clinical Coding Auditor or working towards it

• Proven experience post ACC qualification in clinical coding in an acute trust.

• Knowledge and understanding of medical terminology, human anatomy and physiology
• Clinical coding of all specialities
• Understanding of uses and importance of clinical coding
• Good understanding of HRGs and PbR/SHMI
• Ability to identify various data quality errors.
• Ability to analyse and interpret complex clinical information from a wide variety of sources
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• To be able to interpret various clinical coding reports.

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.