Chief Nurse Information Officer

The Chief Nursing Information Officer (CNIO) is a senior clinical leadership role responsible for shaping and delivering the digital nursing and AHP agenda across Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Working at a strategic level, the CNIO will ensure that digital systems are clinically safe, usable and optimised to support high-quality patient care, professional practice and service transformation.

The post holder will combine strong clinical credibility with expertise in digital health, informatics and change leadership, acting as the senior nursing voice in the development, implementation and optimisation of digital solutions, including the Electronic Patient Record (EPR), electronic prescribing and wider digital clinical systems. The CNIO will work in close partnership with the Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO), Director of Informatics (DoI), Chief Nursing Officer and senior clinical leaders, ensuring that digital transformation is grounded in frontline clinical need and aligned to Trust and system priorities.

Main duties of the job include:

• Providing strategic assurance on clinical safety, professional practice and adoption, supporting compliance with national standards and contributing to ICSD level and national digital nursing networks.
• Championing innovation, workforce engagement and digital capability development, ensuring nurses and AHPs are empowered to lead and embed digital change that improves patient outcomes, safety and experience.
• Strategic leadership of the Trust’s nursing and AHP digital vision.
• Strategic input into EPR and clinical system design, implementation and optimisation.
• Assurance of clinical safety, usability and workflow alignment of digital solutions.
• Influencing Trust-wide digital strategy and system-level collaboration.
• Leading workforce engagement, capability building and digital readiness.
• Acting as the senior nursing advocate for safe, effective digital care delivery.
• Involvement in the procurement, design and implementation of a new EPR system.

This is a high-impact, Trust-wide role requiring senior leadership capability, professional authority and transformational influence, appropriate to Agenda for Change Band 8C level.

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 10,500 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.

Qualifications required include:

• Educated to Master’s level or equivalent level of experience and training.
• NMC Registration.
• Advanced clinical qualifications and evidence of ongoing professional development.

Knowledge required includes:

• Extensive and up to date knowledge of nursing and other clinical, administrative and/or operational workflows and processes within a hospital environment.
• Excellent clinical and managerial knowledge of one or more specific area, including knowledge of relevant operational policies and procedures.
• Expert clinical knowledge and skills in clinical informatics to ensure successful implementation of technology that benefits patient care and achieves expected outcomes.
• Knowledge of policy relating to safeguarding adults and children.
• Knowledge of Information Governance, SOPs and other governance, national and professional standards of practice or other regulations.
• Knowledge of national standards for recording patient assessments and clinical data.
• Knowledge of all aspects of patient safety and quality.

Experience required includes:

• Planning and managing change in large and diverse clinical teams.
• Previous NHS experience as a nurse leader at Matron Level or above.
• Managing high performing multi-disciplinary teams evidenced by improvement e.g. improved recruitment/retention/staff morale/clinical outcomes.
• Planning and delivering a broad range of complex programmes which impact across a large multi-site organisation.
• Managing clinical teams including recruitment, appraisals, sickness and performance management.

Skills required include:

• Demonstrating professional and personal credibility.
• Maintaining clinical knowledge and skills for professional registration and revalidation.
• Ability to concentrate for long periods of time to author documents, analyse information.
• High level of personal resilience to deal with potentially emotive situations.
• Ability to setup and oversee an R&D programme which will identify, review and evaluate new digital solutions.

We actively cultivate a professional environment of fairness, equality, dignity, and respect for all individuals. We welcome individuals from all backgrounds and value the unique skills, perspective and experience you bring.