Chief Nurse Information Officer in St Helens

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.

Our services include:

• Acute Care: Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.
• Primary Care: Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.
• Community Services: Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire.
• Specialist Regional Services: We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

Achievements include:

• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018.
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal).
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme.

Person specification values:

• We are kind.
• We are open.
• We are inclusive.

Qualifications required:

• 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:

• 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:

• 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:

• Demonstrates professional and personal credibility.
• Maintain 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, communicating difficult messages to staff, patients or family members.
• 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.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we commit to offering an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

The Trust operates anonymous shortlisting where no personal information about you is shared with the recruiting manager. No equality information is shared at any time during the recruitment process with the recruiting manager or other people involved in the decision-making process.

We actively support flexible working patterns throughout MWL. Changes made to the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook mean that all employees have the right to request flexible working from day one of employment.

Staff recognition is especially important to us; 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.

You will be expected to undertake the Trust's commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.

Please note plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own. The Trust will not accept applications which are found to be AI generated.