ePath Programme Director in North Shields

Do you want to work in one of the best performing NHS organisations in England? Work for an organisation that was voted the best acute and combined acute and community trust in the country, based on the experience of its staff (NHS Staff Survey 2022). Work in an organisation that supports its staff and focuses on staff experience as much as it does the experience of its patients? You can live and breathe in an area that has the cleanest air, cost effective living, great nightlife, some of the best schools with a wealth of history available on your doorstep. Sound too good to be true? Well it isn’t, this is what you get when you work for Northumbria Healthcare and, this is…the Northumbria Way!

What the Northumbria Way means for you:

• Extensive staff health and well-being programme including access to our specialist Wellbeing Hub
• Support and connection through a variety of Staff Network groups
• A range of flexible working opportunities
• Generous annual leave and pension scheme
• Access to lease car and home electronics scheme (qualifying criteria applies)
• Opportunities to improve your professional development through our vast training programmes
• Access to savings scheme via salary sacrifice with Northumberland Community Bank

We work closely with Kids First Nurseries that are based within our trust grounds at Wansbeck, North Tyneside and Hexham hospitals to care for our Trust family's children, they offer care for children from 6 weeks old up to 4 years. There are a number of funding options run by the government to help working parents, including Early Years Funding and Tax Free Childcare.

Flexible working offers choice in where, when, and how we work, ensuring patients remain at the heart of all we do. It’s open to everyone, and we aim to find solutions that work for both you and the organisation. All arrangements must be reasonable and balanced to maintain safe and effective patient care.

We are proud to be one of the country’s top performing NHS trusts – rated ‘outstanding’ overall by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). We provide a range of health and care services to support more than 500,000 people living in Northumberland and North Tyneside across the largest geographical area of any NHS Trust in England. Our teams deliver care from hospitals, a range of community venues and people’s homes. Our hospitals include a specialist emergency care hospital (the first of its kind in England), three general hospitals and community hospitals. In the community we deliver a wide range of community and public health services.

We lead in innovation and quality, having opened the Northumbria Healthcare Manufacturing and Innovation Hub during the Covid-19 pandemic and have recently launched our Community Promise – a pledge to make a real impact not just in healthcare but on the wider factors that affect people’s lives, such as education, employment and the economy.

If Northumbria Healthcare sounds like somewhere you could belong we would love to hear from you. Visit our website to catch up on our latest news.

Whilst Northumbria Healthcare are a highly innovative organisation, the use of Third Party Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents a risk to the integrity of our Recruitment & Selection processes. If you use AI, and it poses a risk to the integrity your individual recruitment process, we may withdraw your application at any stage of the process.

Job overview

An exciting opportunity for an experienced and highly motivated individual to join Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust as ePath Programme Director, leading a major digital transformation programme across the North East and North Cumbria.

The ePath Programme will deliver a shared Pathology Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) across Northumbria Healthcare, North Cumbria Integrated Care and Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trusts.

This is a significant, complex programme that will support the modernisation, standardisation and integration of pathology services across participating organisations, improving diagnostic pathways and supporting safe, efficient patient care.

The successful candidate will provide strategic and operational leadership, overseeing programme delivery, governance, financial management, workforce planning, supplier relationships and implementation readiness.

Working closely with senior clinical, operational, digital and executive leaders, the Programme Director will play a pivotal role in delivering this ambitious programme and shaping the future of networked pathology services.

Please note we reserve the right to close this vacancy prior to the closing date once sufficient suitable applications have been received.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will provide strategic and operational leadership for the design, build, implementation and optimisation of the network ePath LIMS across three NHS Trusts.

Key responsibilities will include:

Leading a complex, multi-organisational digital transformation programme, ensuring delivery against agreed milestones, budgets and objectives.

Establishing robust programme governance, reporting, risk management and assurance arrangements.

Coordinating interdependent clinical, operational, digital and technical workstreams across participating organisations.

Managing programme finances, resources, supplier relationships and contractual dependencies.

Engaging and influencing senior stakeholders, including executive sponsors, SROs, clinical leaders and digital teams.

Overseeing implementation planning, testing, validation, operational readiness and safe transition into live services.

Managing programme risks, issues and dependencies, ensuring appropriate mitigation and escalation.

Supporting standardisation, interoperability, organisational change and benefits realisation across the network.

Providing clear programme assurance and strategic recommendations to the ePath Programme Board.

Working for our organisation

We manage three major locality hospitals at North Tyneside, Wansbeck and Hexham, plus a number of smaller community hospitals and clinics from Tynemouth to Berwick on Tweed, in addition to our state-of-the-art Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, the first of its kind in England. We also care for people in their homes and provide services from facilities in local communities such as health centres. We give people greater choice and control over their care to help them to live independently at home and avoid hospital admission where appropriate. High quality patient care is at the heart of everything we do and we strive to ensure every single patient and service user has an exceptional experience with us. We have one of the most extensive patient experience programmes of any trust in England.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

PLEASE NOTE: To view the full Job Description and Person Specification, please click the supporting document on the right-hand side.

The post holder will have significant strategic and operational autonomy and will be responsible for directing the delivery of a highly complex, multi-organisational pathology digital transformation programme.

The post holder will:

Provide strategic leadership for the design, build, implementation and optimisation of the network ePath LIMS across Northumbria Healthcare, North Cumbria Integrated Care and Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals.

Lead the development and delivery of the programme plan, ensuring alignment with organisational, network and NHS digital transformation priorities.

Establish and maintain effective programme governance, reporting, risk management, change control and assurance arrangements.

Coordinate multiple interdependent workstreams covering LIMS, middleware, analyser interfaces, electronic requesting, data migration, interoperability and associated digital infrastructure.

Provide oversight of programme finances, workforce resources, procurement, supplier contracts and implementation activities.

Develop effective working relationships with senior clinical, operational, digital and executive stakeholders across participating organisations.

Lead programme risk management, ensuring timely identification, mitigation and escalation of risks, issues and dependencies.

Oversee testing, validation, verification and implementation readiness, ensuring patient safety, data integrity, service continuity and regulatory compliance.

Provide strategic oversight of implementation sequencing, deployment planning, business continuity and transition to business-as-usual support arrangements.

Lead organisational change, promoting collaboration, standardisation and improved ways of working across pathology services.

Ensure compliance with relevant UKAS, MHRA, information governance, cybersecurity and NHS digital requirements.

Provide regular programme performance, financial, risk and benefits realisation reports to the ePath Programme Board, SROs and executive stakeholders.

Lead, support and develop multidisciplinary programme teams, fostering an inclusive, collaborative and accountable leadership culture.

Ensure programme objectives, agreed milestones and benefits are delivered within available resources and timescales.

The Programme Director will be accountable to the Network ePath Programme Board and will work closely with the Chief Information Officer, Senior Responsible Officer and senior leaders across the three participating organisations to ensure successful programme delivery.

Person specification

Qualifications / Professional Registration

• Educated to Masters level or equivalent experience in a relevant discipline
• Evidence of significant continuing professional development in programme leadership, digital transformation or healthcare informatics
• Extensive experience managing complex multi-organisational programmes involving multiple stakeholders and workstreams
• Management or leadership qualification
• Professional registration relevant to healthcare, digital, scientific or informatics practice
• Experience working within network pathology networks

Applicants who are members of the Armed Forces, those who have a disability that requires support in the work place (two ticks pledge) and those who have been looked after by the care system as a child or young person (for example, in foster care, children's homes, kinship or local authority care) who meet the essential criteria will be interviewed under the Trust's interview guarantee scheme.

We recognise the positive value of diversity and inclusion and are committed to a workforce that is diverse, equal and inclusive. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds. We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) candidates as BAME people are currently under-represented in our workforce as well as other under-represented groups such as LGBT+ and disabled candidates. We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer, a Stonewall Diversity Champion, we have a Gold award from the Defense Recognition Scheme, and we are delighted to support Apprenticeships, Age Posi+ive and are a mindful employer.

If you require any reasonable adjustments to attend interview please make the recruitment team aware as soon as possible by calling our HR Recruitment Team on 0191 203 1415 option 2.

Applicants who meet the Fit and Proper Person Requirements (FPPR) will require additional pre-employment checks in line with CQC and NHS England statutory guidance.

Make sure to read the ‘applicant guidance notes’ before submitting your application and make sure you know everything there is to know before joining our fantastic trust!

Certificate of Sponsorship

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust proudly hold a sponsor licence. In order to provide sponsorship you and the role you are applying for must meet UKVI eligibility requirements. Please check your eligibility prior to submitting an application. Skilled Worker visa: Overview - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Please note that it is a requirement of this Trust that all successful applicants pay for their own DBS certification if a DBS check is required for the post. The method of payment is a salary deduction from your first monthly pay.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Name Debra Padgett Job title Clinical Pathology Lead Email address debra.padgett2@northumbria-healthcare.nhs.uk Telephone number 07729505752

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