Product Owner – Nexia in Manchester

Hybrid Manchester

Up to £70,000 DOE per annum

Full-time, permanent

Organisation

Primary Eyecare Services

Directorate

Digital

Job Title

Product Owner – Nexia

Terms

Full-time

Hours

35 hours per week

Remuneration

Up to £70,000 DOE per annum

Location

Manchester Office (40 %) / Hybrid (60%)

Direct Report

Digital Director

Role Purpose

The Product Owner will lead Nexia, our new clinical and operational platform. They will line manage and develop our in-house software developers, and lead Nexia through build, testing, go-live and rollout across our services, and continuous improvement.

The postholder will own the product vision, roadmap and backlog, and act as the day-to-day product decision-maker for the Nexia delivery team, making sure everything we build delivers real value for patients, practices, hospitals, commissioners and our own colleagues.

General Responsibilities

Product Vision, Roadmap & Backlog

• Own the product vision and roadmap for Nexia, aligned to our strategy and the needs of patients, practices, hospitals and commissioners.
• Collaborate with clinical leads and stakeholders to understand ambiguous problems and user needs then translate them into elegant software solutions or designs.
• Define and protect the minimum viable product (MVP) for each service and release, being clear about what is in scope, what is not, and why.
• Own and prioritise the Nexia backlog, ensuring priorities, decisions and delivery plans remain transparent and visible to stakeholders.
• Set and track product success measures, such as adoption, time saved, data quality and user satisfaction, and use them to guide priorities.

Delivery & Engineering Partnership

• Act as the accountable product decision-maker for the Nexia delivery team, ensuring priorities are clear, requirements are delivery-ready and completed work meets agreed business and user outcomes.
• Work with our engineering partner’s delivery and technical leads to balance pace with quality, security and long-term maintainability.
• Provide the product view for monthly supplier service reviews and Nexia Programme Board reporting, covering progress, value delivered, risks, issues and dependencies.

Requirements, Discovery & Design

• Lead discovery with clinical directors, clinical governance, operations, finance and practice-facing teams, turning current pathways and pain points into clear requirements.
• Write, and set the standard for, high-quality epics, user stories, process flows and business rules, and guide analysts ensuring clear and effective communication of business needs into deliverable solutions.
• Work with designers to prototype and test early with real users, including optometrists, practice staff, hospital teams and our own colleagues.
• Maintain a clear decision log and product documentation in Confluence so that knowledge is shared across the team.

NHS Integration, Clinical Safety & Compliance

• Lead and own the product side of Nexia’s integrations with national NHS services and third parties, such as PDS, e-RS, NHS CIS2, MESH/Docman, GP Connect and NHS Notify, including onboarding and assurance.
• Work with the Clinical Safety Officer to build clinical risk management (DCB0129 and DCB0160) into the backlog, including hazards, mitigations and safety-related acceptance criteria.
• Work with governance, information governance and cyber security colleagues to ensure Nexia meets DTAC, data protection (including DPIAs) and role-based access requirements.

Testing, Rollout & Continuous Improvement

• Lead the testing, implementation and successful rollout of Nexia, including user acceptance testing, migration, onboarding and go-live readiness.
• Drive continuous improvement through user feedback, service performance measures and ongoing product enhancements.

Line Management & Team Development

• Champion Nexia across the organisation through regular demos and updates that build confidence and buy-in.
• Work closely with the Digital Director, Digital Transformation Lead, Head of Data and Analytics, Clinical Directors, operational teams, the Senior Leadership Team and the Nexia Programme Board.
• Build effective relationships with our engineering partner, NHS England onboarding and assurance teams, partner optical practices, hospital trusts, ICBs, LOCs and other technology suppliers.
• Work with the Data and Analytics team so that Nexia’s data supports reporting, our data warehouse and future analytics.

Collaboration & Key Relationships

• Own the product vision and roadmap for Nexia, aligned to our strategy and the needs of patients, practices, hospitals and commissioners.
• Collaborate with clinical leads and stakeholders to understand ambiguous problems and user needs then translate them into elegant software solutions or designs.
• Define and protect the minimum viable product (MVP) for each service and release, being clear about what is in scope, what is not, and why.
• Own and prioritise the Nexia backlog, ensuring priorities, decisions and delivery plans remain transparent and visible to stakeholders.
• Set and track product success measures, such as adoption, time saved, data quality and user satisfaction, and use them to guide priorities.

The Organisation reserves the right at any time during your employment to vary your duties and responsibilities where necessary to meet the needs of the Organisation.

Person Specification

Criteria

Essential / Desirable

Qualifications

Educated to degree level in a relevant field, or equivalent professional experience E

Recognised product ownership or agile certification (e.g. CSPO, PSPO or SAFe POPM) D

Experience

Proven experience as a Product Owner, or in an equivalent product role, on a complex digital product, ideally a new build or the replacement of a legacy system. E

Experience of working with an external development partner or supplier-delivered agile team, including setting direction, prioritising, accepting work and holding delivery to account constructively. E

A track record of writing high-quality user stories and acceptance criteria, and of defining and delivering an MVP. E

Experience of managing a large backlog across multiple workstreams, integrations and dependencies. E

Experience of line managing and developing people, ideally in a software development or digital delivery team. E

Experience in NHS or healthcare digital, ideally clinical, referral or patient management systems. D

Skills & Qualities

Strong understanding of agile delivery (e.g. Scrum or Kanban), iterative development and incremental release. E

Enough technical understanding of APIs, integrations, cloud and data to challenge engineers, assess options and make trade-offs. E

Excellent stakeholder management, translating confidently between clinicians, operational teams and engineers. E

Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including presenting to senior leaders and boards. E

Curious, decisive and pragmatic: challenges assumptions and is comfortable making and owning decisions with incomplete information. E

Ability to work under pressure and balance competing priorities against tight deadlines. E

Experience of user-centred design and prototyping tools such as Figma. E

Knowledge of NHS national services and standards, such as PDS, e-RS, NHS CIS2, MESH, GP Connect or FHIR APIs. D

Understanding of clinical safety (DCB0129/DCB0160), DTAC and UK GDPR in a health setting. D

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