Deputy Head of Clinical Scientific Computing

Deputy Head of Clinical Scientific Computing

NHS AfC: Band 8c

Main area: Medical Physics Computing

Grade: NHS AfC: Band 8c

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Full time – 37.5 sessions per week

Job ref: 309-UCLH-5923

Site: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing, University College London Hospital

Town: London

Salary: £82,462 – £93,773 Per annum inclusive of HCAS

Salary period: Yearly

Closing: 11/03/2025 23:59

The use of AI is monitored and if applicants have used it, then they are required to declare this in their supporting statement.

Job overview

UCLH is a leading healthcare provider committed to delivering world-class patient care, research, and education. We are seeking a highly skilled, experienced and motivated scientist to support the Head of Clinical Scientific Computing in leading, managing and developing our Clinical Scientific Computing Team within the Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering at UCLH.

This role presents a fantastic opportunity which comes at an exciting time, as we have just completed an extensive engagement exercise with stakeholders across our clinical services, our existing team, advocates of change within the UCLH Digital Innovation Hub, the UCL Advanced Computing Centre and with the visionary research leaders within UCLH.

As the Deputy Head of Clinical Scientific Computing, you will bring energy and passion as you provide leadership and management to the Clinical Scientific Computing Section. You will be the programme lead for projects involving programming and data science and will also oversee the delivery of essential clinical scientific computing support, drive innovation, and collaborate with key stakeholders to advance the Trust’s digital healthcare initiatives. You will be the Training Officer responsible for the accreditation and delivery of the Scientist Training Programme in Clinical Scientific Computing.

Main duties of the job

You will have a strong academic background, significant experience in clinical scientific computing, including healthcare IT systems, software development, and data science, proven leadership and management skills, a strong understanding of healthcare regulations and standards, excellent communication and interpersonal skills and the ability to collaborate effectively with diverse teams.

You will work closely with the Head of Clinical Scientific Computing, the Systems and Infrastructure Lead and with senior leaders of clinical, research and digital services across the Trust, developing strong and productive working relationships focused on delivering and implementing strategic plans that align with the Trust’s vision for digital technology. You will manage a team of clinical scientists and trainees, supporting them to balance priorities between systems support, innovation and development.

You will benefit from an associate position within University College London’s Advanced Research Computing Centre, one of the UK’s leading research and service institutes for computational science and digital scholarship. There, you will join a 100-strong community of research technology professionals – data stewards, data scientists, and infrastructure and software engineers, benefitting from collaboration, mentorship and peer-support.

Person specification

Knowledge and Qualifications

• 1st or 2nd class honours degree in computer science, a physical science, engineering, or equivalent
• Relevant PhD or equivalent (MSc / MEng with additional specialist training or research experience)
• State Registration as a Clinical Scientist / able to register within 3 years of appointment.
• Corporate Membership of relevant professional institutes (eg IPEM, IET)
• Evidence of training and development in Leadership & Management
• Chartered Engineer or Chartered Scientist
• Registered, or eligible to register, as a Higher Specialist Scientist with the Academy for Healthcare Science

Scientific & Technical

• Advanced knowledge across the full range of working procedures and practices in clinical scientific computing including relevant legislation, national and international standards, NHS policy, and professional and other guidelines.
• Expert knowledge of software engineering best practices (including issue tracking, testing, documentation, version control and continuous integration) that enable the delivery of reliable, sustainable and trustworthy outputs
• Expert knowledge of statistics and mathematics applied to acquiring reliable insight from data.
• Advanced knowledge of computer hardware and software at both operating system and application level and also of medical device IT systems.
• Broad knowledge of architecture, configuration, security and performance management of networks using TCP/IP protocols
• Broad knowledge of security issues associated with computer systems within the Trust, NHS and health sector, and the measures required to address these.
• Broad knowledge of data management, including storage, archive, backup and data publication technologies
• Broad knowledge of medical devices and of other areas of medical physics and clinical engineering practice and procedure.

Clinical Knowledge

• Knowledge of clinical practice and the implications for clinical scientific computing.
• Basic knowledge of relevant anatomy, physiology and pathology.
• Advanced understanding of the potential risks to patients, staff and organisations arising from system failure, human error and clinical scientific computing practice
• Advanced knowledge and understanding of quality and risk management as they apply to clinical scientific computing.

Managerial

• Knowledge of good people management practice including recruitment, performance and disciplinary policy.
• Understanding of quality and performance management and their application to a clinical scientific computing service.
• Knowledge of financial matters relating to service costings and income management, including full costs recovery and rules for VAT charging.

Scientific & Technical

• Significant experience of a scientific healthcare environment
• Experience of managing computer operating systems especially Unix and Windows
• Experience of a wide variety of computing systems and application packages
• Experience of managing IT systems in a clinical environment
• Experience of managing high value, high profile, IT projects
• Experience with the core tools of data science and analytics, in a programmatic framework such as R, Python, or Julia
• Experience with at least one specialist technique or tool in data analytics, such as natural language processing, neural networks, Bayesian inference, Gaussian processes.
• Experience with the authorship, development, testing and maintenance of software for clinical research & development.
• Experience of programming both applications and systems
• Experience in the supervision of research and development work.
• Experience of holding grants and supervising research workers.

Managerial experience

• Significant experience of providing services in a scientific healthcare environment.
• Experience of people management, including staff appraisal.
• Experience of managing resources and project budgets.
• Experience of identifying service development opportunities and progressing business plans.
• Experience of involvement in national committees relating to science in healthcare.

Scientific & Clinical – Skills and abilities

• Ability to apply knowledge and experience in making judgements regarding the safe and optimal configuration and use of medical IT systems, involving objective assessment of benefits and risks associated with the available options.
• Ability to perform options appraisals in highly complex situations based on highly complex information and judgements.
• Ability to provide highly specialised advice on the use of medical IT systems for patient diagnosis, management and treatment, for routine care and when planning and implementing a research programme.
• Ability to write complex programs in a variety of high level languages such as C++ and VB
• Ability to develop and support complex database applications using SQL server
• Ability to manage networks of Unix and Windows server and client computer systems

Communication

• Able to produce clear and unambiguous written reports, guidance, policies, procedures and business cases which can be understood by staff and stakeholders from a variety of professions.
• Able to communicate risk associated with cyber security and data management in a clear manner to persons with no specialist knowledge, including clinicians, managers and external stakeholders.
• Able to communicate highly complex information at postgraduate level to other professional groups.
• Able to present scientific papers at national and international conferences.
• Able to train groups of other professional staff.
• Able to deliver teaching and training on complex subjects.
• Ability to present information effectively to senior clinicians and Trust managers.
• Ability to chair meetings effectively.
• Able to deal with complex and unpredictable situations.
• Ability to negotiate solutions to problems where conflicting views exist.

Managerial Skills and Abilities

• Ability to manage and develop staff effectively and sympathetically, to lead a multi-disciplinary team and to prioritise the workload of others.
• Able to motivate staff and inspire confidence.
• Able to manage change and introduce new technologies and working practices.
• Able to implement policies and procedures in own work and to advise on policy and procedure review, development and implementation in services provided by others
• Able to assess impact of policy / procedure changes on safety and service provision.
• Ability to take and articulate a strategic view of the programme of work on data science and programming.

Specific Personal Qualities

• Able to exercise initiative to solve highly complex problems independently and with confidence when dealing with issues within own specialist area of competence.
• Able to prioritise and manage own time and workload under pressure.
• Ability to work as part of a team.
• Able to understand contracts and produce agreements to provide services.
• Great attention to detail.
• Commitment to develop and communicate the contribution of clinical scientific computing to healthcare and a vision of how to further realise benefits in this field.
• Ability to use computer software at an advanced level to gather, organise and process information.
• Record of presenting work at scientific meetings.
• Research / Development Track Record.

At UCLH, we have a real ‘One Team’ ethos, and our values – safety, kindness, teamwork and improving, are central to the way we work. This is supported by our staff, who voted us as the #1 NHS Acute Trust to work for in the whole of England.

At UCLH we take equality of opportunity seriously and are committed to being a diverse and inclusive employer, with a culture that creates a real sense of belonging and trust. It is our fundamental aim, to recruit, retain and promote a diverse mix of people who are representative of our local communities. Applications are encouraged from candidates of all backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives to support our world-class research, innovation and creativity.

UCLH recognises the benefits of flexible working for staff and has a dedicated policy which allows staff to apply for flexible working right from the beginning of employment.

This vacancy may close before the current listed closing date. You are advised not to delay submitting your completed application.

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