Scientist

Location - Hybrid role based at our Scientific site in Colindale

Salary - Civil Service HEO Grade - £37,749 - £45,353 per annum, pro-rata

Job overview

As a Scientist you will be part of a dynamic team responsible for delivering the development, management and coordination of surveillance systems of communicable diseases, focusing on hepatitis and HTLV. The post holder will:

• Support the data collection and validation, and production of routine surveillance intelligence in these areas.
• Maintain and develop hepatitis and HTLV surveillance systems, working closely with a wide variety of professionals both within and outside UKHSA to ensure high quality data.
• Oversee the co-ordination of requests for data associated with hepatitis, the production of regular and ad hoc outputs from these systems for inclusion in routine national and international reports and information requests from external stakeholders.
• Liaise with stakeholders within the organisation and outside to lead on the mandatory reporting, quality assurance and standard processes.
• Have strong data management skills, ideally with experience in surveillance data.
• Have excellent interpersonal skills and an ability to work effectively both autonomously and within a team.

Main duties of the job

• Develop, maintain and document (standard operational procedures) the surveillance systems.
• Planning, organising and delivering on a range of data requests requiring analytic input, including negotiating and agreeing the most appropriate data output, initiating and planning workloads and setting delivery timescales.
• Support senior staff in the management and continued development of surveillance databases.
• Support senior staff in the management of outbreak investigations, liaising with internal and external stakeholders.
• Perform all work in cognisance of data protection requirements and the need to maintain confidentiality and security of surveillance information.
• Understanding which are the key local and national stakeholders with an interest in hepatitis or HTLV data both within and outside UKHSA.
• Attending meetings with key local stakeholders, representing the hepatitis team and BSHSH department at events.
• Communicate effectively specialist information with colleagues.
• Using a variety of methods including written briefings and oral presentations to communicate the implication of public health analytical outputs for action to improve local population health to internal and external stakeholders from a range of backgrounds.
• Working collaboratively as part of the analytical capacity.
• Assisting colleagues in the delivery of the analytical work programme and with colleagues in other analytical teams in UKHSA as required.

Blood Safety, Hepatitis, STI & HIV Division

The Blood Safety, Hepatitis, STI and HIV (BSHSH) Division is the national centre for surveillance of hepatitis, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in England. It is within the Public Health Programmes (PHP) Directorate of the Chief Medical Advisor Group and is based mainly in Colindale, north London. The Division consists of around 100 permanent and project‑funded medical, scientific, technical and administrative staff including epidemiologists, public health specialists, microbiologists, virologists, data managers and statisticians. The Division works closely with other Divisions, particularly Immunisation and Vaccine‑Preventable Diseases, Health Equity, Healthcare Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance and Reference and Specialist Microbiology Services and with the Analytics and Data Sciences Directorate and Health Protection Operations. The Division also works in partnership with both national and regional teams in the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), NHS England and NHS Improvement and NHSBT. The Division is also closely involved with the work of the NIHR‑funded Health Protection Research Units, which are collaborative ventures involving UKHSA and academia.

Qualifications

• Educated to degree level in a Public Health related subject or equivalent level of experience in health data analysis and/or working in a public health agency/setting.
• Data management, analysis and reporting as well as significant experience of working with multiple sets of data and information systems in health or related organisations.
• Knowledge of data security and confidentiality issues.
• Work on several separate tasks at the same time, whilst keeping to agreed deadlines; identify and solve day‑to‑day practical problems.
• Analysing, summarising and interpreting complex epidemiological data, and resolving problems.
• Ability to work independently and take responsibility for own technical work and time and to work as an effective team member.
• Communicate ideas and methods clearly and succinctly to include excellent oral and written communication skills.
• An understanding of and commitment to equality of opportunity and good working relationships.
• Experience of working as part of an outbreak investigation.
• Experience of scripting and applied use of statistical computing environments such as R, SAS, STATA, SPSS, Mathematical or equivalent.