Deputy Head of Clinical Scientific Computing

Job summary

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.

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.

About us

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) is one of the most complex NHS trusts in the UK, serving a large and diverse population. We provide academically led acute and specialist services, to people from the local area, from throughout the United Kingdom and overseas. Our vision is to deliver top-quality patient care, excellent education, and world-class research.

Job description

Job responsibilities

For the full Person Specification and more information regarding the main responsibilities of this role, please refer to the attached Job Description.

Your team have significant commitments to support clinical services and systems in Neurophysiology, Womens Health, Radiotherapy, Proton Beam Therapy, Nuclear Medicine and Sterile Services. You will be accountable for the performance of your team and for supporting the Head of CSC in business planning to manage the quality, risks, resources and expectations of the service users.

Person Specification

Knowledge and Qualifications

Essential

• 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

Desirable

• Chartered Engineer or Chartered Scientist
• Registered, or eligible to register, as a Higher Specialist Scientist with the Academy for Healthcare Science

Scientific & Technical

Essential

• 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

Essential

• 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

Essential

• 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.

Desirable

• Knowledge of financial matters relating to service costings and income management, including full costs recovery and rules for VAT charging.

Scientific & Technical

Essential

• 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 with at least one programming language used for research (such as C, C++, Fortran, Javascript, Julia, Python, or R) at a level and breadth commensurate with seniority

Desirable

• Experience of holding grants and supervising research workers.

Managerial experience

Essential

• Significant experience of providing services in a scientific healthcare environment.
• Experience of people management, including staff appraisal.
• Experience of managing resources and project budgets.

Desirable

• 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

Essential

• 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

Desirable

• Ability to manage networks of Unix and Windows server and client computer systems

Communication

Essential

• 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

Essential

• 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

Essential

• 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.

Desirable

• Research / Development Track Record.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the .

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. #J-18808-Ljbffr