Chief Clinical Information Officer (Nursing and AHP)
The ambition of the Christie for excellence must be met by our leaders with the same ambition. Now more than ever, our technology will serve to push forward excellence in ways we have not experienced previously. Clinical leadership in the digital domain for healthcare and research is a rapidly evolving field that presents opportunity, all of which needs to be guided as part of a dedicated multidisciplinary team.
The Chief Clinical Information Officer provides strategic leadership at the interface of clinical practice and digital transformation, ensuring that digital systems support safe, effective, and high‑quality patient care.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will lead the clinical design, implementation, optimisation, and evaluation of digital systems, ensuring alignment with organisational priorities, national policy, and patient safety standards.
This is a highly visible senior leadership role, positioned within the Digital Services senior team and the nursing leadership structure. The post holder will provide strategic oversight of a clinical digital transformation team, including digital nurses, and work collaboratively across clinical, operational, and digital teams to ensure that systems and services are safe, high quality, and fit for purpose, ultimately supporting improved patient outcomes and clinical practice.
About us
The Christie is one of Europe’s leading cancer centres, treating over 60,000 patients a year. We are based in Manchester and serve a population of 3.2 million across Greater Manchester & Cheshire, but as a national specialist around 15 % of patients are referred to us from other parts of the country. We provide radiotherapy through one of the largest radiotherapy departments in the world; chemotherapy on site and through 14 other hospitals; highly specialist surgery for complex and rare cancer; and a wide range of support and diagnostic services. We are also an international leader in research, with world‑first breakthroughs for over 100 years. We run one of the largest early clinical trial units in Europe with over 300 trials every year. Cancer research in Manchester, most of which is undertaken on the Christie site, has been officially ranked the best in the UK.
Job responsibilities
Strategic Leadership – To be a highly visible leader, ensuring that The Christie values and behaviours are met, whilst ensuring that professional standards are maintained and opportunities for improvement are identified.
Strong professional leadership – Using a positive, strong influencing and coaching style to enable and empower staff to develop best practice in the delivery of high quality patient care.
Senior clinical leadership for digital transformation programmes.
Support delivery of the Trust’s Digital Strategy.
Act as a clinical advocate for digital innovation and change.
Responsible for the development and integration of patients into the Digital strategy, and for incorporating Digital into patient‑facing strategies.
Act as an ambassador for Digital Services by developing and maintaining excellent working relationships with users across the organisation to deliver a high‑quality, customer‑first culture.
Establish links with external agencies that will ensure the continued development of new ways of working and collaboration on key tasks within the health economy.
Undertake analysis of the digital clinical landscape, at a national, regional, and local level, applying this analysis to the development of services at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust.
Responsible for developing the transformation service for the Trust, ensuring the service delivers value, and for overseeing implementation of new digital solutions, including testing and evaluation.
Ensure digital tools are clinically relevant, safe, and user‑centred.
Develop high customer satisfaction and a professional‑facing digital service.
Be responsible for developing and/or implementing policies for the own work area and for proposing changes to policies, in line with legislation, Trust and NHS policies and guidelines across the Trust.
Advise the Chief Nurse on implications of national and local system‑wide policy and strategy development from a clinical digital perspective through completion of Trust Board level reports and presentations at meetings.
Support the development of dashboards, reporting tools and outcome measures; establish KPIs and work with all departments, Trust‑wide, to progress and improve through service reviews and wider engagement sessions.
In partnership with the Medical Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO) take accountability for aspects of technical solutions to support patient safety and quality across all divisions.
Guide Electronic Patient Record (EPR) and health IT systems design and implementation, evaluation and options from the nursing practice perspective.
Promote safe documentation, decision support, and risk management. Proactively manage key digital clinical risks and ensure that appropriate actions are taken to mitigate or respond to risks.
Support incident reviews where digital systems are a factor.
Ensure that all technical solutions meet regulatory requirements and clinical safety standards (e.g. ISB 0129 Clinical Risk Management … and ISB 0160 Clinical Risk Management: its Application in the Deployment and Use of Health IT Systems).
Lead on audit, quality assurance, and continuous improvement of digital practice.
Ensure a proactive and comprehensive approach to risk management and be responsible for service continuity for the own area, participating in the Digital service continuity planning.
Serve as an expert to communicate nursing and health‑care trends and issues at the local, regional and/or national level.
Educate IT colleagues on healthcare operations and clinical processes to ensure that safe, patient‑centric and user‑friendly systems are designed.
Ensure that the nursing/AHP workforce within Digital Services is adequately trained, skills are maintained whilst developing a culture that values continuing professional development.
Provide mentorship/clinical supervision/coaching to colleagues (nursing/AHP) to enable their professional development.
Support the development of training programmes and clinical documentation for digital systems.
Ensure adequate support during implementation and optimisation of new digital solutions.
Celebrate good practice and seek opportunities to endorse best practice through conferences, presentations and peer review.
Ensure the management of all staff in accordance with Christie policies, values and behaviours, including maintaining high professional standards.
Demonstrate the agreed set of values and be accountable for own attitude and behaviour; act as a role model for standards of behaviour and professionalism.
Provide appropriate line management and ensure all nursing and AHP staff across digital services undertake an annual PDR with set objectives and complete the required mandatory and statutory training programmes.
Ensure all nurses/AHPs within digital services meet revalidation requirements and work within their scope of practice.
Lead on and manage professional conduct and capability issues, with support from HR colleagues and statutory requirements, related to nursing/AHP staff.
Provide professional and managerial support to senior nurses/AHPs within digital services in regard to disciplinary matters.
Ensure that the service adopts flexible working practices that meet the Working Time Directive and achieve a fair balance between the preferences of individual members of staff, the needs of the service, and the preferences of the whole staff group.
Ensure that there are effective systems and processes in place for the management of absence and annual leave.
Ensure effective financial management of the service budget and delivery of efficiency improvement aligned to the Value Improvement Plan; advise on the quality and safety impact of cost improvement initiatives.
Responsible for ensuring nursing and AHP staff across Digital Services understand the need for rigorous budgetary control and are equipped with the relevant skills to manage budgets effectively.
Perform highly detailed and complex option appraisals in order to inform decision‑making processes, including redesign of services and capital projects.
Lead Trust‑wide business appraisals and business case production when required in partnership with Trust stakeholders.
Ensure Trust procurement processes and procedures are followed in a timely and efficient manner and participate in the procurement process where relevant, providing assistance for development and assessment of procurement documentation as required.
Ensure Trust Standing Financial Instructions (SFIs) and procurement guidelines are followed and adhered to.
Person Specification
Qualifications
- Registered as a clinical professional with the NMC, HCPC, or equivalent professional registration body
- Educated to Master’s level or equivalent training and experience
- Digital Clinical Safety Officer training or demonstrable equivalent
- Post‑graduate qualification in leadership and/or management
- Member of a national Digital Health Advisory Panel
Experience
- Demonstrable experience of Senior Management within the healthcare setting
- Demonstrable experience of leading and managing trust‑wide projects at a senior/strategic level
- Experience of leading a team and delivering excellence through others
- Proven achievement in developing policy and service objectives, establishing and implementing innovative solutions
- Ability to ensure a balance between empowering others to act and holding to account in order to achieve agreed targets and objectives
- Experience of developing and implementing quality assurance processes and systems
- Experience in leading service development, and the management of change
- Experience of policy development and implementation
- Significant experience and understanding of the value that digital technology and information brings to improving quality of care, outcomes, and efficiency
- Experience of ensuring that patients, staff and the public are engaged as an integral part of transformation programmes and that safety and experience are considered at every stage
- Experience of creating diverse and inclusive teams that are motivated and inspired to work together to achieve a common objective
- Experience in management position at directorate level and above
Skills
- Excellent communication skills including the ability to articulate clinical issues to technical colleagues and conversely technical aspects to non‑technical colleague
- Advanced interpersonal skills, able to influence and negotiate with colleagues on all levels (internally and externally), including senior and frontline clinical staff
- Highly developed programme and project management skills
- Evidence of managing conflict and deploying successful conflict resolution strategies
- Ability to deliver complex presentations to a multi‑professional audience
- Evidence of effective people management and leadership skills
- Demonstrates high degree of autonomy and complex decision making
- Works across boundaries, looks for collective success, listens, involves, respects and learns from the contribution of others
- Demonstratable IT skills in being able to find, manage, store and share digital information, data and content. Competent in Microsoft Office programmes
Knowledge
- An understanding of the Digital Strategy of the NHS and its implications
- Demonstrates breadth and depth of understanding of current NHS landscape and policy and ability to interpret and implement in clinical practice
Values
- Demonstrates flexibility in working hours
- Able to work under pressure and to tight deadlines, to cope with demanding and unpredictable work pattern
- Enthusiasm and inspirational skills
- Commitment to equality, diversity and human rights
- Appreciation of and astuteness in political issues
- Highly developed interpersonal skills
- Team leader/player
Other
- Requirement for occasional travel to external meetings and events
- Ability to work out‑of‑hours, weekend and public holidays if required by exception
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.
Salary
£79,504 to £91,609 a year (Pro Rata Per Annum)
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