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.
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.
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% 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.
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.
Deliver strong professional leadership with the highest level of interpersonal and communication skills, 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.
Provide 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 an inclusion of patients into the Digital strategy, and the inclusion of Digital in 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. Apply this analysis to the development of services at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust. The analysis will be complex and made up of several components. These components may be conflicting, and expert opinion often differs. The post holder will understand which components, and what opinion is relevant to The Christie to achieve best outcomes.
Digital transformation, strategy and policy
Responsible for developing the transformation service for the Trust, ensuring the service delivers value.
Work closely with the Trust to make sure the services we provide meet the needs of the organisation, and to spot any opportunities to develop new services.
Oversee implementation of new digital solutions, including testing and evaluation.
Responsible for ensuring digital tools are clinically relevant, safe, and user-centered.
Responsible for developing high customer satisfaction and developing a professional facing digital service.
Be responsible for developing and/or implementing policies for 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/ 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, working alongside all departments, Trust wide to progress and improve through service reviews and wider engagement sessions.
Clinical Safety and Governance
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 EPR and health IT systems design and implementation, evaluation and options from the nursing practice perspective.
Responsible and accountable for the advancement of technically enabled solutions to support nursing practice.
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: its Application in the Manufacture of Health IT Systems 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 there is a proactive and comprehensive approach to risk management and be responsible for service continuity for own area and participate 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.
Education and Research
Responsible for ensuring 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.
People Management
Ensure the management of all staff in accordance with Christie policies, values and behaviours, including Maintaining High Professional Standards.
Demonstrates the agreed set of values and 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 revalidations requirements and work within their scope of practice.
Lead on and manage professional conduct and capability issues, with support from HR colleagues as well as 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.
Financial Management
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 process, to include redesign of services, capital projects.
Lead Trust-wide business appraisals and business case production when required in partnership with Trust stake holders.
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 the development and assessment of procurement documentation as required.
Ensure Trust Standing Financial Instructions (SFIs) and procurement guidelines are followed and adhered to.
