Head of Information Technology

Job description

Job responsibilities

Job Purpose

The Head of Information Technology (HoIT) is an established senior position within Devon Partnership NHS Trusts (DPT) Digital, Data and Technology Department (DDaT). The post holder will have direct responsibility for the development and delivery of IT products and services to support Trust strategic aims and operational needs, as described in the Digital Strategy and enabling plans.

The post holder will be the Service Owner of outsourced IT Managed Services, responsible for the continued performance, service improvement, development and delivery of commissioned services in partnership with IT Managed Service Senior Leadership Team members.

The post holder will lead a team of IT professionals within DPT and act in partnership with all staff within the IT Managed Service, and Senior Technical Leaders across Devon ICS, Livewell South West and Devon ICB.

Responsible for the following areas:

• Manage the development and ongoing provision of effective and responsive IT service and infrastructure to support operational and strategic requirements of the Trust;
• Manage a range of IT projects to support the delivery of the trust's digital strategy and new service developments;
• Manage IT resources including technical systems and infrastructure, IT staff and capital and revenue budgets;
• Managed the provision of a 2nd Line clinical application service desk which conforms to industry best practice (such as the ITIL service management methodology) and ensure that it achieves national accreditation.

The postholder will be responsible for the continuous identification assessment and implementation of service improvement in order to establish an integrated efficient cost effective and customer-oriented IT service.

Post holder will lead the IT services team as well as having responsibility for the management of third party contracts for the provision of a range of services.

Work closely with managers and service users across the Trust to ensure that the IT support requirements are identified and met in line with the trust's ongoing operational and evolving transformation agenda.

Lead the production of business cases to support strategic investment in IT solutions which support the delivery of operational and strategic requirements of the Trust.

Lead the development monitoring and reporting of effective service level agreements and associated key performance indicators for IT services.

Person Specification

Knowledge

• Advanced knowledge of NHS reporting, structures, content and data standards.
• In depth knowledge of it hardware and software in a support context.
• In depth knowledge of the latest technical and service innovations, and how they can support improvements in healthcare delivery.
• Thorough knowledge of structured IT service management methodology (such as ITIL).
• Thorough working knowledge of relevant legislation EG Data Protection Act, freedom of information act and guidance such as the data security protection toolkit and cyber assurance framework.
• Knowledge of best practise relationship management and contract negotiation.
• Experience of using statistical methods and tools to present complex data

• In depth knowledge of the use and management of clinical information systems, authentication patterns and methods, application change control, agile or scrum development techniques, Messaging approaches, common interfacing approaches, and software and hardware testing approaches.
• Registration Authority Manager or management of a Registration Authority function.

Qualifications

• Masters Degree or equivalent qualifications and experience
• Proven track record of delivering high quality projects across the service area
• Evidence of continuing professional development in a specialist area or general management.
• ITILv3 practitioner certificate

• Prince 2 Practitioner (or equivalent)
• Managing Successful Programmes Practitioner (or equivalent)

Planning and Organisational Skills

• Formulate short, medium and long term strategic plans that may impact on the whole organisation
• Excellent organisational skills with ability to prioritise own workload and that of others to deliver against deadlines

Experience

• Experience at a senior level within a digital, informatics, or Information technology department or business.
• Experience of success will be demonstrable in the following areas:
• Experience of delivering complex change and service transformation in a large organisation
• Extensive experience of managing complex IT infrastructure over multiple sites
• Working at the senior management level for at least five years, in a complex environment bringing about significant change in line with the agreed strategic and operational objectives
• Working with desperate clinical and operational stakeholders and a track record of their successful engagement in projects and programmes of work
• Ensuring that the Trust develops IT systems with the technical infrastructure which complies with established best practise, including system security, confidentiality, data protection and disaster recovery;
• Evidence of commitment to delivering high quality to customers;
• Deploying appropriate technology to achieve agreed quality and safety metrics with efficiency and productivity savings;
• Ensuring that the clinical and information systems are aligned to generate robust data that makes a full contribution to the Trusts business i.e.:
• - Improve the patient experience
• - Report activity against contract
• - Improve quality and outcomes of care
• - Reduce clinical risk
• - Supporting service improvement
• Resolving complex information issues and communicating these to staff at all levels
• Implementation of best practise in IT service management and project management
• Budgetary management to include management of capital and revenue expenditure in line with Trust requirements
• Experience of the use of its security frameworks at both strategic design and practical implementation level
• Experience of holding revenue and capital budgets and successful delivery of cost improvements
• Leading and developing a strong IT team that is flexible and customer focused
• Experience of working in mental health and learning disability services.
• Experience of handling demanding customers and working with them to achieve effective issue resolution.

Communication and Working Relationship Skills

• Strong oral and written communication skills
• Credibility at senior management level and with all staff the ability to communicate complex ideas and information to audiences with differing levels of understanding
• Ability to communicate effectively with a multidisciplinary audience often in a clinical setting
• Skilled in the development of trusted stakeholder relationships
• Effective leadership, the ability to manage teams effectively

• Able to coordinate incident responses during working hours and out of hours.
• The ability to provide clear and succinct situation reports, updates, root cause analysis, remediation plans, and incident closure reports, to a diverse audience.

Analytical and Judgemental Skills

• Good analytical skills, the ability to learn quickly, to synthesise diverse information, and to make decisions from a range of options
• A strategic thinker who adopts a whole system perspective with an ability to help redesign processes and deliver ongoing service improvements

• Knowledge and experience of using statistical process control graphs to present data
• Advanced modelling skills
• Process mapping, total quality management documentation, or other graphical notation to assist the analysis of a service, process, or problem.

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.

Employer details

Employer name

Devon Partnership NHS Trust

Address

Wonford House

Dryden Road

Exeter

Devon

EX2 5AF

https://www.dpt.nhs.uk/