Detailed job description and main responsibilities
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Leadership and Management
Provides leadership and direction for departmental managers within Research and Innovation, ensuring clear communication of policy, business objectives and agreed targets.
To develop plans to implement the Trust's HR Strategies including the effective attraction, recruitment and retention of staff.
To generate a culture which promotes empowerment and ensures that decision-making is allocated to appropriate levels, allowing staff to feel they make a valuable contribution.
To engender an environment where all staff are constantly seeking to make service improvements and deliver to agreed individual and group targets.
Ensure staff have access to appropriate training, support, and development opportunities.
Foster and role model a culture of collaboration, professionalism, and continuous improvement.
Champion a culture of digital adoption and innovation across the R&I Office, ensuring teams are confident in using new systems and maximising the benefits of technology-enabled working.
To fully encourage and participate in organisational and management development activities designed to enhance R&I Office and individual capacity and capability.
Service Delivery
To participate in the strategic planning process within the R&I Office, R&I Division and our Trust.
To ensure teams within the R&I Office utilise available performance information to facilitate the monitoring of performance and opportunities for improvements, agreeing plans to improve service efficiency and quality, with a specific focus on 150-day national target for Set up of Clinical Trials.
To ensure the service area is kept up to date with legislative and policy changes and developments with specific reference to Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 and Transforming the UK Clinical Research System (DHSC, 2025).
To be responsible for implementing service changes when required, ensuring effective implementation and management of agreed service changes with measurable outcomes and to agreed timescales.
Be part of the Executive Research and Innovation Group (ERIG) and other relevant governance groups within the Research and Innovation Division.
Ensures that regular reports including AAA report for the R&I Office are produced and submitted to ERIG.
Lead the digital transformation journey within R&I Office, embedding EDGE (Local Performance Management System) and an electronic Trial Master File solution. Ensure systems are fully optimised to deliver measurable improvements in trial set-up times and performance monitoring.
Develop and foster a collaborative working relationships with investigators and study teams, problem solving and using influencing skills to negotiate solutions, sometimes in difficult situations.
Be responsible for the maintenance and updating of R&I Office Business Continuity Plan on an annual basis.
Financial Management and Business Planning
Uses and analyses financial information systems to ensure robust systems for financial monitoring, forecasting of clinical trial income, budgetary performance, management of aged debt and appropriate distribution of commercial trial income across the Division.
Using contractually agreed performance indicators, monitor and oversee service provision of our external service providers in the delivery of Clinical Trials.
Takes responsibility for and manages service budgets.
Ensures that services work to achieve organisational effectiveness and deliver services within available resources.
Oversee, in conjunction with the Head of Finance R&I, the relevant external reporting of our financial performance to NIHR Regional Research Delivery Network and National Institute of Health Social Care Research.
Prepares robust business cases to enable services to remain financially stable and responsive to the demands placed upon them. Performs highly detailed and complex option appraisals to inform decision making process, to include redesign of services, capital projects.
In liaison with the Divisional Manager and the R&I Head of Financial Planning contributes to budget setting for all services within area of responsibility.
People Management
Lead, coach and manage the performance in line with good people management practices. Ensuring excellence is recognised and underperformance is addressed
Foster a culture of collaboration and accountability within the team, ensuring high standards of service, responsiveness and advice to internal stakeholders and external collaborators.
Implement Trust strategy and policies for HR management including but not limited to recruitment & selection policy, discipline, grievance, performance appraisals and the adoption of flexible working practices that achieve a fair balance between the preferences of individual members of staff and the needs of the service.
Review skill mix at regular intervals to identify any potential opportunities to maximise resource utilisation / allocation and operational resilience, ensuring job descriptions are kept up to date
Promote the provision of professional development and education and ensure all roles within the R&I Office have access to training and education resources that meet regulatory requirements, skill mix development, career progression and succession planning requirements and are equipped to meet evolving standards/requirements/technology advances
Promote a culture where staff feel empowered to influence, engage and support quality improvement.
Communication
Communicates highly complex and sensitive information on compliance with performance targets, strategic objectives resources, staffing and service related information, with senior managers and directors within Trust and across other external organisations and agencies.
Presents Business cases to committees across the Trust as required as part of the Trust Business Case process.
Negotiates influences, persuades and reconciles conflicting views in a challenging environment in a manner that ensures corporate credibility and fosters effective and lasting relationships with colleagues, staff, patients and other stakeholders.
Develops and implements processes that support good communications within service areas and the division.
Ensures effective communications and engagement with other divisions within Trust, promoting the interests of the Research and Innovation Division using negotiating and influencing skills to ensure that services managed are considered in the planning and development processes of other clinical groups.
Undertakes presentations to staff groups and the public.
Professional Development
Maintaining and developing knowledge of national and local clinical and quality compliance and research governance initiatives.
Participate in the Trust's annual appraisal process and in conjunction with line manager identify and develop objectives.
Ensure annual development plan is met.
Ensure own professional knowledge is regularly updated and keep abreast of relevant developments, making effective use of learning opportunities and actively promoting the workplace as a learning environment.
Actively seek mentorship / supervision / coaching to enable reflection and own personal development within the role.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
* Educated to Masters level (in a relevant discipline) or equivalent level, or equivalent experience of working at a senior level.
* Evidence of continuing professional development.
Desirable criteria
* Post-graduate management, leadership qualification or previous experience.
* Current GCP certification.
Experience
Essential criteria
* Significant experience of working in an NHS/NIHR or equivalent research environment, with a strong track record of improving clinical trial set up performance.
* Experience of leading digital transformation projects to improve operational delivery.
* Experience of managing external stakeholder relationships, including sponsors, CROs and regulatory bodies, to support efficient trial set-up.
* Experience of managing complex services, including exposure to solving a range of operational and strategic problems.
* Proven track record of leadership, managing redesign, organisational change, service activity and service reconfiguration.
* Track record of delivering against set objectives and achieving key organisational targets, demonstrating continuous performance improvement.
* Experience of designing and implementing policy and long term strategic plans.
* Experience of managing large groups of staff and implementing HR strategies and policies.
* Experience of managing budgets and business cases.
Desirable criteria
* Experience of working in a pressurised, unpredictable environment.
* Experience of developing and maintaining effective partnerships with internal and external stakeholders.
Skills
Essential criteria
* Analytical rigour: encourages rigour and provides critical challenge in determining outcomes; Presents data and conclusions in a logical and defensible way; undertakes robust risk and impact management; seeks others' views to test own thinking
* Change Management: Proven change management and project management skills, with the ability to lead service redesign and implement complex programmes at pace.
* Decision making: Sensitive to complex political and organisational issues; weighs up available information and applies sound and timely judgement; considers consequences, impacts and implications; decisive in times of change, challenge and ambiguity.
* Communication: builds rapport through consistent, confident and open communication style; routinely checks for understanding to test receipt of messages; energises, convinces and persuades; encourages honesty of message.
* Relationships: awareness of, and works collaboratively with key decision makers in area of operation; promotes partnership and collaborative working within teams; demonstrates the ability to seek out and harness the views and contributions of others.
* Drive for results: Champions measurable achievement of outcomes; makes best use of diverse talent, capabilities and technologies to achieve optimum results; recognises and recovers under delivery; negotiates the prioritisation of work targets and resources.
* Business thinking: Understands external context at national and local level; translates context and purpose to enable teams to see their contribution; encourages teams to consider innovative approaches and review applicability to working environment
Knowledge
Essential criteria
* Knowledge of national R&D priorities, NIHR and developments including service changes, KPIs and performance management.
* Detailed knowledge of managing performance, capacity, demand and activity.
* Knowledge of project/programme management.
Desirable criteria
* Understanding of digital health and research technology trends, including decentralised trials and real-world evidence approaches.
Values
Essential criteria
* Ability to demonstrate the organisational values and behaviours.
The closing date for this post may be extended if there are insufficient applicants or brought forward if there is a high volume of applicants.
We want to ensure that everyone who works at the Christie or uses our services is welcomed, valued and treated with dignity and respect. The Christie values diversity and is committed to ensuring equal opportunities for all and fair representation across the organisation at all levels. In support of these commitments, we particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and other ethnic minority people and people with disabilities for this post. Appointment will be only on merit.
We are committed to creating a balanced and diverse workforce. As such we welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds. Together we will foster inclusion and tackle inequity and health inequalities in cancer care.
As users of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the vacancy.
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust is committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct and integrity in all our activities. We have a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery in any of its forms, including slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour, and human trafficking. We are fully committed to acting ethically and with transparency in all our business dealings and relationships, and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure modern slavery is not taking place anywhere in our organisation or supply chains.
All positions within the Christie are subject to the receipt of satisfactory written references, medical clearance and evidence of your Right to Work in the UK. Some roles will require a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check. Please note if you are successfully appointed to a post with this Trust, you will be required to pay for your own DBS Disclosure.
By applying for this post you are agreeing to The Christie NHS Foundation Trust transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are offered a job information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system. Please note, all communication regarding your application will be made via email, please ensure you check your junk/spam folders as emails are sometimes filtered there.
If you have not heard from us within four weeks of the closing date, I regret that on this occasion your application will have been unsuccessful.
The Inter-Authority Transfer (IAT) process is a critical and beneficial component of ESR and will form part of the recruitment process. In the event that you are successful following interview your previous NHS employment data, if applicable will be transferred from your current / most recent employer.
Overseas candidates wishing to apply for this position and who would require immigration sponsorship, may wish to self-assess the likelihood of obtaining a Certificate of Sponsorship for the post on the UKVI website.
You should be aware the Trust operates a No Smoking Policy and therefore employees are not permitted to smoke at work.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
Documents to download
* Job Description And Person Specification (PDF, 382.3KB)
* The Christie Values and Behaviours (PDF, 919.5KB)
* Strategy Brochure (PDF, 1.0MB)
* Travel to The Christie (PDF, 3.8MB)
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