Head of Application Development

Job description

Job responsibilities

• Delivering complex developments for the organisation in a timely fashion through effectively communicated and agreed prioritisation processes. Dependent on a robust understanding of specialist technical systems/technologies and programming languages, accountable for the strategic direction of all technical development approaches as the most senior technical expert within the organisation.
• Effective management of specialist technical development teams to deliver the organisations clinical, social care and bespoke system requirements.
• Responsible for our integration roadmap, ensuring that systems are integration accordingly and safely in line with NHS national strategy and local digital strategy.
• Ensures systems are secure, adhering to OWASP top 10 guidelines and undertaking regular security scans against our applications.
• Maintain audit of security and safety, for example Clinical Safety Cases per system and security scans per system.
• Responsible for detailing all data flows and integrations across the Trust for systems that the function is responsible for
• Lead on reducing burden to staff through Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
• Adopt and lead on low code technologies and opportunities to deliver value and quick as possible to those that need it, utilising Power Automate and Power Apps.
• Own infrastructure setup and migrations, accordingly, ensuring our systems are robust and secure.
• Responsible for pro-active monitoring and alerting for infrastructure and applications, for example server resource usage and scheduled tasks that may fail to run.
• Implementation and local interpretation and development of national policy, in line with organisational requirements to support clinical, social care and bespoke systems development practices.
• Provide specialist technical advice/guidance to members of the team and other areas across the entirety of MPFT/external suppliers, communicating complex technical solutions and updates effectively (verbally and written), tailored appropriately depending on the seniority and technical understanding of the audience.
• Leads and develops the design and the development of the Trusts information management infrastructure and reporting frameworks support the strategic and operational requirements of the Trust, in-line with National strategy and mandated policy requirements. Achieved through a robust research and development methodology and systemic leadership networking with strategic NHS leaders and private sector leadership.
• Ensure that all IT developments are visible in terms of resource allocation, work items, backlog, prioritisation, cost and time and appropriately managed through appropriate change control systems (e.g., LogIT/SMT) to effectively manage capacity and demand across the functions with respect to the ongoing MPFT DIGITAL Transformation priorities and delivery plans captured and managed through PMO.
• Leads and ultimately responsible for the establishment and effective running of the organisations Technical Review Group, ensuring that the strategy and approach to all application developments, clinical system developments and supporting technologies are agreed and adopted consistently across all MPFT Digitals services and the wider organisation.
• Leads the development of a data quality culture in the organisation by highlighting data issues across our EPRs in collaboration with the Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse teams, working to develop solutions (e.g., mandatory fields within the EPR) and ensuring routine audit / validation of all data.
• Manages and ensures the routine production and integration of systems data between corporate and clinical systems, working closely with local providers to establish new data flows.
• Leads the development and provision of the Trusts bespoke data systems using specialist knowledge and experience of statistical techniques and procedures and information technology solutions (e.g., SQL), working and managing relationships with senior stakeholders and IT providers where appropriate.
• Ensuring that clear process and guidelines are in place for all aspects of their area of responsibility, including development guidelines, release processes, development processes.
• Provide and receive highly complex, sensitive and contentious information to a large group of staff /wide range of stakeholders, clearly conveying statistical concepts and courses of action in a formal setting.
• Identifying and implementing improvements to complex software systems and processes within the functions managed.
• Develop and maintain disaster recovery and business continuity processes for all systems utilised within the functions managed to ensure that all internal and external reporting requirements, development outputs and clinical systems development requirements are met accurately and within the required timescales.
• Engage and contribute to the development of clinical SOPs ensuring MPFT Digitals needs (such as contractual / reporting / NHS Data Dictionary) are taken into consideration and represented.
• Have a creative approach to problem-solving especially in the areas of systems development, integration, data development and resource management.
• To ensure that the analysis/understanding of customer and business requirements is carried out to the highest professional standards and that the most appropriate development solutions and client care programmes are designed, agreed with internal customers, implemented to plan and then supported.
• Specialist technical responsibility for liaising with senior managers and their teams, analysing and interpreting their business requirements and developing and executing software engineering plans that enable the creation of applications that meet their needs.
• Planning and providing long term effective and ongoing business analysis of organisational, team and individual needs and producing appropriate application solutions to meet these requirements.
• Long term planning for the implementation and delivery of IT systems/sub-systems required to support MPFT to agreed standards and complying with all necessary security protocols.
• Managing specialist services in the planning, development and quality control of new software solutions for MPFT, including all in-house development.
• Specialist technical input into the procurement of IT applications; selecting, liaising and negotiating with suppliers as required and ensuring value for money under the IT Strategy based on a sound understanding of costs, quality, timescales and the robustness of systems.
• Able to concentrate during unpredictable and highly pressured situations and over long periods, especially when addressing complex technical IT problems and service issues.
• Adopt a specialist analytical approach to IT problems and conduct and lead root cause analysis in situations where the immediate cause of issues may be very difficult to ascertain.
• Able to maintain an effective overview and spot/manage technical risks and potential problems before they become issues.
• Analyse and decide on the correct course of action when faced with complex and many-faceted technical issues with significant interdependencies.
• Responsibility for continuous improvement of the IT Development Teams processes and service and ensuring the visibility of this improvement.
• Development and implementation of appropriate operational processes and procedures to ensure that all IT applications and software developments across the organisation are managed in a co-ordinated manner.
• Planning and managing the development of technical and staff resources to maximize the skills and technologies held within the IT Team.
• Line management responsibility for teams within the function.
• Managing recruitment and retention of development team, sickness absence, staffing issues, equipment provision and alerts, environmental issues, compliments and complaints.
• Responsibility for all aspects of performance management within their team.
• Supports the quality assurance demands of the business area both internally and externally
• Provides focussed knowledge transfer in service change methods as part of project work to a variety of stakeholders
• Responsibility for development and implementation of policy within the function to support consistent practices across the team.
• Budget holder for pay and non-pay budgets of the Application Development

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Master's Degree education/equivalent wide-ranging experience.
• Management/leadership qualification or equivalent experience.
• Project Management qualification or experience.

Experience

Essential

• Evidence of successful professional leadership within the NHS.
• Evidence of analysis of stakeholder needs, conceptualised into projects designed to achieve real impact at local, regional or national level.
• Evidence of operating independently to manage services and developing strategies and policies for effective delivery.
• Experience of manage technical teams following Agile frameworks
• Experience of managing technical infrastructures to ensure service delivery
• Experience of integrating large and complex systems

Skills

Essential

• Understanding of NHS and social care agenda.
• Experience of translating vision into planning strategies and measurable outcomes.
• Evidence of delivering innovative solutions and thinking 'outside the box'.
• Evidence of understanding of the wider political context - Department of Health/Government initiatives and regulatory requirements, e.g., CQC Key Lines of Enquiry, five years forward view.
• Ability to work autonomously, representing MPFT DIGITAL views across the Trust through different structures, and at regional and national level.
• Proven analytical skills, strategically and operationally, to be applied in highly complex situations.
• Demonstrate the skills required for effective multi professional/team working and collaboration.
• Experience in integration technologies
• Experience in making sure systems are secure, i.e., OWASP top 10
• Experienced in technical infrastructure build, monitoring and maintenance

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 UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

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. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

Employer details

Employer name

Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Mellor House

St Georges

Stafford

ST16 3SR

Employer's website

https://www.mpft.nhs.uk (Opens in a new tab)