Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

Pathology IT systems Manager

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Job summary

Pathology serves Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust, GPs in Worcestershire, Health and Care Trust as well as private health care providers. High quality IT provision is essential to the safe and efficient provision of the Pathology service. The role of Pathology IT Systems Manager is pivotal to how this high quality IT provision is delivered. This individual will be responsible for managing IT Systems within Pathology across all sites, including development and installation of new and existing systems. Providing support and training for systems managed by Pathology and ensuring the provision of pathology requests is sustained, including first line maintenance/trouble shooting of the Pathology Laboratory Information Management system. Being a key point of contact between Pathology, the Trust and stakeholders to manage and deliver projects, as well as business as usual processes. As part of the role there will be management of information flow and statistical data gathers to assist business intelligence within the Directorate. The role will also include staff management of the Pathology IT team and attendance at key meetings to report directly on operational developments.

Main duties of the job

The post holder is responsible for co-ordinating and managing all aspects of IT within Pathology at WAHT. This includes the development, installation and support of new and existing systems, providing training and documentation, and a point of contact between the Trust, Suppliers and Stakeholders.

The post holder is responsible for ensuring the provision of electronic requesting and reporting for pathology tests, this includes 24/7 first line maintenance of the Pathology Laboratory Information system.

The post holder will provide professional leadership for Pathology IT services, and will provide specialist and expert IT advice to Pathology stakeholders and users.

The post holder will manage the process of statistical data gathers, to provide and maintain automated billing data for Finance and Information departments.

The post holder will work with Trust IT Services and Pathology staff to ensure Trust guidelines and policies are followed.

The post holder is responsible for facilitating the service continuity of Pathology IT services and be responsible for the resolution of unprecedented technical issues involving centralised Pathology IT systems

The post holder will be responsible for development of countywide Pathology IT strategies for server, storage and Disaster Recovery.

About us

Our purpose is simple - Putting Patients First. We are looking for exceptional colleagues who can help us achieve this.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is a large acute and specialised hospital trust that provides a range of local acute services to the residents of Worcestershire and more specialised services to a larger population in Herefordshire and beyond.

The Trust operates hospital-based services from three sites in Kidderminster, Redditch and Worcester

Our workforce is nearly 6,800 strong, and our caring staff are recognised as providing good and outstanding patient-centred care. You could be one of them.

We are committed to recruiting the best people to work with us to achieve our Vision - working in partnership to provide the best healthcare for our communities, leading and supporting our teams to move 4ward. Our 4ward behaviours, which we ask all staff to demonstrate, underpin our everyday work and remain firmly at the heart of all we do.

Our objectives are simple:

Best services for local people
Best experience of care and best outcomes for our patients
Best use of resources
Best people

Better never stops, and our Clinical Services Strategy provides a clear future vision for our Trust, our hospitals, our services and our role in the wider health and care system.

We are proud to have achieved Timewise accreditation - this means we are committed to embedding flexible working within our organisation as a flex positive employer.

Date posted

22 August 2023

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 8a

Salary

£50,952 to £57,349 a year

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time

Reference number

C9365-23-0102-2

Job locations

Charles Hastings Way

Worcester

Worcestershire

WR5 1DD

Job description

Job responsibilities

Key Duties:

1.Manage the Pathology IT service to ensure performance availability to all users.

2.To ensure all centralised Pathology services deliver agreed levels of performance and reliability by continuous monitoring of live systems: testing hardware and software proposed for use within the Pathology departments setting up test environments for validation and troubleshooting.

3. Manage the Pathology electronic requesting and resulting links to both internal and external pathology stakeholders.

4. To lead the development of Pathology IT strategies and introduction of new IT Solutions, that support the realisation of business benefits derived from the use of IT within the Directorate and the wider Trust.

5. Manage and undertake projects relating to Pathology IT and within the laboratories. This will entail discussions with suppliers, users, providing documentation, installation, configuration and testing, acting as the lead for implementation of Pathology solutions.

6.Manage the continual development of the Countywide Pathology System to ensure a high quality service to users.

7.Manage the process of Interfacing requirements for Pathology analyser procurement and lead on the IT specifications for analyser interfacing.

8.To lead, manage, establish and maintain IT business continuity plans to ensure Pathology Services are sustained.

9. Liaise with Third Party Suppliers over service issues and provision of Pathology IT products including replacement of current systems to ensure that latest IT strategies and technologies are considered

10. Manage the information flow of Pathology data.

11. Lead on the production and development on a range of statistical information for monthly activity reports to Directorate Management, Finance and Information Departments.

12. Provide expert technical advice and support to the Pathology Executive Team.

13. Discuss technical specification with third parties to suit the Trusts infrastructure and budget.

14. Manage and support Trust IT Implementations involving Pathology including testing and business benefit analysis.

15. To develop, implement and maintain the use of system support policies and procedures within the Pathology IT team as well as ensuring that all staff adhere to Trust policies and procedures as appropriate.

16. To undertake staff management and related administrative duties relevant to the Pathology IT team.

17. Manage and develop the Pathology IT budget, and in conjunction with the Directorate provide contract management support for IT contracts.

18. To ensure all staff who report directly to the post holder have agreed objectives, regular performance reviews and personal development plans.

19. Act as Information Governance Co-ordinator for the Pathology Directorate. To ensure that Pathology services and configurations are compliant with local and National IG standards for information systems security.

20. Be a member of the Pathology Management Executive Committee providing information on IT issues, information governance, operational and systems issues

21. Provide Pathology IT support to service out of hours in response to request from on call support staff.

22. The duties of this post require that the post holder travels between sites.

23. To manage change control of the IT systems within the department in a way that satisfies laboratory accreditation.

24. Maintain links to NPEx for lab to lab referrals

25. Nominated Liaison Manager between the Trust and the LIMS software supplier, to be the focal point for all forms of contact in terms of support, installations and upgrades from the supplier.

26. To liaise with primary care project managers in the implementation of new system installations with GP customers.

27. To provide troubleshooting support at a Pathology level, to liaise with other parties as and when required to identify a resolution.

28. To represent Pathology on relevant meetings as and when required.

General Duties:

1. To follow agreed protocols and policies seeking advice where appropriate from more senior staff

2. To work in an efficient and timely manner and to be adaptable to change

3. To work in a safe manner in accordance with departmental and Trust Health and Safety policies

4. To contribute to care, maintenance and security of the laboratory premises and equipment

5. To demonstrate a positive attitude to the work of the laboratory, colleagues and service

6.To respond to requests for information in a polite, helpful and concise manner

7. To maintain confidentiality and conform with the Data Protection Act

8. To work to quality standards for all aspects of the service as defined by the Pathology Directorate Quality Management System (QMS)

9. The post holder will participate in an annual Personal Development Review/ appraisal process as well as all necessary mandatory training.

10. As part of the PDR process the post holders involvement and contribution to Quality Management will be reviewed along with their understanding and compliance with the current, relevant Trust objectives

11. Responsibility for all hardware and software within the labs, the laboratory information management system (Telepath), the integrity of the data it holds and the effective and accurate distribution of that data to clinicians and other systems as appropriate, across the Trust and to the local health community.

12. To provide trouble shooting support and take ownership of resolution by liaising with hospital IT services and other parties should they be required to resolve the issues and co-ordinate support.

13.To ensure that daily pro-active management and regular tasks are undertaken to maintain system integrity and that these are documented appropriately.

14. To provide documentation of systems installed, user instruction documentation and report logging.

15. To ensure that all new or upgrades to clinical systems function correctly and have been tested before going live.

16.To ensure that departmental workload data is available as and when required by Pathology Directorate Manager and Divisional Data analysts.

17.Act as line manager for the Pathology IT Team.

18.To provide/arrange training as is required as well as the explanation of newly implemented systems to staff within the Directorate and the Trust with respect to IT systems.

19.To communicate effectively with all levels of staff on issues relating to IT systems.

20. Responsibility for the security of all the physical assets within the department and keeping the hardware audit database up to date.

21. Management of own workload as is required on a day to day level, escalating matters to Directorate where necessary.

22. Liaising with project managers to agree deadlines and goals and working towards, keeping other stake holders abreast of situations as is seen to be appropriate.