Embedded Pharmacist Researcher

NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board

The closing date is 02 May 2025

Job summary

Fixed term post until 31 March 2026 - 7.5 hours per week

Interviews: 8th May

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a pharmacist to join the Medicines Optimisation team to work on medicines and pharmacy research helping us meet our statutory responsibilities for research and innovation. It is known that staff satisfaction, recruitment and retention is higher among staff who are involved in research and that pharmacy is considered, by the National Institute of Health and care Research (NIHR), to be an under-represented profession in relation to research. This new post presents an opportunity to take a system-wide approach to pharmacy research in developing clinical academic roles and in investigational medicinal product (IMP) management. With the establishment of a new School of Pharmacy in Sheffield and the anticipated UK Research Strategy for Pharmacy to be published in 2026 a champion is needed to develop pharmacy research capability and capacity in SYICB. The role is funded by the Yorkshire and Humber Research Delivery Network.

Location/Base: Any of the SY ICB bases (Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley or Doncaster).

Main duties of the job

The postholder will be expected to engage with multi-disciplinary research and clinical leaders locally, regionally and nationally, provide a focus for pharmacy-led research, lead and collaborate on funding bids and conduct scoping work with a view to building research capability and capacity across SY. The remit encompasses pharmacys dual role in research, both in leading research and in IMP management. Acknowledging that research is crucial in transforming health and care for our patients, the role will begin work to ensure pharmacy research is built into evolving patient pathways, produce a pharmacy research strategy on how to build pharmacy research capability across the system and write business cases to support consultant pharmacist roles.

About us

NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board oversees health and social care for a population of 1.4m people. Working through our 4 places, Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and Sheffield, we are building on the strengths, capacity and knowledge of all those directly involved with our local communities to deliver our four key aims of Improving outcomes in population health and healthcare; Tackling inequalities in outcomes, experience and access; Enhancing productivity and value for money; and Helping the NHS support broader social and economic development.

Our near 1,000 staff are committed to addressing the broader health, public health, and social care needs of the population across South Yorkshire through our values of One Team, Empowered and Innovative. We work as a key partner with the Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) of health and care providers within the South Yorkshire Integrated Care System (ICS) to collectively deliver health and care services that meet the needs of the local population. In total there are 186 GP practices in the region, 72,000 health and social care professionals working across seven NHS trusts and four local authorities, and a further 6,000 voluntary, community and social enterprise sector (VCSE) organisations. We work alongside all these colleagues through local councils, our VCSE partners and other partners to address health inequalities and wider determinants of health in South Yorkshire.

South Yorkshire ICB is a Disability Confident Employer

Date posted

25 April 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 8b

Salary

£62,215 to £72,293 a year

Contract

Fixed term

Duration

11 months

Working pattern

Part-time, Flexible working, Home or remote working

Reference number

D9133-1083

Job locations

SY ICB - 197 Eyre Street

Sheffield

S1 3FG


Job description

Job responsibilities

  • Communicate, engage and build relationships with key strategic policy makers to influence and align the development of strategy and policies across the organisation and the wider health and social care system; ensuring that these fully integrate with other areas of the NHS.
  • Forge close working relationships across the organisation and beyond to facilitate an effective matrix management approach to delivery of projects and programmes of work to ensure integration at all levels.
  • Responsible for the interrogation and analysis of, sometimes highly complex and contentious, information to support the delivery of clear programme reporting and project outcomes.
  • Assist in the writing and delivery of high-level programme reports for programme boards assessing progress against milestones, status, resource requirements, issues, risks and dependencies as guided by the portfolio leads making recommendations on mitigation and management of risk where a range of options may exist.
  • Support the Programme Directors, Medicines Optimisation and Chief Pharmacy Officer to develop, with other senior leaders, the strategic vision for the portfolio within SYICB and develop a programme management strategy and operational guidance that support this vision.
  • The post holder will work with strategic pharmacy leads to create effective mechanisms for anticipating, identifying, and responding to key clinical risks that could impact on the successful delivery of the programme. This will include engaging with system leaders through ICS medicine optimisation forums to drive research, innovation, quality improvement, patient safety and population health outcomes from a risk-based approach across the ICS footprint.
  • To contribute to the development of policy, guidance and workplan/ strategy across a portfolio.
  • To represent the ICB at system partnership meetings
  • Provides advice and guidance across SYICB and beyond on specific subject matter areas, where they are the known expert and can relate national policy and best practice to delivery across multiple health and social care systems.
  • Contribute to medicines optimisation research projects and sharing of good practice across the ICB and the wider NHS in conjunction with the relevant strategic pharmacy lead direction
  • To be able to work on own initiative and unsupervised to design and manage workload to meet strategic and delivery objectives, guided by ICB and NHS information, and to interpret these in such a way as to meet the short-, medium- and longer-term strategic objective of the portfolio and ICB/ICS
  • Develop a culture that promotes equality and values diversity. The post holder must be aware of and committed to the Equality and Diversity policies of NHS South Yorkshire ICB, comply with all the requirements of these policies and also actively promote Equality and Diversity issues relevant to the post.

Job description

Job responsibilities

  • Communicate, engage and build relationships with key strategic policy makers to influence and align the development of strategy and policies across the organisation and the wider health and social care system; ensuring that these fully integrate with other areas of the NHS.
  • Forge close working relationships across the organisation and beyond to facilitate an effective matrix management approach to delivery of projects and programmes of work to ensure integration at all levels.
  • Responsible for the interrogation and analysis of, sometimes highly complex and contentious, information to support the delivery of clear programme reporting and project outcomes.
  • Assist in the writing and delivery of high-level programme reports for programme boards assessing progress against milestones, status, resource requirements, issues, risks and dependencies as guided by the portfolio leads making recommendations on mitigation and management of risk where a range of options may exist.
  • Support the Programme Directors, Medicines Optimisation and Chief Pharmacy Officer to develop, with other senior leaders, the strategic vision for the portfolio within SYICB and develop a programme management strategy and operational guidance that support this vision.
  • The post holder will work with strategic pharmacy leads to create effective mechanisms for anticipating, identifying, and responding to key clinical risks that could impact on the successful delivery of the programme. This will include engaging with system leaders through ICS medicine optimisation forums to drive research, innovation, quality improvement, patient safety and population health outcomes from a risk-based approach across the ICS footprint.
  • To contribute to the development of policy, guidance and workplan/ strategy across a portfolio.
  • To represent the ICB at system partnership meetings
  • Provides advice and guidance across SYICB and beyond on specific subject matter areas, where they are the known expert and can relate national policy and best practice to delivery across multiple health and social care systems.
  • Contribute to medicines optimisation research projects and sharing of good practice across the ICB and the wider NHS in conjunction with the relevant strategic pharmacy lead direction
  • To be able to work on own initiative and unsupervised to design and manage workload to meet strategic and delivery objectives, guided by ICB and NHS information, and to interpret these in such a way as to meet the short-, medium- and longer-term strategic objective of the portfolio and ICB/ICS
  • Develop a culture that promotes equality and values diversity. The post holder must be aware of and committed to the Equality and Diversity policies of NHS South Yorkshire ICB, comply with all the requirements of these policies and also actively promote Equality and Diversity issues relevant to the post.

Person Specification

Skills and Competencies

Essential

  • Able to provide and receive highly complex, sensitive and contentious information.
  • Takes decisions on difficult and contentious issues where there may be a number of courses of action.
  • Able to draw qualitative and quantitative information from a range of sources and present it in a clear and concise way.
  • Able to negotiate on difficult and contentious issues including performance and change.
  • Ability to effectively plan and think strategically and analyse and resolve problems in a multi- disciplinary environment.
  • Good analytical skills with an ability to analyse and consider complex information and develop a range of options.
  • Ability to anticipate problems before they arise and offer appropriate solutions.
  • Demonstrate the ability to plan over the short, medium and long- term altering plans to fit with the rapidly changing environment.
  • Good working knowledge of Microsoft Office suite and intermediate keyboard skills.
  • Excellent stakeholder management skills.
  • Excellent communication and presentation skills and an ability to engage successfully with a wide range of people at all levels within the organisation.

Qualifications

Essential

  • Educated to Masters level in a relevant area of academic practice or equivalent experience working at a commensurate band / level.
  • To have one or more of the below project management qualifications or equivalent level of experience:
  • Managing Successful Programmes Practitioner
  • PRINCE2 Practitioner
  • Managing Successful
  • Programmes Advanced Practitioner
  • P3O Practitioner.
  • APM Registered Project Professional.
  • Project Leadership Programme.

Desirable

  • Additional management qualification or specialist qualification or equivalent level of experience.

Attributes

Essential

  • Good ability to build relations with internal and external partners which are critical in securing the strategic objectives of the business.
  • Demonstrated capability to act upon incomplete information, using experience to make inferences and decision making.
  • Commitment to equality of opportunity, focused on removing barriers to full participation.
  • Fosters good working relationships and values difference.
  • Compassionate leader.
  • Works well with others, is positive and helpful, listens, involves, respects and learns from the contribution of others.

Experience

Essential

  • Evidence of continuing professional development relevant to role.
  • Extensive experience of leading change projects.
  • Extensive experience of managing projects and delivering them within agreed timescales and budgets.
  • Experience of providing support and input into complex programmes.
  • Experience of identifying and interpreting national policy.
  • Experience of researching best practice and developing solutions that can achieve optimal outcomes for all stakeholders.
  • Experience of managing a team.
  • Experience of interpreting national policy and implementing this through programmes of work.
  • Previous experience of managing budgets for complex programmes of work, including budget setting and monitoring.
  • Must understand the background to and aims of current healthcare policy and appreciate the implications of this.
  • Must understand the relationship between the Department of Health and individual provider and commissioning organisations.

Desirable

  • Member of relevant professional body.
Person Specification

Skills and Competencies

Essential

  • Able to provide and receive highly complex, sensitive and contentious information.
  • Takes decisions on difficult and contentious issues where there may be a number of courses of action.
  • Able to draw qualitative and quantitative information from a range of sources and present it in a clear and concise way.
  • Able to negotiate on difficult and contentious issues including performance and change.
  • Ability to effectively plan and think strategically and analyse and resolve problems in a multi- disciplinary environment.
  • Good analytical skills with an ability to analyse and consider complex information and develop a range of options.
  • Ability to anticipate problems before they arise and offer appropriate solutions.
  • Demonstrate the ability to plan over the short, medium and long- term altering plans to fit with the rapidly changing environment.
  • Good working knowledge of Microsoft Office suite and intermediate keyboard skills.
  • Excellent stakeholder management skills.
  • Excellent communication and presentation skills and an ability to engage successfully with a wide range of people at all levels within the organisation.

Qualifications

Essential

  • Educated to Masters level in a relevant area of academic practice or equivalent experience working at a commensurate band / level.
  • To have one or more of the below project management qualifications or equivalent level of experience:
  • Managing Successful Programmes Practitioner
  • PRINCE2 Practitioner
  • Managing Successful
  • Programmes Advanced Practitioner
  • P3O Practitioner.
  • APM Registered Project Professional.
  • Project Leadership Programme.

Desirable

  • Additional management qualification or specialist qualification or equivalent level of experience.

Attributes

Essential

  • Good ability to build relations with internal and external partners which are critical in securing the strategic objectives of the business.
  • Demonstrated capability to act upon incomplete information, using experience to make inferences and decision making.
  • Commitment to equality of opportunity, focused on removing barriers to full participation.
  • Fosters good working relationships and values difference.
  • Compassionate leader.
  • Works well with others, is positive and helpful, listens, involves, respects and learns from the contribution of others.

Experience

Essential

  • Evidence of continuing professional development relevant to role.
  • Extensive experience of leading change projects.
  • Extensive experience of managing projects and delivering them within agreed timescales and budgets.
  • Experience of providing support and input into complex programmes.
  • Experience of identifying and interpreting national policy.
  • Experience of researching best practice and developing solutions that can achieve optimal outcomes for all stakeholders.
  • Experience of managing a team.
  • Experience of interpreting national policy and implementing this through programmes of work.
  • Previous experience of managing budgets for complex programmes of work, including budget setting and monitoring.
  • Must understand the background to and aims of current healthcare policy and appreciate the implications of this.
  • Must understand the relationship between the Department of Health and individual provider and commissioning organisations.

Desirable

  • Member of relevant professional body.

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Additional information

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board

Address

SY ICB - 197 Eyre Street

Sheffield

S1 3FG


Employer's website

https://southyorkshire.icb.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)

Employer details

Employer name

NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board

Address

SY ICB - 197 Eyre Street

Sheffield

S1 3FG


Employer's website

https://southyorkshire.icb.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)

For questions about the job, contact:

Medicines Optimisation Programme Director

Charlotte McMurray

charlotte.mcmurray@nhs.net

Date posted

25 April 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 8b

Salary

£62,215 to £72,293 a year

Contract

Fixed term

Duration

11 months

Working pattern

Part-time, Flexible working, Home or remote working

Reference number

D9133-1083

Job locations

SY ICB - 197 Eyre Street

Sheffield

S1 3FG


Supporting documents

Privacy notice

NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board's privacy notice (opens in a new tab)