Job summary
Are you an active listener and enjoy discovering and documenting
systems to unite people to explore opportunities and solve challenges? Are you
adept at facilitating and bringing together a broad community of perspectives
towards a common approach? Would you thrive in a dynamic, complex
organisational environment where you can make a difference in healthcare? If
so, we have the perfect opportunity for you!
We seek a systems thinking lead solution architect to
join our developing enterprise architecture practice to design the technical
architecture of NHS services across Dorset.
So, if you're ready to take on a new challenge and help
shape the future of healthcare services and technology in Dorset, we want to
hear from you!
This role includes hybrid working.
Main duties of the job
As the lead solution architect for NHS Dorset, you will
hold a fundamental role in growing the enterprise architecture community across
the Our Dorset Health and Care System.
You will coordinate, design, and implement innovative
pan-Dorset solutions that improve patient outcomes, enhance clinical workflows,
and optimise operations. You will work closely with subject matter experts
across different disciplines to ensure solutions are appropriately assured and
aligned with operational and strategic business goals and objectives.
You will also be integral to developing our enterprise
architecture management practice, supporting the ongoing activities concerning
architecture governance, portfolio management, and strategies.
To succeed in this role, you should enjoy breaking down
and working through complex and complicated problems and have broad experience
across the business, data, application, and infrastructure domains. You should
have the ability to provide balanced and inclusive leadership using excellent
communication skills and have the ability to challenge constructively. Your
role will include collaborating with cross-functional teams across multiple
organisations.
Any background in healthcare systems and process would be an advantage, particularly the ability to bridge clinical information and technology domains.
About us
We are joining up to tackle all the things that affect our health and wellbeing, make real change, and improve things for our communities.
Dorset ICS is made up of:
- NHS Dorset Integrated Care Board
- University Hospitals Dorset Foundation Trust
- Dorset County Hospital Foundation Trust
- Dorset HealthCare University Foundation Trust
- Dorset Council
- Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole Council
- 194 town and parish councils
- 18 primary care networks (made up of 73 GP practices)
- Southwestern Ambulance Service Foundation Trust
- Dorset Police
- Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service
- 7,300 voluntary organisations
What we do
The Health and Care Bill puts ICSs on a statutory footing empowering them to better join up health and care services, improve population health, and reduce health inequalities.
ICSs have four core purposes:
- Improve outcomes in population health and healthcare
- Tackle inequalities in outcomes, experience, and access
- Enhance productivity and value for money
- Help the NHS support broader social and economic development
Job description
Job responsibilities
As the Lead Solution Architect for the Our Dorset Health and Care System (our ICSs public
name), the post holder will work as part of a dynamic team to deliver an effective service to
support information sharing between health and care professionals and enable citizen
access.
The Lead Solution Architect is a leadership role throughout the Dorset ICS, promoting the
approach of enterprise architecture and the role of solution architecture as an enabler to
business design and transformation to realise the strategic ambitions and health outcomes
for the population of Dorset.
A key focus of this role is to architecturally engage across the business change lifecycle end
to end, translating the strategic direction of the enterprise architecture of the ICS into the
approach of programmes and projects; the role must work pervasively and influentially
across and in collaboration with the Dorset partner organisations, delivering conceptual and
detailed system solutions that are cohesive and reduce unwarranted variation in business or
clinical services and access to care, supporting the progression of ICS business and clinical
care models.
The Lead Solution Architect will:
Lead the development of multiple areas of future technical architecture design required
for the ICS to realise its business and digital outcomes across the individual Dorset
partner architectures, setting and advocating enterprise and solution architecture
principles and standards.
Contribute to creating and maintaining the Our Digital Dorset strategy and underlying
architectural strategic roadmap and be an ambassador for digital strategy alignment
across the ICS.
Envisage, design, and oversee the implementation of complex and complicated system
solutions for the ICS; collaborating with clinicians, staff, and citizens to validate business
requirements, challenge ambiguity, and develop is-to-ought capability vision and system
solutions that can adapt to their environment, meet service needs and are represented
across the business, data, application, and infrastructure architecture domains for
assurance.
Ensure that all system solution designs are data-oriented and consider the quality and
integrity of the information available to those delivering purposeful activities, ensuring
informed decisions across services can be made.
Facilitate as an ICS aggregator for the Enterprise Architecture Steering Group in its
strategic review and design authority roles, ensuring that significant complex and
complicated system solution designs follow appropriate architecture governance and
align with the overall digital strategy and the strategic direction of the enterprise
architecture of the ICS.
Document the enterprise architecture landscape and maintain architectural artefacts to
connect the dots of the ICS between the business, data, application, and infrastructure
architecture domains.
Create accurate and purposeful models to express business and digital scenarios to
communicate difficult issues and technical solutions to various stakeholders.
Utilise metrics, drivers, and trends to diagnose business pain points and strategic
capability gaps to highlight investment in architectural change.
Establish excellent working relationships with neighbouring solution architects or similar
roles and collaborate to improve integrated care across geographical care boundaries.
Provide a broad range of architectural education to translate the thought process and
approach of enterprise and solution architecture into understandable language and
benefits, connecting across the ICS to raise the level of engagement and create feedback
loops to improve behaviours.
Develop, lead, and manage a physical and virtual community of solution architects across
the ICS, enabling and maturing the role of enterprise architecture thought process and
governance across the ICS.
Job description
Job responsibilities
As the Lead Solution Architect for the Our Dorset Health and Care System (our ICSs public
name), the post holder will work as part of a dynamic team to deliver an effective service to
support information sharing between health and care professionals and enable citizen
access.
The Lead Solution Architect is a leadership role throughout the Dorset ICS, promoting the
approach of enterprise architecture and the role of solution architecture as an enabler to
business design and transformation to realise the strategic ambitions and health outcomes
for the population of Dorset.
A key focus of this role is to architecturally engage across the business change lifecycle end
to end, translating the strategic direction of the enterprise architecture of the ICS into the
approach of programmes and projects; the role must work pervasively and influentially
across and in collaboration with the Dorset partner organisations, delivering conceptual and
detailed system solutions that are cohesive and reduce unwarranted variation in business or
clinical services and access to care, supporting the progression of ICS business and clinical
care models.
The Lead Solution Architect will:
Lead the development of multiple areas of future technical architecture design required
for the ICS to realise its business and digital outcomes across the individual Dorset
partner architectures, setting and advocating enterprise and solution architecture
principles and standards.
Contribute to creating and maintaining the Our Digital Dorset strategy and underlying
architectural strategic roadmap and be an ambassador for digital strategy alignment
across the ICS.
Envisage, design, and oversee the implementation of complex and complicated system
solutions for the ICS; collaborating with clinicians, staff, and citizens to validate business
requirements, challenge ambiguity, and develop is-to-ought capability vision and system
solutions that can adapt to their environment, meet service needs and are represented
across the business, data, application, and infrastructure architecture domains for
assurance.
Ensure that all system solution designs are data-oriented and consider the quality and
integrity of the information available to those delivering purposeful activities, ensuring
informed decisions across services can be made.
Facilitate as an ICS aggregator for the Enterprise Architecture Steering Group in its
strategic review and design authority roles, ensuring that significant complex and
complicated system solution designs follow appropriate architecture governance and
align with the overall digital strategy and the strategic direction of the enterprise
architecture of the ICS.
Document the enterprise architecture landscape and maintain architectural artefacts to
connect the dots of the ICS between the business, data, application, and infrastructure
architecture domains.
Create accurate and purposeful models to express business and digital scenarios to
communicate difficult issues and technical solutions to various stakeholders.
Utilise metrics, drivers, and trends to diagnose business pain points and strategic
capability gaps to highlight investment in architectural change.
Establish excellent working relationships with neighbouring solution architects or similar
roles and collaborate to improve integrated care across geographical care boundaries.
Provide a broad range of architectural education to translate the thought process and
approach of enterprise and solution architecture into understandable language and
benefits, connecting across the ICS to raise the level of engagement and create feedback
loops to improve behaviours.
Develop, lead, and manage a physical and virtual community of solution architects across
the ICS, enabling and maturing the role of enterprise architecture thought process and
governance across the ICS.
Person Specification
Skills, abilities and knowledge
Essential
- Communicating with stakeholders and technology leaders, both within and outside an organisation and in a national forum.
- Translating business needs into architecture solutions.
- Influencing a diverse range of stakeholders (clinical and technical/ non-technical).
- Excellent communication, both verbal (presentations, seminars, etc.) and written (reports, articles, etc.).
- Able to facilitate large group sessions, discussing highly complex technical issues and solutions.
- Passionate about using technology to create business value.
- Have highly advanced computing skills, with the ability to design and document technical and business models and diagrams.
- Ability to deliver training on complex architecture to IT operational staff.
- Demonstrable detailed understanding of architecture principles and methods, technology, and standards.
- Highly motivated, able to self-teach and widely recognised as a technology expert.
- Ability to listen and deconstruct/ replay complex conversations into issues, activities, and architectural models and diagrams.
- Design Authority Internally and externally recognised as a specialist in highly complex technical areas.
Desirable
- Understanding of NHS IT deployments, requirements, and models of business and care.
Qualifications
Essential
- Masters degree or significant relevant career experience.
- Recognised industry qualification in a key architectural area such as TOGAF or demonstratable experience bridging clinical and IT domains to facilitate business and clinical systems design and implementation.
- Evidence of ongoing personal and professional development.
Desirable
- Project management, business analysis, leadership or management, data management, business architecture
Experience
Essential
- 5+ years designing enterprise-level solution architecture with competency across the four core architecture domains: Business, Data, Application, Technology (Infrastructure).
- Extensive practical experience designing and building enterprise and technical architecture to support distributed software systems.
- Proven record of driving technology best practices
- in a healthcare or complex industry environment.
Person Specification
Skills, abilities and knowledge
Essential
- Communicating with stakeholders and technology leaders, both within and outside an organisation and in a national forum.
- Translating business needs into architecture solutions.
- Influencing a diverse range of stakeholders (clinical and technical/ non-technical).
- Excellent communication, both verbal (presentations, seminars, etc.) and written (reports, articles, etc.).
- Able to facilitate large group sessions, discussing highly complex technical issues and solutions.
- Passionate about using technology to create business value.
- Have highly advanced computing skills, with the ability to design and document technical and business models and diagrams.
- Ability to deliver training on complex architecture to IT operational staff.
- Demonstrable detailed understanding of architecture principles and methods, technology, and standards.
- Highly motivated, able to self-teach and widely recognised as a technology expert.
- Ability to listen and deconstruct/ replay complex conversations into issues, activities, and architectural models and diagrams.
- Design Authority Internally and externally recognised as a specialist in highly complex technical areas.
Desirable
- Understanding of NHS IT deployments, requirements, and models of business and care.
Qualifications
Essential
- Masters degree or significant relevant career experience.
- Recognised industry qualification in a key architectural area such as TOGAF or demonstratable experience bridging clinical and IT domains to facilitate business and clinical systems design and implementation.
- Evidence of ongoing personal and professional development.
Desirable
- Project management, business analysis, leadership or management, data management, business architecture
Experience
Essential
- 5+ years designing enterprise-level solution architecture with competency across the four core architecture domains: Business, Data, Application, Technology (Infrastructure).
- Extensive practical experience designing and building enterprise and technical architecture to support distributed software systems.
- Proven record of driving technology best practices
- in a healthcare or complex industry environment.
Additional information
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
