Job summary
We're looking for a creative and passionate Lead Data Scientist (Band 8A) to join the Health Economics Unit (HEU), delivering innovative solutions across our diverse portfolio of projects.
You will work with otherdata science, data engineering, health economics, project management,and communications colleagues, taking responsibility for the delivery of a wide range of projects and programmes within the HEU.
We're a new unit, launched in October 2020, and you'll bring new ideas, passion and best practice to everything we do. It's a varied role which will give you a wide range of experience across many aspects of data science and healthcare analytics.
The HEU fosters a supportive working environment where knowledge exchange is encouraged and working collectively is part of who we are. You will play a key role in this.
You will have fantastic opportunities for personal and professional development as part of the wider communications and engagement service within the NHS Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit (MLCSU).
If this sounds like the role for you, we'dbe delighted to hear from you.
Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit recognises the value serving personnel, reservists, veterans, and military families bring to our business and would encourage people from the armed forces community to apply for our vacancies.
Main duties of the job
The HEU creates fantastic, useful insights by working in collaboration and partnership, internally and externally, and we need people that will thrive in this environment. We want you to be passionate about your work, to want to publish it, to want to collaborate and present it to clients and at key conferences. We want someone that gets excited by problem solving. We are looking for someone that is passionate and knows that analytics inform decisions that will fundamentally transform how healthcare is delivered, improving the lives of our population.
About us
The NHS is the biggest employer in Europe. It's a world-renowned institution and an exciting place to work, full of challenges and opportunities.
NHS Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit (MLCSU) is one of the biggest and best-performing commissioning support units in the country, with among the highest levels of staff and customer satisfaction. We work together as a team of over 1,600 expert staff based across the Midlands and North West to make a difference - for our customers, patients and communities.
Offering a full range of professional services to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), hospital trusts, local authorities, integrated care systems (ICSs) and other public bodies\ across the country, our NHS values underpin everything we do.
The HEU has been created to deliver impactful insights that power the future development of health and care delivery.
In return, we provide a supportive environment in which to learn and develop, with the opportunity to further your skills and career within an exciting and evolving environment.
Joining our inclusive and innovative team comes with a range of benefits including flexible & agile working arrangements, pension scheme and generous annual leave allowance.
With our training schemes and support networks, you will be empowered to play a leading role in the future of healthcare, whatever your specialism or interest. And as a member of NHS staff you will receive plenty of discounts too.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Key responsibilities
- Apply supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques to a range of complex healthcare problems, as diverse as the evaluation of new surgical procedures, the identification of inequalities across care pathways, and forecasting of the impact of the deployment of new care models.
- Develop new approaches to analytical problems, synthesising existing work from the healthcare data science community and contributing to the advancement of the field by proposing new solutions.
- Address as appropriate both structured and unstructured data, ensuring all steps including pre-processing, dimensionality reduction, and feature engineering have been evaluated.
- Liaise with clients to gather analytical requirements and scope projects.
- Suggest innovative solutions to problems without clear and well-defined solutions.
- Develop professional standards for data scientists and lead by example in every aspect of the role.
- Assure quality and robustness of data science outputs, including ethical and legal considerations.
- Interpret results from complex analysis, applying the results to the given problem and suggesting conclusions to be drawn.
- Communicate orally and in writing, and choose content and style to suit the audience, including large groups.
- Explain complex and technical concepts and issues to non-technical colleagues, customers, stakeholders and potential customers at all levels.
- Plan and deliver data analytics projects from sandpit/proof concept environment to production, taking the lead in selecting appropriate tools and analytical techniques.
- Advise on a wide range of data quality issues and the application of the appropriate data validation techniques.
- Write code in a variety of languages, including Python and R.
- Collaborate and build relationships across organisational boundaries through complex service provision.
- Contribute to the building of long-term strategic plans.
- Actively engage with stakeholders, negotiate project timelines, and meet stakeholder expectations.
- Use project and risk management frameworks, tools and techniques.
- Identify and manage demand in areas where there are shared and conflicting agendas.
- Identify and define the resources needed to deliver to a specification.
- Lead a multidisciplinary team and prioritise resources using agile methodologies in line with organisational priorities.
- Provide subject matter expertise and guidance to support the development of clear, specific customer service requirements, managing scope changes to ensure successful project delivery.
- Understand and evaluate different databases from their structure, documentation, and contents.
- Produce work using source control, peer review and open feedback.
- Ensure processes and applications are reviewed and developed as technology and techniques emerge guaranteeing systems and processes remain current and fit for purpose.
- Ensure that the service is perceived externally as both modern and efficient, by providing horizon scanning, demonstrations, and critique of newer techniques.
- Ensure that the security of IT systems and the confidentiality of personal and commercially sensitive data are always maintained in line with the relevant information governance and technical security standards and policies of each database the HEU uses.
- Provide effective leadership, training, support, and generate enthusiasm and motivation in all team members to ensure that they are appropriately empowered to carry out the responsibilities of their roles.
- Instil a culture of learning and knowledge sharing throughout the data and analytics teams to ensure the service is fully resilient.
- Line manage a team of specialists, including recruitment decisions, conducting annual appraisals, one to one meetings, objective setting and identifying training and development requirements, handling disciplinary issues, staff performance and managing staff absence.
- Introduce, reinforce, and monitor modern development practices across the service, including all aspects of continuous integration, and make use of virtual infrastructure as appropriate.
- Make necessary technical, governance and political arrangements to allow data extractions from a diverse set of databases.
- Follow and engage with local developer communities to identify how new technologies are being adopted in both public and private sectors.
- Provide technical mentoring to other members of the team to maximise their abilities and deliver highly complex data analytics projects.
- Maintain excellent working relationships with data scientists, analysts, project managers, communications managers, health economists and colleagues and working in other teams or areas of expertise. At all times work to complement their skills and knowledge with your own.
- Ensure stakeholder representation is engaged throughout the project cycle.
- Leverage membership of relevant learned societies, such as AphA, to develop useful contacts and maintain an understanding of the state of the art.
- Identify opportunities for the development of services in other areas of the function, and propose and oversee any such changes, particularly with respect to quantitative matters.
- Ensure that all products and analyses are accompanied by comprehensive documentation.
- Operate professionally in a highly political and sensitive environment.
Deputise for the Chief Analyst and maintain oversight of data analytics aspects
Job description
Job responsibilities
Key responsibilities
- Apply supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques to a range of complex healthcare problems, as diverse as the evaluation of new surgical procedures, the identification of inequalities across care pathways, and forecasting of the impact of the deployment of new care models.
- Develop new approaches to analytical problems, synthesising existing work from the healthcare data science community and contributing to the advancement of the field by proposing new solutions.
- Address as appropriate both structured and unstructured data, ensuring all steps including pre-processing, dimensionality reduction, and feature engineering have been evaluated.
- Liaise with clients to gather analytical requirements and scope projects.
- Suggest innovative solutions to problems without clear and well-defined solutions.
- Develop professional standards for data scientists and lead by example in every aspect of the role.
- Assure quality and robustness of data science outputs, including ethical and legal considerations.
- Interpret results from complex analysis, applying the results to the given problem and suggesting conclusions to be drawn.
- Communicate orally and in writing, and choose content and style to suit the audience, including large groups.
- Explain complex and technical concepts and issues to non-technical colleagues, customers, stakeholders and potential customers at all levels.
- Plan and deliver data analytics projects from sandpit/proof concept environment to production, taking the lead in selecting appropriate tools and analytical techniques.
- Advise on a wide range of data quality issues and the application of the appropriate data validation techniques.
- Write code in a variety of languages, including Python and R.
- Collaborate and build relationships across organisational boundaries through complex service provision.
- Contribute to the building of long-term strategic plans.
- Actively engage with stakeholders, negotiate project timelines, and meet stakeholder expectations.
- Use project and risk management frameworks, tools and techniques.
- Identify and manage demand in areas where there are shared and conflicting agendas.
- Identify and define the resources needed to deliver to a specification.
- Lead a multidisciplinary team and prioritise resources using agile methodologies in line with organisational priorities.
- Provide subject matter expertise and guidance to support the development of clear, specific customer service requirements, managing scope changes to ensure successful project delivery.
- Understand and evaluate different databases from their structure, documentation, and contents.
- Produce work using source control, peer review and open feedback.
- Ensure processes and applications are reviewed and developed as technology and techniques emerge guaranteeing systems and processes remain current and fit for purpose.
- Ensure that the service is perceived externally as both modern and efficient, by providing horizon scanning, demonstrations, and critique of newer techniques.
- Ensure that the security of IT systems and the confidentiality of personal and commercially sensitive data are always maintained in line with the relevant information governance and technical security standards and policies of each database the HEU uses.
- Provide effective leadership, training, support, and generate enthusiasm and motivation in all team members to ensure that they are appropriately empowered to carry out the responsibilities of their roles.
- Instil a culture of learning and knowledge sharing throughout the data and analytics teams to ensure the service is fully resilient.
- Line manage a team of specialists, including recruitment decisions, conducting annual appraisals, one to one meetings, objective setting and identifying training and development requirements, handling disciplinary issues, staff performance and managing staff absence.
- Introduce, reinforce, and monitor modern development practices across the service, including all aspects of continuous integration, and make use of virtual infrastructure as appropriate.
- Make necessary technical, governance and political arrangements to allow data extractions from a diverse set of databases.
- Follow and engage with local developer communities to identify how new technologies are being adopted in both public and private sectors.
- Provide technical mentoring to other members of the team to maximise their abilities and deliver highly complex data analytics projects.
- Maintain excellent working relationships with data scientists, analysts, project managers, communications managers, health economists and colleagues and working in other teams or areas of expertise. At all times work to complement their skills and knowledge with your own.
- Ensure stakeholder representation is engaged throughout the project cycle.
- Leverage membership of relevant learned societies, such as AphA, to develop useful contacts and maintain an understanding of the state of the art.
- Identify opportunities for the development of services in other areas of the function, and propose and oversee any such changes, particularly with respect to quantitative matters.
- Ensure that all products and analyses are accompanied by comprehensive documentation.
- Operate professionally in a highly political and sensitive environment.
Deputise for the Chief Analyst and maintain oversight of data analytics aspects
Person Specification
Experience
Essential
- Experience working in a big data environment, deploying data science and machine learning techniques. Experience of collaborating and building relationships across organisational boundaries
Qualifications
Essential
- Master's degree in a related STEM subject or equivalent level of experience of working at a similar level in a similar setting
Skills
Essential
- Ability to write well-designed, testable, efficient code which follows good engineering standards
- Good knowledge of Python and/or R
- Good time management, working with often tight and conflicting deadlines
- Good communication skills to successfully discuss methodologies with all different types of audiences
- Ability to develop long-term strategies for the management of data science teams
- Ability to understand complex technical problems and apply the appropriate approach to solve them
Desirable
- Understanding of the broader health and care policy/ institutional environment
- Understanding of health and social care trends and issues
- Good understanding of NHS and healthcare datasets
Person Specification
Experience
Essential
- Experience working in a big data environment, deploying data science and machine learning techniques. Experience of collaborating and building relationships across organisational boundaries
Qualifications
Essential
- Master's degree in a related STEM subject or equivalent level of experience of working at a similar level in a similar setting
Skills
Essential
- Ability to write well-designed, testable, efficient code which follows good engineering standards
- Good knowledge of Python and/or R
- Good time management, working with often tight and conflicting deadlines
- Good communication skills to successfully discuss methodologies with all different types of audiences
- Ability to develop long-term strategies for the management of data science teams
- Ability to understand complex technical problems and apply the appropriate approach to solve them
Desirable
- Understanding of the broader health and care policy/ institutional environment
- Understanding of health and social care trends and issues
- Good understanding of NHS and healthcare datasets
Additional information
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).
