Assistant Director of ICT Data & Applications
Job summary
This is a senior NHS leadership position at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) -- Assistant Director of ICT Data & Applications, sitting at Band 8C and reporting to the Chief Digital Information Officer.
The role is essentially responsible for overseeing all of GOSH's IT applications and data systems (excluding the Electronic Patient Record). This means managing three teams covering Digital Content Systems, Enterprise Applications, and Interoperability, with around 19 staff in total, and a budget of roughly £3M.
Day-to-day, the postholder would be balancing strategic planning (shaping the hospital's long-term IT direction), operational management (keeping clinical and non-clinical systems running reliably), supplier relationships, and staff leadership. There's also a significant stakeholder dimension -- engaging with everyone from frontline clinical staff up to Trust Board level.
It's a broad, hands-on senior role at a world-renowned specialist children's hospital, ideal for someone with deep NHS IT experience who's comfortable operating at both a technical and executive level.
Main duties of the job
Strategic & Planning Setting short and long-term IT strategy, researching and recommending new products and services, negotiating with vendors, managing operational costs and financial forecasting, and reporting regularly to the Digital, Data and Transformation Board.
Operational Management Leading the Clinical Data & Applications teams, monitoring customer satisfaction with IT services, ensuring industry best practice is applied, and reviewing business needs against the annual Trust plan to align IT service delivery.
IT Operations & Administration Overseeing all IT applications used across GOSH, managing the Trust's datasets and ensuring data availability, driving continuous improvement of IT processes, and acting as an escalation point around the troubleshooting of hardware, software and cloud-based services.
Service Level Management Ensuring IT support meets agreed service levels, reviewing third-party performance against KPIs, managing supplier relationships, and overseeing the contract for the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) remote hosting.
Applications & Data Infrastructure Providing leadership for the application and data domain, responding to audit findings, and conducting cost-benefit analyses for proposed application purchases.
Staff Management Supervising four teams and three direct reports, allocating work, mentoring staff, monitoring performance, and facilitating effective working relationships across the team.
About us
We are committed to recruiting the best person for the job through a fair, open and consistent process that is free from bias and discrimination.
We are working towards becoming an anti-racist organisation. This means creating a workplace where every colleague feels seen, heard and valued, and where racism in any form has no place. Our anti-racism commitment is backed by action through our Anti-Racism Statement and action plan, developed in collaboration with our REACH staff network.
We actively challenge discrimination, dismantle barriers and embed equity across all aspects of our workforce, including recruitment, progression and development. All applicants will receive equal consideration regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, health condition or employment history.
We particularly welcome applications from ethnically diverse communities, people with disabilities or long-term health conditions, and LGBTQ+ community members. We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer, a member of the Business Disability Forum, and a Stonewall Diversity Champion.
Our staff networks, including REACH, PRIDE, ENABLED and Women's Networks, are active and executive supported. These employee-led networks play a vital role in shaping an inclusive culture at GOSH and are open to all colleagues.
Together, we are building a culture where inclusion is not optional - it is essential.
Job description
Job responsibilities
The full job description provides an overview of the key tasks and responsibilities of the role, and the person specification outlines the qualifications, skills, experience and knowledge required. For both documents please view the attachment/s below.
Person Specification
GOSH Culture and Values
- Our Always values
Academic/Professional qualification/Training
- Master's degree or equivalent relevant experience
- Post Graduate Qualification in Health Informatics, Project/Programme Management or Information Technology or equivalent experience
- Relevant Microsoft certification or equivalent experience
- One or more security qualifications (e.g. CISSP, CISM, CISA) Information Risk Management qualification (e.g. CRISC) COBIT 5/2019 (minimum foundation level)
- Experience of delivering and managing complex transformation programmes
- Knowledge of OJEU procurement and contract processes
- Prince2 or equivalent project/programme management qualification
- ITIL support management qualification or equivalent
Experience/Knowledge
- Experience (5+ years) in managing complex IT environments, preferably within the NHS
- Experience of planning and managing the technical aspects of IT application deployments, delivering to plan and managing exceptions in a complex environment
- Experience of managing significant operational budgets (>£1m pa)
- Experience of managing significant capital budgets (>£2m pa)
- Experience of managing stakeholders, ensuring high quality and timely communications across project groups and organisational management
- Advanced written skills with the ability to write complex business papers, reports and policy documents that are suitable for approval by high level Trust groups
- Ability to work across institutions and boundaries between healthcare sectors to formulate and implement projects and deliver agreed benefits
- Excellent business analytical skills and knowledge of budget management, business case development, financial planning and benefits realisation
- Able to work under significant pressure to achieve deadlines whilst managing frequent interruptions. Ability to concentrate for long periods of time on complex transactional clinical data and process analysis
- Good understanding of HL7, FHIR and interoperability standards
- Experience of managing multi-vendor platforms and supplier relationships
- Management of integration teams and integration infrastructure
- Familiarity with ISO27001 and implementation of ISMS frameworks
- Understand of Agentic AI architectures and LLMs
Skills/Abilities
- Exceptional organisational, analytical and strategic level logistics planning skills
- Exceptional leadership qualities with the ability to lead, manage and motivate staff into achieving a common goal
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate, negotiate and influence staff at all E levels in the organisation, including clinical staff, managerial staff and senior/board level executives, as well as with external suppliers
- Excellent knowledge of enterprise IT applications and software programmes, ideally in the healthcare environment
- Ability to assess complex application and transactional clinical data related issues and identify solutions.
- Inspires and sets direction for others
- Outcome-focused and proactive
- Collaborative and open communicator
- Committed to continuous improvement and innovation
- Ability to negotiate beneficial outcomes with suppliers and partners
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.
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.
Employer details
Employer name
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust
Address
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust
Great Ormond Street
London
WC1N 3HZ
United Kingdom
Employer's website
https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/