Digital Clinical Lead

Job description

Job responsibilities

This role provides clinical leadership to ensure the safe, effective, and operationally aligned use of digital systems across Livewell Southwest. While initially supporting transformation programmes, the role has a permanent function in bridging clinical operations and digital services, ensuring digital solutions are designed, implemented, and optimised to meet service needs and improve patient outcomes.

The role will ensure the safe and efficient identification, design and implementation of digital solutions that enhance care quality and outcomes. They will provide clinical informatics advice, collaborating with stakeholders to involve patients and clinicians in system planning, development, and evaluation.

The role will play a crucial role in implementing Livewells Digital Strategy, fostering clinical adoption of technology, and supporting the implementation of transformation.

The role demands flexibility and adaptability, promoting continuous improvements and a digital culture within the organisation. The post holder will champion new digital solutions and business processes, ensuring sustainable digital practices and a digitally skilled workforce.

The role is responsible for supporting digital transformation for new digital solutions and upgrades to existing digital solutions with clear collaboration with internal and external stakeholders.

Supporting effective management and ongoing education implementation and training of digital resources.

The implementation or decommissioning of any IT system within healthcare has the potential to introduce clinical risk, which needs to be assessed and evaluated in order to ensure patient safety is maintained.

The role will perform the function of the clinical safety Officer and will provide an overall view of clinical risk associated with these changes and be independent of any one programme of work in order to give a clear view to the Executive Medical Director / Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO) to provide assurance to the Board of Directors.

The clinical safety officer needs to be registered with a professional organisation e.g. GMC, NMC, GPhC, CSP, ARTP etc.

A significant element of this role will be to oversee Clinical Risk Management activities that support the safe development and use of Digital Health Applications andIT Systems within the Organisation.

Responsibility for People Management

• Provides clinical leadership to multidisciplinary teams involved in digital projects
• Supports staff engagement and capability-building around digital tools and new ways of working
• May supervise or mentor staff seconded to digital programmes or pilots
• Works collaboratively with operational managers to align digital initiatives with workforce planning
• Contributes to change management efforts, supporting staff through service redesign and digital adoption
• Supports a culture of digital safety and clinical accountability across teams
• Supports the development of digital champions across clinical teams to embed sustainable digital practice
• Contributes to workforce digital literacy by identifying training needs and supporting delivery
• Day to day management of digital transformation projects, coordinating a range of internal and external stakeholders/suppliers to deliver key transformation aims
• Provide training and support on the use of digital deployments

Responsibility for Financial and/or Physical Resources

• Supports the Programme Manager in identifying & delivering financial and clinical benefits linked to digital projects and investments, by taking the range of complex information about solutions and evaluating them to then propose solutions for the organisation to take forward
• Contributes to business cases and benefits analysis and tracking for digital initiatives
• Ensures that benefits identified in business cases are tracked and realised, and works with operational teams to investigate and address any gaps in delivery in a timely manner
• Ensures cost-effective use of digital systems, software licenses, and clinical devices
• May oversee deployment and maintenance of physical assets used in pilot programmes (e.g. tablets, wound imaging tools)
• Advises on digital investment priorities based on clinical need and service impact
• Ensures sometimes complex digital safety considerations are factored into procurement and deployment decisions
• Provides clinical input into procurement decisions to ensure alignment with safety, usability, and service needs
• Advise on the purchase of digital assets through the production of full business cases in line with Green Book standards

Responsibility for Administration

• Maintains accurate records of clinical engagement, project progress, and decision-making
• Contributes to programme documentation including logic models, outcome frameworks, and governance reports
• Uses digital collaboration tools (e.g. Microsoft Teams, Lists, SharePoint) to support transparent and efficient working
• Supports reporting to internal governance groups and external stakeholders as required
• Provide regular highlight reports to the Digital Programme SRO and Transformation Board, escalating progress, risks and exceptions
• Maintains documentation related to digital safety incidents, mitigations, and learning
• Maintains oversight of clinical safety documentation in line with DCB0129 and DCB0160 standards

Responsibility for People who use our services

• Ensures digital initiatives are designed to improve efficiency, patient experience, safety, and outcomes
• Advocates for personalisation, accessibility, and equity in digital service design
• Embeds patient voice and co-production in digital transformation projects
• Identifies and mitigates risks to service users arising from digital change
• Acts as Clinical Digital Safety Officer, ensuring digital systems support safe, effective, and person-centred care through a detailed and complex risk assessment of all aspects of the digital product, liaising with suppliers and subject matter experts to make an assessment
• Leads on clinical risk assessments for digital tools and contributes to incident reviews where digital systems are implicated
• Ensure fair and legal processing of complex personal and highly sensitive data by different digital systems
• Ensures that digital solutions are co-designed with service users and carers where appropriate

Responsibility for Implementation of Policy and/or Service Developments

• Leads clinical implementation of digital policies, standards, and service developments
• Works with operational teams to identify service improvement opportunities enabled by digital tools, ensuring that digital developments are grounded in real-world clinical workflows and service priorities
• Creates and adapts clinical workflows to embed digital solutions and ensures that transformational change is made safely by continual monitoring requiring a high level of accuracy
• Translates strategic objectives into operational change through digital enablement
• Supports adoption of digital tools across neighbourhood teams and specialist services
• Contributes to service redesign and pathway optimisation using digital solutions
• Ensures alignment with national and local digital health strategies
• Embeds digital safety principles into service development and policy implementation
• Ensures clinical safety is embedded throughout the lifecycle of digital service development, from design to decommissioning

Other Responsibilities

• Acts as a clinical ambassador for digital transformation across the organisation and system partners
• Participates in strategic planning, stakeholder engagement, and evaluation of digital initiatives
• May represent the organisation in regional or national digital health networks
• Promotes a culture of innovation, continuous improvement, and evidence-based practice
• Upholds organisational values and contributes to the delivery of strategic priorities
• Supports the organisations compliance with NHS digital safety standards and contributes to the development of digital clinical governance frameworks
• Provides assurance to the Executive Medical Director and CIO on clinical safety risks associated with digital systems

Please refer to the attached Job Description for detailed information regarding the communication and relationship requirements of the role, as well as the associated physical demands.

Person Specification

Experience

• Extensive experience in clinical leadership of operational teams.
• Experience of implementing complex digital transformation projects in operational teams.
• Significant experience of leading complex organisational and service level change across a range of functions.
• Significant and proven management experience in a relevant field within NHS or related work.
• Experience and skills in managing staff and the ability to identify training and development needs of staff.
• Excellent organisational and project management skills.
• Experience of budget and resource management.
• Experience of coaching/teaching staff at all levels of the organisation on a 1-1 and team basis.
• Significant experience of planning that takes into account known requirements, putting contingencies in place, re-assessing priorities and takes into account competing demands.

• Advanced skills in analysis of complex information and report writing and presentations.

Knowledge

• Broad knowledge of clinical systems in use in Livewell Southwest.
• In depth understanding of confidentiality and Information Governance processes.
• Highly computer literate, with significant knowledge of the application of digital technology in healthcare.
• Significant knowledge of the Microsoft Office suite of products.
• Significant understanding of NHS data quality issues.

• Knowledge of change management theory.
• Knowledge of programme/project management.
• Knowledge of benefits realisation methodology.
• Completion of clinical safety officer training.

Additional Requirements

• Ability to deliver pragmatic and customer focused solutions.
• Any other duties as prescribed by Line manager.

Qualifications

• Educated to masters level or equivalent or evidence of significant, equivalent and relevant experience in a healthcare setting.
• Evidence of Continuing Professional Development specifically in digital.
• HCPC, GMC, NMC, GPhC, CSP, ARTP Registered Clinician.

• Knowledge of lean/ Quality Improvement principles.
• Project management qualification or experience.

Specific Skills

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills including the ability to explain complex issues to stakeholders in a clear and concise and understandable way.
• A confident approach, capable of developing and maintaining good working relationships with colleagues, senior leaders, external partnerships, working as part of multidisciplinary teams.
• Strategic influencing and persuasion skills including the ability to conduct important complex conversations.
• High level presentation skills for groups that are engaging, enable delivery of key messages which may contain complex and challenging information.
• Ability to simplify and clarify highly complex situations with senior managers and clinicians.
• The ability to apply a common-sense approach to complex and high-pressure situations.
• Ability to work in a changing environment.
• Able to manage own time and produce quality work with competing priorities to tight deadlines.
• Advanced keyboard skills.
• Maintain project databases with a high level of attention to detail.

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website.

Employer details

Employer name

Livewell Southwest

Address

Crownhill Court

Tailyour Road

Plymouth

PL6 5DH

Employer's website

https://www.livewellsouthwest.co.uk/