Clinical Coding & Data Quality Improvement Lead
Job summary
Important Information for Applicants: This vacancy is for Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (SaBP).
This role is offered through Flexi-Bank, a collaborative temporary staffing service delivered in partnership between Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust. Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust acts as the host provider and manages the recruitment, onboarding and administrative processes on behalf of Surrey and Borders.
Please note that although Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust branding may appear on this advert and within the recruitment system, successful applicants for this vacancy will undertake bank shifts for Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.
Location: 18 Mole Business Park, Randalls Road, Leatherhead, Surrey, KT22 7AD
Why join Flexi -Bank?
Work flexibly - choose shifts that suit your lifestyle and availability
Access more opportunities - pick up shifts across mental health and community
Get paid fairly and on time - competitive rates and fast access to earnings through Stream
Stay supported - benefit from training, development and guidance from our dedicated Temporary Staffing Team
Main duties of the job
Surrey and Borders is looking for someone in a specialist role responsible for delivering improvements in completeness, accuracy and consistency of the clinical information required for productivity analysis and MHNRG currency readiness.
Working with clinicians, operational services, the CCIO function, Business Intelligence, Finance, EPR and SITI teams, the postholder will identify gaps in clinical recording and data flows and support sustainable improvements in the capture of presenting need, diagnosis, interventions, outcomes and complexity factors.
The role combines clinical engagement, data-quality analysis, audit, training and improvement and is not limited to retrospective clinical coding audit.
Working Pattern: Weekdays from 9:00AM to 17:00 PM
Duration: 12 months fixed
About us
Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is the leading provider of health and social care services for people of all ages with mental ill-health and learning disabilities in Surrey and North East Hampshire. We also provide social care services for people with a learning disability in Croydon and ASD and ADHD assessment services in Hampshire.
We actively seek to engage people who use our services and our communities in improving the mental wellbeing of the local population. We work closely with other NHS and voluntary sector organisations who provide services and support people who use services and carers.
Surrey is a beautiful county lying just 30 minutes away from Central London and from the South Coast.
Our historic market towns and bustling districts are enveloped in wonderful countryside, and our excellent road and rail networks bring the rest of the country within easy reach.
For international travel, both Gatwick and Heathrow airports are nearby.
Would you like to work in an organisation that sits in the top 10 best NHS Mental Health, Learning Disability and Community Services Trusts to work for? This ranking is based on staff feedback in the 2023 NHS Staff Survey.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Key Responsibilities of the role are:
Clinical Coding Audit & Oversight
Lead the delivery of the Trust's clinical coding audit programme, ensuring audit methodology, sampling and reporting comply with national standards and support high-quality clinical coding, patient-level costing and emerging mental health currencies.
Analyse audit findings to identify risks, documentation issues and opportunities to improve coding quality, ensuring coded data accurately supports activity reporting, costing, commissioning and future NHS payment models.
Act as the programme specialist for clinical coding and data-quality queries, providing advice on the implications for productivity, costing, MHNRGs and statutory data flows.
Coordinate improvement programmes arising from audit findings, working with clinical, operational, Finance, Business Intelligence and SITI teams to improve coding quality, documentation standards and organisational readiness for mental health currencies.
Ensure coding quality supports accurate derivation of clinical activity, patient-level costing, service line reporting, commissioning datasets and statutory returns, escalating material risks where appropriate.
Clinical Engagement
Work with clinicians and service teams to improve the capture of presenting complaints, ICD-10 diagnoses, SNOMED CT concepts, PROMs, MHSDS data items and complexity factors, ensuring high-quality data is captured.
Provide expert coding advice on complex clinical scenarios, ensuring documentation supports accurate coding, reimbursement, commissioning and service planning.
Present audit findings and coding intelligence to clinicians and senior leaders, demonstrating the impact of documentation quality on patient safety, mental health currencies, costing and organisational performance.
Lead documentation improvement initiatives that strengthen the quality of coded data used for commissioning, benchmarking, patient-level costing and future payment models.
Promote understanding of the relationship between clinical documentation, coding, mental health currencies, costing and the Trust's financial sustainability.
Data Quality & Reporting
Lead the analysis and reporting of coding quality and MHSDS data quality, identifying trends, risks and opportunities that support mental health currencies, productivity benchmarking and organisational performance.
Analyse the impact of coding quality on activity reporting, currency assignment, commissioning datasets, financial reporting and service line reporting, providing clear recommendations to senior stakeholders.
Work with Business Intelligence and Finance to validate coded activity, costing and currency datasets, ensuring they accurately reflect the complexity and delivery of mental health services.
Develop assurance reports and dashboards demonstrating the relationship between coding quality, activity, patient complexity, costing, currencies and financial performance.
Undertake root-cause analysis to distinguish between clinical documentation, workflow, EPR configuration, coding, extraction and submission issues, agreeing remedial action with the appropriate owner.
Monitor implementation of audit recommendations, ensuring improvements are embedded and reflected within organisational reporting.
Improvement
Lead continuous improvement initiatives that strengthen coding quality, documentation standards and the quality of data used to support mental health currencies, patient-level costing and service transformation.
Support staff through training and coaching to improve coding consistency and understanding of the wider role coding plays in commissioning, reimbursement and financial sustainability.
Share audit findings and emerging risks to improve organisational understanding of the relationship between coding quality, patient complexity and future NHS payment arrangements.
Governance
Act as the Trust's senior specialist for coding governance, ensuring compliance with national coding standards and providing expert advice on the implications for mental health currencies, patient-level costing, commissioning and statutory reporting.
Maintain governance arrangements for coding policies, audit processes and assurance documentation, ensuring alignment with national coding standards and emerging NHS payment developments.
Monitor developments in clinical coding, mental health currencies and NHS payment mechanisms, assessing implications for the Trust and supporting organisational readiness.
Work with EHR and Business Intelligence teams to ensure that agreed improvements in clinical recording flow accurately into MHSDS, the NHS Talking Therapies data set and programme reporting.
Work closely with Information Governance, Digital, EHR teams to improve the quality and completeness of clinical data submitted for national reporting and emerging payment models.
Person Specification
Qualifications
- Degree-level education or equivalent experience in clinical data quality, health informatics, clinical coding, information management or a relevant healthcare discipline.
- Approved Clinical Coding Auditor (evidence of current status)
- National Clinical Coding Qualification (NCCQ)
- Accredited Clinical Coder (ACC) status Microsoft Office qualification (ECDL Level 2 or equivalent)
- Medical Terminology qualification (e.g., AMSPAR Level 2)
Experience
- Significant experience as an Accredited Clinical Coder across a broad range of specialties.
- Significant experience undertaking clinical coding audits, including re-coding complex cases and presenting evidence-based recommendations
- Experience working with clinicians to improve documentation quality and coding accuracy.
- Experience working with Business Intelligence, Finance or Data Quality teams to improve the quality and use of coded clinical data.
- Experience of applying coded clinical data to support patient-level costing, commissioning, service planning and emerging mental health currencies.
- Experience providing technical leadership, coaching or mentoring
- Experience contributing to service improvement or quality improvement initiatives.
- Experience supervising technical staff.
- Experience supporting the implementation of patient-level costing or mental health currency methodologies
Skills
- Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills.
- Ability to interpret complex clinical documentation and apply national coding standards.
- Ability to analyse coding and audit data to identify trends, risks and opportunities.
- Ability to communicate the impact of coding quality on patient-level costing, mental health currencies and organisational performance.
- Strong organisational, prioritisation and decision-making skills.
- Advanced HRG/ Mental Health and Neurodevelopmental Resource Groups (MHNRGs)/ Healthcare Resource Grouping software skills.
- Project or people management skills.
Knowledge
- Expert knowledge of clinical coding standards, classifications and audit methodologies.
- Knowledge of higher-level coding functions, including audit, training and clinical engagement.
- Understanding of how coded clinical data supports patient-level costing, mental health currencies, commissioning and NHS payment mechanisms.
- Knowledge of Information Governance, GDPR and data protection requirements.
- Knowledge of NHS Costing Standards, MHSDS, Mental Health and Neurodevelopmental Resource Groups (MHNRGs) and PLICS.
- Knowledge of national coding audit and DSPT requirements.
- Understanding of NHS improvement methodologies and quality improvement frameworks.
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
Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust
Address
18 Mole Business Park
Randalls Rd
Leatherhead
KT22 7AD
United Kingdom
Employer's website
https://www.royalsurrey.nhs.uk/