Clinical Systems Application Specialist

Merseywestlancs; St Helens; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

The Clinical Systems Application Specialist is responsible for the support and service delivery of the Trust’s Community system, specifically for IT related training, Data Quality and System Administration, incorporating system development along with supporting the design, production, development, testing and promotion of the EPR service for the Trust, across complex areas of clinical and corporate services.

Job description

We want talented and enthusiastic people from all backgrounds to join #TeamMWL, with us you can learn, grow and develop yourself and your career, realising your true ambitions and aspirations.

Whatever you’re looking for in your career, you’ll find it here at MWL.

After applying via NHS Jobs, your submitted application will be imported into our preferred Third-party recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs. You will not be able to track the progress of your application or receive messages through the NHS Jobs website, and furthermore, as an employer, we will not be able to respond to any e-mails sent to us via the NHS Jobs website. By applying for this post you are agreeing to "name of trust" transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are appointed to a post information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.

Job overview

The Clinical Systems Application Specialist is responsible for the support and service delivery of the Trust’s Community system, specifically for IT related training, Data Quality and System Administration, incorporating system development along with supporting the design, production, development, testing and promotion of the EPR service for the Trust, across complex areas of clinical and corporate services.

The post holder will participate as a key member of the team involved with the development and provision of structured programmes to support individual staff and staff groups within the Trust as part of everyday working practice.

This post will sit within the Digital Maturity Team responsible for providing access to complete, accurate and timely data and information in supporting patient care, clinical governance and operational management decisions.

Main duties of the job

The Clinical Systems Application Specialist is a strategically important role, supporting the development of the Trust's EPR platforms and making significant contributions to the development of a paperless integrated EPR strategy.

Working closely with the Clinical and Community Systems Managers informing and shaping the EPRs Strategy.

Providing assurance to the Clinical and Community Systems Managers with regard to resilience in relation to deliver/upgrades/downtime in respective systems.

On a day-to-day basis, supporting the Community Systems Manager in managing the Trust's team of EPR Support Analysts, and building strong relationships with operational directorates and corporate teams.

As part of a dynamic and evolving service department, the Application specialist will have a strong customer focus, sharing in the ownership of the complete life cycle of the supported applications.

The Clinical Systems Application Specialist is also responsible for supporting the Clinical Systems Manager in the operational support and system management of Medway EPR, comprising of Medway including Order Comms, Galaxy, EMIS, Evolve, Medisec and associated systems, ensuring that for all modules are fully operational and accessible at all times, in accordance with defined policies, procedures and SLA’s (Service Level Agreements), with designated system responsibility with the ability to cover all systems as and when required.

Working for our organisation

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 10,500 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.

Our services:

Acute Care

Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.

Primary Care

Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.

Community Services

Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire. Our inpatient unit at Newton Community Hospital is where patients needing acute hospital beds can continue rehabilitation. We also provide urgent care at our Urgent Treatment Centre located in St Helens town centre.

Specialist Regional Services

We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

Achievements:

• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Supports the operational management of the Clinical Systems Team to deliver the Trust’s objectives, making effective and efficient use of resources in the process.
• Leads the delivery of local requirements/enhancements for improving their designated clinical systems and data processes and supporting this process for the other corporate clinical systems in the Trust’s portfolio.
• Contributes to the delivery of the Trusts IM&T strategic roadmap, taking a lead role for their designated corporate clinical system(s) as appropriate.
• Acts as the lead role in the day to day operational management of designated corporate clinical systems and providing cover for other corporate clinical systems as required.
• Assists in developing and managing the provision of facilitation and support programmes for new and existing staff in using corporate clinical systems within the Trust
• Liaises with the Clinical Systems Training Team to develop processes that ensure a smooth transition to new clinical systems for users and offers support to enable them to utilise clinical applications fully as part of their day to day working practices
• Develops data quality audits and action plans in conjunction with the Clinical Systems Manager and the Information team, to improve data completeness, accuracy and timelines, as well as reporting on performance in each of these areas.
• Assists in the administration of user access requests as required
• Provides expert, professional advice on clinical systems use, data quality and clinical coding standards to all staff within the Trust as required.
• Works with colleagues to ensure that delegated project tasks are completed to agreed timescales
• Ensures that all corporate clinical systems are configured to collect data that is statutory, mandated or contracted.

Communication & Relationship skills

• Receives complex information from system suppliers regarding the management, configuration and use of corporate clinical systems and explains the impact on the Trust’s standard operating procedures of users of these systems to all levels of clinical and non-clinical staff throughout the Trust. Is able to negotiate, influence and persuade staff, as there are often changes to job roles, ways of working and recording standards that may or may not be welcome by the individual users, sections or departments.
• Liaises with all levels of clinical and non-clinical staff throughout the Trust to identify improvements to individual corporate clinical systems and clearly explains the required changes to third party system suppliers using the contracted methods as well as user group and other user forums as appropriate. Negotiates, influences and persuades other organisations in building a consensus with other organisations to support this Trust’s proposed changes.
• The post holder liaises with third party suppliers and Trust staff in matters relating to both complex and general support issues, software releases, upgrades, testing and fixes. On occasion, this requires negotiation with other staff and/or suppliers on the availability of resources and schedules for implementation.
• Offers assurance to the IT senior team and appropriate Trust governance arrangements in relation to the resilience of the system with respect to the application of upgrades and downtime. Leads on the accurate and effective implementation of all new patches and upgrades to the supported systems
• Liaises closely with the suppliers of the supported systems to encourage good working relations and to ensure that systems are supported in accordance with relevant contractual obligations
• The post holder uses their own initiative to identify where improvements can be made to the operation of corporate clinical systems and informs the Senior Application Specialist accordingly
• Exercises their interpretation of policies and how they are implemented
• The post holder supports the delivery of internal and external service delivery targets that are geared to improving and progressing patient care, as well as contributing and working to achieve them.
• Represents the Clinical Systems Team in the IT Change Advisory Board as required
• Represents the Trust at supplier user group meetings, providing user-feedback and knowledge based input to discussions for future developments

Knowledge Training & Experience

• The role requires and maintains an in-depth knowledge of the Trust’s corporate clinical systems through supplier led training on the management, configuration and maintenance of the application as well as its general use. This training is refreshed with any change or enhancements delivered by each upgrade or new release.
• The post holder supports the configuration of their designated corporate clinical systems to meet operational requirements, including process design, proforma development and role based access configuration (RBAC)
• The post holder has an excellent knowledge of the implications of information governance, registration authority, identity management, cyber security, national data standards and coding schemes on the use of the Trust’s corporate clinical systems. Identifies and takes action to resolve any shortfalls or variations from the required compliance.
• The post holder supports the scoping of requirements for service development requests, gathering relevant information using various resources, reviewing issues that may hinder or assist the development or implementation of changes to clinical systems.
• The role leads the technical input, from a clinical systems perspective, to the development and ongoing maintenance and testing of interfaces between systems.
• Supports the identification of new functionality and technologies from supplier provided documentation, evaluating their relevance and potential benefits to the Trust.
• Identifies support trends (e.g. several calls about the same problem in a short space of time) and takes action to resolve or mitigate them.

Analytical & judgmental skills

• Applies their own expert knowledge and experience to analyse/investigate complex problem situations and provide advice and guidance to colleagues and users when appropriate
• Uses their judgement to assist in making decisions on the highly complex requirements posed by development needs, which may have no precedent or where there are conflicting opinions
• Offers opinion to the Senior Application Specialist on new industry standards and solutions for clinical systems to ensure that the long term strategy reflects the standards and solutions appropriate to this Trust.

Planning & Organisational skills

• The post holder supports the development of long term strategies and plans to develop corporate clinical systems and to implement new solutions to benefit a wide range of clinical and corporate users across the Trust.
• Leads the strategic planning in relation to the management and support of upgrades, bug fixes, new releases, testing and documentation for their designated clinical systems.
• Ensures that all changes to clinical systems are progressed in accordance with the IT Departments
• Change Management Process.
• Coordinates the internal IT resource in relation to formulating plans for upgrades/downtime.
• Works with colleagues in the IT Department to identify new opportunities for developing and refining corporate clinical systems for the Trust.
• The post holder is required to take a lead role in liaising with third party suppliers and Trust staff in matters relating to support issues, software releases, upgrades, testing and fixes.
• Contributes to the development, implementation and on-going maintenance of business continuity and disaster recovery arrangements and maintain the necessary knowledge, skills and training to carry out the required actions.
• Adjust own workload accordingly to meet the needs of the service.

Physical skills

• The role requires advanced keyboard skills, with accurate input and manipulation of data including application and database environments.

Patient and Public Involvement

• This role has incidental patient contact.
• The post holder has regular contact with business unit staff.
• The role represents the Trust at User Groups and staff in other Trust’s with a similar strategy and similar clinical systems.
• Whilst working in the patient environment as part of their regular duties, the post holder acts in a professional manner, with particular reference to the principles of patient confidentiality and dignity and respect

Person specification

Qualifications

• Degree/PGD (Post Grad Diploma) in Health Informatics or equivalent experience
• PRINCE 2 Foundation
• ITIL V2
• Trained to a supplier accredited level in one of this Trust’s corporate clinical systems

Knowledge & Experience

• Highly developed specialist knowledge of small/mid-range/large hardware, operating systems and applications software
• Demonstrable experience of developing, managing and supporting EPR/PAS systems in an acute setting
• Effective management of large complex projects, involving multiple departments or clinical specialties and a clinical system used by an entire Trust.
• Extensive experience of management and decision making within a complex IT service, consisting of multiple, specialist teams, supporting a variety of clinical systems
• Substantial recent experience of design, implementation and managing clinical systems that are used Trust wide.
• Experience of dealing with user support enquiries routed through a central help desk and actively providing a resolution in conjunction with IT colleagues and system suppliers.
• Extensive understanding of change management processes and procedures, having led changes arising from upgrades to or implementation of a Trust wide clinical system.
• Understanding of the NHS information Governance framework and awareness of security and confidentiality issues
• Awareness of the requirements of GDPR, Data Protection Act 2018 and Caldicott standards as they apply to NHS systems
• Well-developed interpersonal skills - ability to deal with staff at all levels within the Trust, its Partner Organisations and with service providers, service users, and professional bodies outside of the Trust
• Ability to present complex or contentious information to large groups of staff
• Utilise strategies to deal with resistance to change
• Ensure teams of staff understand the need to deliver demonstrable service/system improvements within given time scale
• Negotiation skills – ability to motivate key stakeholders to ensure delivery of projects on time and within budget
• Ability to persuade senior managers and frontline staff of the importance of IM&T and successfully and positively managing change
• Excellent interpersonal and leadership skills
• Demonstrable recent experience of developing, managing and supporting Medway EPR.
• Familiarity with the Data Security and Protection Toolkit requirements

Skills

• Communication skills both written and oral
• Ability to make judgements during complex and critical situations when a conflicting range of options may be available accepting full responsibility for actions taken to maintain the continuity and integrity of the systems.
• Excellent analytical skills
• Clear report writing with emphasis on non-technical translation
• Presentation skills using a variety of formats/equipment
• Provide specialist professional advice to a wide ranging audience
• Self-motivated and able to plan and manage own workload without direct supervision
• Ability to evaluate and select appropriate analytical methodologies and apply these to a range of situations requiring interpretation and comparison of a range of options
• Expertise in development and improvement measures
• Takes decisions on difficult and contentious issues where there may be a number of courses of action
• Demonstrated capability to plan over short, medium and long-term timeframes and adjust plans and resource requirements appropriately
• Must be able to use initiative to decide relevant actions and make recommendations to senior management with the aim of ensuring a robust EPR.
• Excellent organisational skills and the ability to react to rapidly changing requirements

Other

• High computer use including word processing, spreadsheets and databases.
• Occasional requirement to support departments in situ following major upgrades
• Able to remain calm under pressure
• Managing changing and conflicting priorities and working to tight deadlines
• Prolonged concentration whilst checking documents and analysing complex data and statistics, with frequent and unexpected interruptions to deal with urgent business issues in response to senior management/clinical requests.
• Technical design skills requiring frequent periods of prolonged and intense concentration when addressing problems or design of highly complex functionality changes/developments
• Responding to challenging deadlines which change rapidly and require a substantial degree of flexibility.
• Dealing with staff during a course of work who may not be accepting of change
• Ability to work in an open plan office environment
• Driver with a valid UK driving licence

Thank you for considering an application to work for Mersey West Lancashire NHS Trust. MWL is an exciting and forward-thinking NHS Trust who are one of the best places to work for in England.

The Trust may contact you during the recruitment process for your feedback on your experience. We always aim for continuous improvement in our practice.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

We actively cultivate a professional environment of fairness, equality, dignity, and respect for all individuals. We welcome individuals from all backgrounds and value the unique skills, perspective and experience you bring. We are grounded in the belief that diversity enhances our collective strength, fostering innovation and excellence within our workforce. We welcome all applications irrespective of people’s race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion/belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity and in particular those from under- represented groups.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we commit to offering an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

If you are having difficulty completing an online application, or require any disability reasonable adjustments, to the application process, please contact [e-mail]

We also commit to offering an interview to all armed forces veterans who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

The Trust operates anonymous shortlisting where no personal information about you, including your name or personal details are shared with the recruiting manager. No equality information is shared at any time during the recruitment process with the recruiting manager or other people involved in the decision-making process.

The equality monitoring information you provide is used in the following situations: to review our recruitment practices; where a job is limited to a specific person to verify their eligibility to apply; and to offer disability reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Following the recent update on UK immigration policy for those on a Health and Care Visa or Skilled Worker Visa, please check your eligibility before applying for this post as we may be unable to provide sponsorship.

eVisa Update

For successful candidates on selected work and study visa routes, who have completed and paid for their applications will no longer receive a visa vignette in passport as evidence of their permission to enter the UK. Instead, you will be issued with an eVisa only, which is accessed by creating a UKVI account. Before travelling to the UK, we advise applicants to:

• Understand how to generate an eVisa share code

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

If this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 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.

Please note if applicable, applicants will be required to pay for their DBS check. Costs are deducted from salary following appointment.

If you have not already done so, you are therefore encouraged to enrol for the DBS Update Service to which a small annual fee of £13 per year applies.

Flexible Working

We actively support flexible working patterns throughout MWL. Changes made to the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook mean that:

• All employees have the right to request flexible working from day one of employment.
• There is no limit on the number of requests they can make.
• Employees have the right to make requests, have them considered, regardless of the reason.

At Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, we will consider requests for flexible working. We would also encourage you to also discuss flexible working options at interview stage.

Working for Team MWL

Staff recognition is especially important to us; as well as performance reviews and appraisals, we recognise staff through Employee of the month. Along with supporting you to achieve your career goals we offer a generous pension scheme, unsocial hours payments (where applicable), 27 days annual leave on commencement (pro rata) and access to a range of NHS discounts. Our Staff Health and Wellbeing programme offer a variety of services.

The Trust is a non-smoking across all our sites. Failure to follow this rule could lead to disciplinary action. For more information, see the Smoke Free NHS website.

You will be expected to undertake the Trusts' commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.

You must ensure that your application, including personal statements and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.

The Trust will not accept applications which are found to be AI generated and will check all applications against AI detection software.

Additional Information

Before applying, we encourage you to review the Trusts Values and Behaviours which are We are KIND, We are OPEN, We are INCLUSIVE, which can be found here .

An applicant guide to help and support you with your application and what to expect during your recruitment journey can be accessed in the supporting documents.

Good luck with your application. We hope to welcome you to Team MWL very soon.

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