Head of Information Governance

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust; London; Hybrid; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading mental health trust in London is seeking an experienced Information Governance Lead to develop and implement their Information Governance Framework. The role involves leadership in information governance practices, ensuring compliance with data protection laws, and collaborating with strategic partners. The ideal candidate should have extensive experience in information governance, strong leadership skills and a commitment to promoting flexible working arrangements. Competitive salary and career progression opportunities are provided.

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements

Career progression opportunities

Training and development programs

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in information governance and digital services.
• Specialist knowledge of data protection and information security legislation.
• Experience in leading teams and managing complex information governance issues.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement the Information Governance Framework.
• Lead the Information Governance service within the Trust.
• Collaborate with strategic partners to enhance digital services.

Skills

Leadership

Analytical skills

Communication

Information Governance Knowledge

Project Management

Education

Master's degree or equivalent

Tools

Prince2

ITIL

Job description

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South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond.

We are committed to provide a high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for our care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as 'good'.

We launched our five-year strategy, Aiming High; Changing Lives in 2021 together with Our Care Improvement System as our quality management system methodology to make a positive impact on patient care, outcomes and staff experience. By joining SLaM, all staff will get the opportunity to be part of this exciting improvement journey supported with learning and development to harness everyone's potential as change makers.

The trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role. We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust.

Our Values

We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I'm going to do is at the heart of everything we do. When you join us, you'll be part of something special.

As a Trust we are happy to talk flexible working.

Job overview

The post holder will be an experienced leader with good understanding of health and social care services, value of clinical and corporate information in health and social care, medical research with knowledge and a satisfactory track record of the application of Information Governance (IG) related national legislation, including recent and upcoming changes, strategies and policies.

The post holder will be expected to have the skills, knowledge and track record to provide leadership in relation to IG issues across the Trust and represent the Trust IG approach which enables new developments, introduction of emerging technologies, better use of information assets that will enhance treatment and care options with better outcomes for service users, flexible and efficient professional practice for staff, compliant and lawful clinical and corporate operations in strategic partnerships.

Career Progression pathways and development opportunities:

We are committed to get the very best out of our staff and support staff in their career aspirations. We have career pathways available, where you will be able to develop your skills and build on your experience to progress into other roles across different specialties. For this role, we offer career pathways to Senior manager roles within the IG and the wider team. In addition, we offer ongoing training and development in conjunction with the BCS membership.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will develop and implement the IG Framework in the Trust to achieve the goals in the Digital Strategy in line with the values and the objectives of the Trust, current and future strategic partnerships such as the Kings Health Partnership (KHP) and South London Partnership (SLP), lead the work programme required to fulfil the strategic goals and will be responsible to manage and lead the IG service.

The post holder will lead an advanced IG service that is fit to support a London mental health trust and its strong association with academic partners such as the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) and Kings College London. , The post holder is required to be a leading participant in the national and regional strategic health and social care initiatives by working collaboratively in partnerships, promoting the Trust's clinical, business, technical and practical expertise and knowledge, and ensures the Trust's compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other upcoming legislative changes.

Flexible working:

As one of the few Trusts in London we are proud to offer flexible working as part of our new ways of working, and we are happy to talk flexible working at the interview stage. In this role you will be able to work Monday to Friday in the time frames from 8am to 6pm, giving you the very best of good work life balance.

Working for our organisation

The Role sits within the Information Governance function, which forms part of the Digital Services team.

Information governance (IG) provides a framework to bring together all the legal rules, guidance and best practice that apply to the handling and security of information.

IG is about setting a high standard for the handling of information through a robust IT security assurance and complying with the law and national standards.

We ensure a high standard of information handling across the Trust, covering information security, data protection, freedom of information and privacy.

About our locations:

Maudsley Hospital (headquarters)

Our Trust headquarters is located at Denmark Hill less than 5 minutes from the train station (zone 2) and is within walking distance from the beautiful green spaces of Ruskin park and the vibrant high-street that offers great shopping opportunities and with a wide range restaurants.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key responsibilities and skills

Leadership

• Lead the development, delivery and management of the IG function that is fit to support the vision and digital aspirations of a mental health trust to empower service users, support clinicians, enable research, improve productivity, and support organisational performance with digital tools, technology and best use of data.
• Influence and promote the maximum and effective utilisation of clinical and corporate information for the benefit of service users and the greater good of the public in line with relevant legislation, health and social care standards, ethical principles.
• Represent and promote the Trust's IG vision and approach to influence strategic debate and policy in strategic partnerships, regional and national forums.
• Act in an advisory role internally in the Trust and externally in strategic groups and networks that are relevant for the Trust's strategic goals to lead new developments, introduction of emerging technologies, better use of information assets that will enhance treatment and care options with better outcomes for service users, flexible and efficient professional practice for staff, compliant and lawful clinical and corporate operations for the Trust.
• Lead the IG team to continuously improve services promoting innovation, developing staff and setting objectives to ensure that services are provided to agreed scope and quality targets within available financial resources.
• Create a vision for the future of IG in the Trust and key partnerships, clearly and enthusiastically communicate it, together with supportive objectives and operational plans.
• Ensure that the Trust Executive, senior managers, and the IG team understand and can see how the vision, objectives and operational plans link to the vision and objectives of the overall organisation.
• Create and maintain a culture which encourages and recognises efficient, creativity and innovation.
• Lead the development, operation and monitoring of a 'safe haven' function that will maximise the secondary use of clinical information for longitudinal biomedical research using ethical governance procedures such as consent models, practical alternatives such as anonymisation/pseudonymisation and enhance research value by effectively and appropriately linking and merging health and social care data from other resources, organisations and sectors for the benefit of service users and the public.
• Lead the development and implementation of the Trust IG framework to achieve the strategic goals of the Digital Services, the Trust, and all strategic partnerships, such as the Integrated Care Systems, the SLP and the KHP in line with organisational values and national standards.
• Develop strategic working relationships with partner organisations, strategic and advisory groups, and networks to lead, support and contribute to collaborative work to disseminate good IG practice developed in the Trust regionally and nationally.
• Promote the value and importance of effective IG throughout the organisation, in key partnerships, strategic regional and national groups and networks.
• Provide expert advice and guidance to health professionals, managers, researchers, other relevant members of staff, service users, families and carers on IG and practical implications of the new data protection legislation.
• Provide expert advice and guidance on innovative developments to further effective, secure, and lawful utilisation of clinical and corporate information to key strategic partners, regional and national groups in order to develop a collaborative working relationship and promote exemplar developments in the Trust.

Managerial

• Manage the recruitment and selection of IG staff with appropriate skills and knowledge.
• Provide leadership and guidance to coach, mentor, direct the members of the IG team.
• Develop and maintain an IG function that is agile and complaint to stay in tune with the Digital Strategy, the Trust vision, the Local Digital Roadmap in SE and SW London.
• Ensure that the learning, training and development of IG staff meets the current and emerging needs of the service.
• Provide leadership to support and advise IG staff when they need it especially during periods of setback and change.
• Motivate and support IG staff to achieve their work and development objectives and provide recognition when they are successful.
• Empower IG staff to develop their own ways of working, take their own decisions within agreed boundaries, encourage the team to take the lead in their own areas of expertise and show willingness to follow this lead.
• Ensure that any issues of staff performance and disciplinary issues are dealt with in accordance with organisational policy.
• Develop, manage and evaluate stakeholder relationships to enable the implementation of the IG strategic goals.
• Manage and maintain the participation of members of staff in organisation wide initiatives and requirements in relation to IG issues.
• Contribute to the overall management of the Trust as a member of the Digital Senior Management Team and by way of a programme of work as agreed with the Chief Information Officer, Chief Privacy and Assurance Officer, Chief Technology Officer the Caldicott Guardian, the SIRO and relevant IG Committees
• Develop and implement a customer focused and service user centred service model and culture.

Information Governance

• Lead the collation, completion and submission of the Data Security and Protection Toolkit submission.
• Develop strategies and plans to promote and develop good IG practice within the organisation and to embed such good practice in organisational culture.
• Develop, manage and coordinate a robust IG programme of work within the organisation in line with the Data Protection Act 2018, Freedom of Information Act 2000, Caldicott requirements, Information Sharing Processes and other related legislation and guidance.
• Promote the good IG practice based on the Trust's relevant strategies in key partnerships such as the SLP and the local ICSs, strategic regional and national groups and collaborative networks.
• Provide updates and expert advice to senior leaders in the Trust and in strategic partnerships on issues that relate to information governance.
• Work closely with the Data Protection Officer, Caldicott Guardian, the CCIO, the SIRO, the CIO and the CPAO to lead the development and delivery of the Trust IG Framework in line with relevant legislation, health and social care standards.
• Monitor and manage compliance with IG related national legislation (Data Protection Act, Freedom of Information Act etc), industry security standards (such as ISO27001) and health and social care IG standards.
• Advise the organisation and key partnerships / strategic networks to design, develop and monitor processes, policies and strategies to enable effective, lawful and secure use of clinical information for secondary uses such as research to maximise the value of such information for the benefit of service users.
• Lead the development of Trust-wide IG and other relevant Digital policies that are compliant, clear and easy to understand.
• Ensure the organisation successfully manages the risk associated with information and technology through Trust wide standards and compliance with those standards.
• Ensure processes and awareness are in place for information related incidents to be appropriately reported, escalated and investigated, lessons learnt are disseminated across the organisation.
• Lead reviews and advise on breaches of information security and confidentiality.
• Provide expert advice and guidance to members of staff and other stakeholders on IG matters.
• Provide expert advice on national strategies and complex legislation affecting the IG of the organisation ensuring the organisation is aware of changes that may require adjustments in the Trust approach.
• Lead, participate and contribute in organisational, regional and national committees, groups and networks to determine and implement national and local policies, protocols and procedures.
• Lead the monitoring of information processing against agreed standards by undertaking inspections and assurance audits of information security and confidentiality arrangements within the organisation.
• Engage service users and carers in the development of organisational IG policies to ensure increased awareness of information rights, purposes for which information is to be used and shared and obtaining consent.
• Lead the development of regular reports and communications on IG matters within and beyond the organisation.
• Lead the development and delivery an IG awareness and training programme of activities that meets the needs of the Trust workforce.
• Promote professional and corporate responsibility to safeguard confidential clinical information handled and exchanged within the Trust and with partner organisations.
• Lead the training of large groups of staff in confidentiality, information security, freedom of information and other information governance subjects.
• Lead the investigation and response to formal information requests, complaints, regulatory notices from external organisations and regulators.
• Provide lead point of contact with the Information Commissioner's Office on behalf of the Trust.
• Manage the processes to enable effective sharing of information within the organisation and with partner organisations in line with national legislation and policies.
• Develop assurance checks on compliance to internal Digital Services and Trust processes and national best practice standards.
• Contribute to the development of a culture of openness allowing appropriate information to flow freely.
• Ensure the development and effective administration of a document management system.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Educated at least to master's level (or equivalent professional qualification) and acceptable working track record within a Digital/ information environment with relevant and demonstrable ongoing professional training undertaken.
• Considerable experience working in an Digital/patient information, information governance, digital risk and quality management environment (A)
• Evidence of professional development (A)
• Prince 2 trained at Foundation or Practitioner level (A)
• ITIL Service Management Foundation (A)
• CoBIT or similar (A)
• CISPP, HCISPP or similar (A)

Desirable criteria

• Member of a professional body (e.g. BCS) (A)

Experience, Knowledge and Skills

Essential criteria

• Extensive experience as a senior manager in the information governance area (A/I)
• Specialist knowledge, good understanding, and experience of applications of the Data Protection Act (2018) and the Freedom of Information Act (2000), Caldicott Principles (A/I)
• Specialist knowledge, good understanding, and experience of applications of the national information governance and security standards set by the Department of Health and NHS Digital (A/I)
• Good understanding of risks to information and experience of managing information risks (A/I)
• Good understanding of service user consent, knowledge of consent in relation to mental capacity and experience of practical consent models (A/I)
• Knowledge and extensive experience of use of clinical information for medical research, service evaluation and audit (A/I)
• Knowledge of practicable alternatives to using identifiable clinical information and demonstrable experience of their application and implementation (A/I)
• Knowledge of relevant advisory bodies, regulators and experience of satisfactorily communicating with and utilising the expertise of these bodies (A/I)
• Knowledge of information systems and standards in the NHS (A)
• Knowledge of information security standards and experience of managing information security in a large organisation (A/I)
• Thorough and up to date knowledge of legal and compliance issues relevant to NHS Digital standards (A/I)
• Knowledge and experience of fundamental difference between management and leadership, a range of different leadership styles and how to select and apply these to different situations and people (I)
• Experience of operational management of staff and leadership (A/I)
• Experience of dealing with staff performance and disciplinary issues (A/I)
• Experience of working and engaging with a variety of senior staff (A/I)
• Experience of issues of service user empowerment in a mental health environment (I)
• Experience of the development of clear and unequivocal standards, procedures and policies followed by successful implementation and review (A/I)
• Experience of dealing with a broad range of complex activities with adequate planning and organisational skills (A/I)
• Experience of budget management and contract monitoring (A)
• Experience of planning and delivering specialist training to staff at various levels (A
• History of successful project management using Prince 2 as their project management methodology (A)
• Knowledge of equalities and how these may impact in management situations (A/I)
• Knowledge of Mental health services and awareness of mental health issues (A)
• Experience of multi-professional and multi-agency collaboration (I)
• Collaborating with teams to exploit local utility of Digital solutions (A)
• Experience of strategy development and implementation of strategic goals (I)
• Experience of business case development (A)
• Communication of Digital concepts and service issues to a wide range of staff (A)
• Effective leadership, coaching, mentoring and management skills (A/I)
• Excellent written, verbal, and other media communications / presentation skills (A/I)
• Ability to customise style of communication in accordance with the requirements of the target audience (A)
• Excellent analytical, clear, and concise report, policy and guidelines writing skills (A)
• Excellent and constructive feedback skills (I)
• Leading by example (A/I)
• Ability to set clear and achievable objectives (A/I)
• Ability to motivate, empower (A/I)
• Ability to manage conflict (A/I)
• Ability to handle highly complex and sensitive information for communication with staff at all levels, including senior managers, executive directors and the Trust Board (A/I)
• Ability to work collaboratively in regional and national networks (A/I)
• Ability to establish credibility with senior managers, clinicians, service users and with representatives of external agencies (A/I) Ability to respond to diverse demands and expectations (A/I)
• Ability to work to achieve agreed objectives independently working within broad organisational and departmental policies (A/I)
• Ability to lead by example, act as a specialist in own area and motivate teams (I)
• Ability to seek advice, consult and obtain feedback (I)
• Ability to exercise strong leadership to teams outside the line management span of control, internal and external operational and strategic groups and networks (A/I)
• Ability to work to achieve agreed objectives with a freedom to do this in own way working within broad professional policies acting using own initiative and without reference to manager (I)
• Ability to work autonomously as specialist in information governance whilst being guided by national policy and regulations with ability and track record of interpreting these. (I)
• Ability to apply analytical skills to resolve complex issues and return with decisions and solutions that are clear and easy to understand (I)
• Ability to facilitate a customer focussed and service user centred culture. (A/I)
• A logical and sensible approach to problem solving. (I)
• Change management skills (A/I)
• Have the ability to organise and prioritise workload and be able to work under pressure dealing with complex issues (A/I)
• To analyse and apply user information to ICT problem solving (I)
• Ability to express complex issues, both orally and in writing in a concise and clear manner for a range of audiences. (I)
• Strong negotiation, influencing and persuading skills. (A/I)
• Pro-active and self-motivated in completing work to a high standard in conjunction with other staff (A/I)
• Excellent team skills and ability to work with members of own and other teams and departments at all levels of the organisation. (A/I)

Desirable criteria

• Use of ITIL in a work environment (I)
• Experience of managing and developing Service Level Agreements (A)

The Trust is committed to providing services which embrace diversity and that promote equality of opportunity. We are a Disability Confident Employer, we welcome applicants from all sections of the community and people of all protected characteristics. We provide reasonable adjustments for candidates with a disability and are committed to treating people fairly with compassion, respect and dignity and in promoting equality and human rights. We aim to put this commitment into practice by:

• Embedding our commitment to tackling inequality, eliminating discrimination and harassment; promoting equality of opportunity and fostering good relations in our everyday practice
• Ensuring that all our services and all staff understand and support our commitment
• We believe that people who use our services, their carers and our staff, should be treated with compassion, respect and dignity

Please note:

• That all applications for this post will need to be made online
• That you read and understand the Job Description and Personal Specification attached to the role. Your Statement in Support should reflect the requirements specified as your application will be judged against these criteria
• That the closing date listed is a guide only and that the vacancy may close earlier should sufficient number of applicants have been received. We advise that you submit your application as early as possible
• That once you have submitted your application you agree to your application being transferred to a 3rd party e-recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs
• That should you not have heard from us within three weeks from the closing date your application has not successful
• That priority consideration for applications may be given to at-risk NHS employees
• That should you be successful and appointed, you authorise South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to confirm your previous NHS service via an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process
• That we are a smoke-free Trust

SLaM is a Stonewall Diversity Champion , Stonewall is the largest Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans (LGBT) rights charity in Europe'

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Documents to download

• Job Description (PDF, 720.5KB)
• SLaM Staff Benefits (PDF, 1.1MB)
• Happy to Talk Flexible Working (PDF, 680.1KB)