Lead Health Economist

Transformation Unit; Ely; Remote; GBP 90.000 - 120.000; Vollzeit

Zusammenfassung

Central East ICB is seeking a Lead Health Economist to lead economic evaluations and decision models across the Strategic Value Unit and Population Health Unit. You will translate costs, outcomes, equity, and affordability into recommendations for resource allocation and service design.

You will provide senior technical assurance, manage a health economics team, and collaborate with finance, clinical colleagues and commissioning to improve population health outcomes.

Qualifikationen

• Master’s-level qualification in Health Economics or related quantitative discipline.
• Continuing professional development in health economics, economic evaluation or related methods.
• Significant experience leading health economics programmes and teams.

Aufgaben

• Lead health economic work from problem definition to evidence translation and recommendations.
• Provide professional leadership for health economics across the unit and collaborate with finance, clinical and commissioning colleagues.
• Develop and interpret economic evaluation, decision modelling and budget-impact analyses.
• Ensure transparency of assumptions, data sources and uncertainty, with proportionate peer review and technical assurance.
• Translate economic evidence into actionable recommendations for strategy, commissioning and delivery.
• Lead a portfolio of complex work and foster development of health economics capability.

Kenntnisse

Health economics

R

Python

Ausbildung

Master’s degree in Health Economics

Tools

R

Python

Jobbeschreibung

We are Central East ICB, the new organisationentrusted with serving more than 3.5 million people across Bedfordshire, Luton, Milton Keynes, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and Hertfordshire.

We are responsible for making sure that the NHS can continue to support our community – now, and in the future. Everything we do will be guided by our core purpose: to do what best serves the population of this area.

We promise to focus on what makes the biggest difference to people’s lives – acting earlier to help prevent illness and detect disease and making it easier for our community to get the health care they need, closer to home, whenever that’s possible.

Read about our priorities in our strategy document, Our Way .

Job overview

The Lead Health Economist is a senior technical and professional leadership role within the Strategic Value Unit, working across the integrated Strategic Value Unit and Population Health Unit function. The postholder will lead the health economics discipline, ensuring that economic principles and methods support strategic commissioning, population health management, evaluation and effective stewardship of ICB resources.

The postholder will lead complex economic evaluations and decision models, translating evidence on costs, outcomes, equity, affordability, uncertainty and opportunity cost into practical recommendations. They will work within a multidisciplinary decision intelligence function, collaborating with analytical, public health, finance, commissioning and clinical colleagues to inform resource allocation and service design.

Proposed Interview Dates - 19th - 20th November

Main duties of the job

Job Summary

The postholder will lead complex health economic work from definition of the decision problem through evidence appraisal, modelling, analysis of uncertainty, interpretation and translation into recommendations. They will determine where health economic analysis adds value, select proportionate methods and provide technical assurance for high-impact economic analyses.

The role will:

• provide professional leadership for health economics across the integrated Strategic Value Unit and Population Health Unit function;
• lead complex health economic programmes supporting strategic planning, commissioning, transformation and evaluation;
• develop and apply economic evaluation, decision modelling, budget impact and prioritisation methods where these strengthen decision-making;
• make explicit the outcomes, costs, equity, affordability, trade-offs and opportunity costs associated with alternative uses of resources;
• establish standards for evidence appraisal, modelling, documentation, peer review, uncertainty analysis and technical assurance;
• translate complex economic evidence into clear, actionable recommendations for decision-makers; and
• build organisational health economics capability through line management, coaching, technical supervision and shared methods and resources.

Working for our organisation

We are committed to promoting equal opportunities to achieve equity of access, experience and outcomes and to recognising and valuing people’s differences. We are passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity; we see this as a strength and part of our founding mission, values and behaviours. We know through experience that different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative work environment that delivers patient outcomes.

We are committed to creating the best place to work, where your contribution is valued, your wellbeing is supported and all our colleagues can reach their full potential. We welcome and encourage applications from all areas of the community, who meet the criteria for the role, regardless of their protected characteristic. We work to ensure that our recruitment processes are as inclusive as possible to everyone, including making adjustments for people who have a disability or long-term condition and support with the recruitment process for people with lived experience.

We are happy to discuss flexible working options for all roles.

We operate a Carer friendly working environment that is supportive and inclusive. We actively encourage Carers to self-identify themselves.

We are a Disability Confident Employer and commit to shortlisting suitable applicants who meet the essential criteria for an interview. Please inform us of any adjustments you may require.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

A. Professional leadership and strategy

• Lead the health economics discipline across the integrated Strategic Value Unit and Population Health Unit, providing authoritative professional advice and setting its direction.
• Work with the Head of Evaluation and other professional leads to align the work programme and health economics capability with ICB priorities.
• Identify where health economics can materially improve decisions and advocate proportionate approaches based on the question, evidence, uncertainty and intended use.

B. Economic evaluation and decision modelling

• Lead complex economic evaluations and decision models supporting commissioning, transformation and resource allocation.
• Apply methods such as cost-effectiveness, cost-utility, cost-consequence, cost-benefit, budget impact, return on investment, multi-criteria decision analysis and scenario modelling where appropriate.
• Develop, adapt and interpret decision models suited to the decision context, available evidence and implementation maturity.
• Assess assumptions, uncertainty and sensitivity, ensuring limitations are transparent and conclusions proportionate to the evidence.

C. Strategic value, prioritisation and resource allocation

• Apply health economic reasoning across the strategic commissioning cycle, including prioritisation, option appraisal, business cases, investment, redesign and disinvestment.
• Assess marginal benefits, opportunity costs, affordability and trade-offs between alternative uses of ICB resources.
• Work with commissioning, finance and clinical colleagues to assess the resource and outcome implications of service configurations and commissioning options.
• Support value-based approaches that link resource use to outcomes, equity and population benefit.

D. Evidence, data and technical assurance

• Lead appraisal and synthesis of economic and related evidence, including published literature, national guidance and routine health and care data.
• Ensure assumptions, parameters and data sources are transparent, defensible and documented.
• Provide senior technical assurance of high-impact analyses and models through proportionate peer review, independent challenge and sensitivity analysis.
• Promote reproducible, transparent and responsible analytical practice and shared modelling resources.

E. Multidisciplinary evaluation and decision intelligence

• Lead the health economic components of multidisciplinary evaluations of pathways, programmes and service changes.
• Integrate economic evidence with outcomes, activity, utilisation, equity, implementation and qualitative evidence.
• Assess whether interventions deliver value and inform decisions about continuation, scaling, redesign or disinvestment.
• Consider distributional effects and health inequalities alongside overall population benefit where relevant.

F. Insight, influence and implementation

• Work with decision-makers to define economic questions and translate findings into clear recommendations for strategy, commissioning and delivery.
• Communicate costs, outcomes, uncertainty, affordability and opportunity cost clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Produce or assure economic content for business cases, option appraisals, committee papers, investment proposals and evaluation reports.
• Provide constructive challenge where economic assumptions, claims of value or interpretations are unsupported or misleading.

G. Team and portfolio leadership

• Line manage and professionally support the health economics team, including objectives, appraisal, performance, development and wellbeing.
• Provide technical supervision, coaching and professional development across the analytical function, fostering curiosity, constructive challenge, inclusion and continuous learning.
• Lead a portfolio of complex work, balancing priorities, risks, dependencies, resources and timescales.
• Contribute to workforce planning, recruitment and development of health economics and wider quantitative analytical capability.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Master’s-level qualification in Health Economics, Economics or a closely related quantitative discipline with substantial health economics content.
• Continuing professional development in health economics, economic evaluation, decision modelling or related methods.
• Relevant professional recognition or evidence of wider contribution to the health economics profession.

Knowledge & Experience

• Fluency in economic evaluation and modelling using R or Python, including cost-effectiveness, budget impact and analysis of uncertainty.
• Experience applying health economics to prioritisation, resource allocation, option appraisal, pathway redesign, investment or disinvestment decisions.
• Experience appraising economic evidence, developing model parameters and working with routine health, care, activity, outcome or cost data.
• Experience leading, managing, supervising or developing health economists or analytical staff, setting technical standards and supporting professional development.
• Significant experience providing senior technical or professional leadership and leading complex multidisciplinary health economics or analytical programmes.
• Experience of real-world economic evaluation of services, programmes, pathways or system interventions.
• Experience of specialist methods such as preference elicitation, multi-criteria decision analysis or distributional economic evaluation.
• Experience of NICE or health technology assessment methods and adapting national economic evidence to local decision-making.

Skills and abilities

• Ability to structure ambiguous decision problems, identify relevant comparators or counterfactuals and select proportionate economic methods.
• Ability to develop, interrogate and quality assure complex economic models and draw defensible conclusions from incomplete or uncertain evidence.
• Ability to synthesise complex economic, clinical, financial and population evidence into clear recommendations.

Please Note:

• This vacancy may close before the advertised closing date if a sufficient number of suitable applications are received. We recommend submitting your application early to avoid disappointment.
• Successfully shortlisted applicants will be contacted by email with an invitation to interview.
• Please note that we do not pay interview expenses, all costs are incurred by the candidate.

Notes on completion of applications:

• All reference requests will be made to your employer/previous employers' HR Department, covering the previous 3 years of activity.
• We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults, and expect all staff to undertake this commitment. Applicants will be subject to robust safer recruitment processes.
• All eligible staff will need to have gained clearance through a standard/enhanced DBS check prior to working.
• All posts are subject to a probationary period.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Name Sam Williamson Job title Deputy Director of Health Economics and Evaluation Email address [emailprotected] Additional information

Joao Rocha - [emailprotected]