Service Practitioner

NHS; Exeter, Leeds; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A national health service organization is seeking a Service Practitioner in Exeter to ensure high availability of IT services. Responsibilities include incident and problem management, stakeholder engagement, and contributing to service improvements. Candidates should have knowledge of service management processes, relevant qualifications, and strong analytical skills. This role is essential for improving the understanding and delivery of services within the NHS framework.

Qualifications

• Knowledge and experience of working in a Service Management environment.
• Knowledge of using Service Management toolsets to support and enhance processes.

Responsibilities

• Attend and contribute to stand-up meetings regarding tasks and progress.
• Manage incidents and problems to support continuous service.
• Contribute to performance metrics for service improvements.

Skills

Service level management

Incident diagnosis and resolution

Change management

Problem investigation

Education

Postgraduate diploma/degree or equivalent experience

ITIL Foundation V3 or V4

Job description

The Digital Operations and Service Management team is responsible for ensuring the high availability and responsiveness of National IT services.

The purpose of Digital Operations and Service Management is to prevent system disruption, but if and when it does - the intent is to restore services with minimal disruption. The purpose is achieved through a combination of proactive and reactive measures.

The teams are divided into six core areas providing technical and service management expertise.

• service management and operations
• service now delivery and innovation
• specialist technical engineering resolution
• service transition and technical assurance
• Services are delivered to internal customers (product delivery teams), suppliers and NHS organisations.

The structure of Digital Operations and Service Management brings centrally provisioned IT Service Desks into one team and also builds on the strategy to deliver IT enterprise tooling that will enable IT operations efficiencies in the merged organisations.

Main duties of the job

As a Service Practitioner within one of our teams, you could be involved in a wide array of tasks to support in this activity. Examples include:

• Attending and contributing to stand‑up meetings to discuss tasks, progress and issues.
• Being responsible for the day‑to‑day tasks and activities required to support the ongoing running of the services. This could include taking responsibility, as an individual and as part of the wider team, for incident management, problem management, release management, capacity management, availability management, and business as usual stakeholder engagement.
• Being responsible for contributing to the creation, and subsequent measurement, of performance metrics to address any service improvements.
• Undertaking Stakeholder engagement and management, improving working relationships with the service suppliers and customers.
• Being responsible for supporting the service manager with remedial work for service related risks, issues, escalations and stakeholder engagement.
• Being responsible for improving relationships with end users to improve Service Management's understanding of the service(s).
• Being responsible for participating in service improvement activity through short, sprint‑based focussed activity.
• Being responsible for supporting the team in the introduction of services from the design stage of the service lifecycle.

About us

Our work supports the NHS to deliver high quality services for patients and best value for taxpayers.

Our staff bring expertise across hundreds of specialisms -- including clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial -- enabling us to design and deliver high‑quality NHS services.

We lead the NHS in England by:

• Enabling local systems and providers to improve the health of their people and patients and reduce health inequalities
• Making the NHS a great place to work, where our people can make a difference and achieve their potential
• Working collaboratively to ensure our healthcare workforce has the right knowledge, skills, values and behaviours to deliver accessible, compassionate care
• Optimising the use of digital technology, research, and innovation

Earlier this year, the Government announced that NHS England will gradually merge with the Department of Health and Social Care, leading to full integration. The aim is to create a smaller, more strategic centre that reduces duplication and eliminates waste.

If successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the recruitment process.

Job responsibilities

You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.

Job description

Secondments

Applicants from within the NHS will be offered on a secondment basis only, agreement should be obtained from their employer prior to submitting the application.

Person Specification

Knowledge & Experience

• Knowledge and experience of working in a Service Management environment
• Knowledge of using Service Management toolsets to support and enhance processes and procedures

Skills

• Service level management performs defined tasks to monitor service delivery against service level agreements and maintains records of relevant information. Analyses service records against agreed service levels regularly to identify actions required to maintain or improve levels of service, and initiates or reports these actions
• Assesses, analyses, develops, documents and implements changes based on requests for change
• Prioritises and diagnoses incidents according to agreed procedures. Investigates causes of incidents and seeks resolution. Escalates unresolved incidents. Facilitates recovery, following resolution of incidents. Documents and closes resolved incidents according to agreed procedures.
• Investigates problems in systems, processes and services. Assists with the implementation of agreed remedies and preventative measures.
• Acts as the routine contact point between the organisation and suppliers. Supports resolution of supplier related incidents, problems, or unsatisfactory performance. Collects and reports on supplier performance data
• Assists in the investigation and resolution of issues relating to applications. Assists with specified maintenance procedures

Qualifications

• Educated to postgraduate diploma/degree level or equivalent experience
• ITIL Foundation V3 or V4, VeriSM Foundation or equivalent experience

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.