Senior Programme Manager - Evaluation and Insights

Job summary

This is a pivotal post that will contribute to the expansion of the evaluation team at Health Innovation North West Coast at an exciting time in its development. Evaluation is a growth area of strategic importance to the organisation and our partners, and as such the post holder will have the opportunity to make a real difference to HINWC and the populations we serve.

HINWC evaluate innovation, and innovative programmes and pathways, demonstrating their impact and understanding their limitations to accelerate spread and adoption. Our work is conducted in real world healthcare settings and not in controlled research environments, and as such we are looking for an individual with the creativity and flexibility to respond to the challenges this can bring. Whilst it's not essential to have experience of the full range of approaches and methodologies we can deploy in a fast-paced innovation environment, a solid understanding of evaluation techniques is necessary.

The post holder will work closely with the Head of Programmes to manage a diverse portfolio of evaluation programmes. Excellent programme management, report writing and communication skills are as important as your analytic and evaluation skills. The ability to collaborate to establish partnerships is a key requirement. You must demonstrate the ability to cut through the complexity of delivering at scale, engaging and delivering to ensure that innovation is embedded into transformational redesign across the region.

Main duties of the job

Work strategically across HINWC and the wider NHS to work collaboratively on programmes and projects and develop and implement diverse evaluation-based programmes in a range of networks across the region.

You will be working with the evaluation team, as well as colleagues across the wider HINWC Team. You will deliver evaluations from small, local interventions to large, national complex and high-profile programmes

Drive and support the planning, management and delivery of key projects across the North West Coast, including the development of project plans with appropriate phasing timescales and milestones.

Designing and leading mixed method evaluation projects in a healthcare setting, including: managing access to relevant datasets; identifying metrics; process and impact evaluation; deploying implementation science methodologies to evaluate complex programmes and understand the barriers and facilitators to spread.

Develop clear programme plans and develop systems for tracking and reporting against these in order to ensure robust financial management and enable accurate reports to be provided.

Build a network and seek out new opportunities for collaboration and income generation. Contribute to bid proposals and scope new up project opportunities.

Act as an expert resource to HINWC, regional NHS and any of the structures with which it is associated, by maintaining a high level of current, evidence-based knowledge relevant to the post holder's areas of work interest.

About us

HINWC is one of 15 Health Innovation Networks commissioned by NHS England (NHSE) and the Office for Life Sciences (OLS) to accelerate the spread of innovations, across healthcare in England. The HINWC website contains more details about the organisation and its geography ( which includes the 2 Integrated Care Systems of Cheshire and Merseyside; and Lancashire and South Cumbria.

The work of HINWC progresses the 'Innovation, Health and Wealth' agenda and has been established to ensure that innovations benefit the health of individuals, communities, regions and the nation. Health Innovation Networks are a critical structure for aligning the NHS, academia and industry, and work as 'system integrators' across these domains.

Our vision at HINWC is to be the key innovation partner for both our Integrated Care Systems and we have three strategic goals:

1. Develop cultures that promote equity and allow innovation to thrive;

2. Stimulate economic growth and create jobs in the health and life sciences sector;

3. Increase the spread and adoption of innovations through collaboration.

Our core values drive both how we work together and how we work with our stakeholders, these are:

Caring

Collaborative

Courageous

Inclusive

Innovative

Health Innovation North West Coast is hosted by Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital.

Job description

Job responsibilities

Communication and Relationship Skills

Establish and foster relationships which facilitate effective liaison and communication with internal and external stakeholders, delivering and presenting information to large audiences when required.

Establish effective communication systems and processes for staff within sphere of responsibility.

Be an ambassador for HINWC and promote the organisation in regional and national meetings, through presentations, articles and other methods.

Provide regular updates and progress reports to key stakeholders, both verbal and written, in accordance with emergent formats and timescales, monitoring projects against the required outcomes within the constraints of time and budget.

Prepare and deliver presentations for internal and external audiences.

Attend and contribute to relevant internal and external meetings, conveying complex and sometimes highly complex information, adopting a style to overcome barriers to understanding/agreement.

This post holder must have advanced communication skills, with the ability to analyse and quickly translate information into key messages for senior managers, executives and board members and decision makers. Excellent writing skills are essential, including writing technical evaluation reports and more accessible project summary documents and case studies.

Increase positive relationships with senior managers, executives, staff and stakeholders, consulting with them on strategies to improve effectiveness.

Initiate communication with senior managers, staff and stakeholders on a regular basis to identify their needs, build strong relationships and deliver excellence in outcome and customer service.

Provide highly specialist in depth advice and management action to senior managers, executives and board members relating to integrated governance and its application.

Maintain close working relationships with coaching colleagues, quality, innovation and improvement professionals in other locations to ensure that support is available to address problem areas.

Manage communications to ensure productive and positive relations with all levels of staff and stakeholders to support transformation of culture and quality improvement.

Analytical and Judgmental Skills

Lead on initiation, development and implementation of a range of analytical techniques and quantitative methodologies.

Understand the quantitative techniques that can be deployed in real world settings, including quasi-experimental methodologies.

Ability to evaluate and review multiple sources of highly complex information, comparing a range of varying metrics and interpreting the optimum outcome and direction to implement. Make recommendations to our system based on the findings of our evaluations and existing evidence.

Conduct and support qualitative evaluation, including designing surveys, and leading interviews and focus groups.

Understand, or be willing to learn about, implementation science frameworks and methodologies and how they can be used to surface the barriers to, and enablers of, innovation.

Advise/brief on changes in legislation/national policy or emerging implementation science or real-world evidence techniques, making recommendations where necessary to ensure the organisation remains adaptable.

Provide expertise and guidance to other staff. Identify analytical expertise gaps within the team and arrange for knowledge sharing and training from within our network. Define priorities and timetables in the achievement of strategic and operational objectives.

Ability to review complex evidence from multiple sources, and when required, synthesise evidence to help inform decision making.

Planning and Organisational Skills

To support the development of the strategic plan that reflects intended growth and development of the Evaluation Team, HINWC Business plan and Health Innovation Network Plan.

Develop individual methodologies, proposals and plans for specific evaluations, taking into consideration resources, stakeholder perspectives and data availability.

Identify and take a lead role in the creating opportunities for the growth of the Evaluation Team.

Identify and manage stakeholder groups, including expert collaborators, that can inform the strategic direction and overall delivery and business development of HINWC.

Support the development of the Evaluation Team and lead the implementation of workstream(s). This will require periodic reviews and project planning, incorporating changing views, methods and strategies.

Provide expert leadership on all evaluation matters and engender these as core components of programmes offered to health and care professionals in the North West Coast.

Ensure the appropriate portfolio of methodologies and enablers is in place for the strategy and programme delivery, reviewing progress on an annual basis.

Development and management of implementation plans, evaluating and reporting on multiple projects and their critical outcomes using approved project and programme management approaches.

Gather, collate and understand a diverse range of system priorities and disseminate to multiple stakeholders.

Work with the high quality innovations on our innovation pipeline to provide evidence generation advice and facilitate progression of pipeline opportunities and future evaluation collaborations.

Patient/Client Care

Develop strategies for enabling and empowering clinicians to use evidence to make decisions about innovation adoption and spread.

Contribute to the delivery of developing capability through training and professional presentations on evaluation, critical appraisal of evidence and using evidence to support business decisions.

Evaluation may include direct contact with patients and members of the public in both design and delivery. The post holder will provide advice and ensure adherence to best practice and relevant policy in regard to patient and public involvement with evaluation, working closely with the HINWC Patient and Public Engagement Team.

Responsibilities for Policy and Service Development

To provide expert opinion that informs the development of Evaluation Programmes and strategy in partnership with other stakeholders and professionals.

Lead the development of key policy and procedures in relation to developing real world evidence, and a more flexible approach to generating evidence of the value of innovation. Share good practice.

The post holder will be required to lead and motivate groups with varied interests towards a common purpose, using a range of proven evaluation frameworks/methods.

Develop plans and monitor performance aligned to the shared objectives in line with the HINWC Business Plan.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

Educated to Masters level or appropriate professional qualification or equivalent in a relevant discipline and experience in health related arena. Evidence of continuous personal professional development. MSP or Project management qualification or equivalent experience

Desirable

Qualification in research, evaluation, statistics or data science discipline Qualification in an clinical or life science discipline Qualification i

experinece

Essential

Experience of working at a senior or sub senior level in a complex organisation Experience of designing and leading mixed method (qualitative and quantitative ) evaluation projects in a healthcare settin g Experience of proposal writing and contributing to winning work Quantitative expertise, including: managing access to relevant datasets; identifying metric s ; process evaluation Significant experience of managing and delivering complex projects to completion and timescales ( planning, developing, resourcing, monitoring, reporting) Evidence of working collaboratively and influencing people from a wide range of professional backgrounds (including clinicians and patients) and being effective across organisational boundaries. Experience of writing and presenting technical reports Experience of managing feedback and questions at senior management committees. Experience of successfully engaging with multi-disciplinary and / or multi-agency teams to achieve successful outcomes.

Desirable

Evidence of experience within an NHS environment Evidence of an understanding of national and local NHS policy. Experience of quasi - experimental study designs Experience of evaluation techniques in a real world, non - controlled setting, and evaluating the barriers and facilitators to innovation adoption Experience of working in or with commissioning, social care, industry and/or public health. Evidence of working with community and voluntary groups and excluded sections of the community

Skills and Atributes

Essential

Effective leadership, organisational and people management skills Excellent organisational, time management and prioritisation skills Extensive project management skills Ability to analyse, rationalise and organise complex information Excellent interpersonal, teambuilding and communication skills (both written and verbal) Excellent communication skills with an ability to present complex information to a variety of audiences and promote discussion and agreement, and in a wide variety of writing styles Ability to negotiate positive outcomes involving a number of different parties and senior colleagues, managing conflict and challenge across a range of diverse situations Ability to work in a matrix manner and to work flexibly Ability to plan and organise a large workload to meet both internal and external deadlines Accuracy and attention to detail whilst maintaining flexibility within the workload Ability to develop and maintain effective working partnerships with professional groups and senior managers within the organisation and in other agencies Programme Management skills

Desirable

Ability to facilitate evaluation workshops and co-design sessions with a range of stakeholders, such as logic model or theory of change workshops Ability to play a key role in network development.

Values and Behaviours

Essential

Demonstrable commitment to promoting high standards to consistently improve patient outcomes Consistently puts patients and public at the heart of decision making Works across boundaries, looks for collective success, listens, involves, respects and learns from the contribution of others Uses evidence to make improvements, seeks out innovation Values diversity and difference, operates with integrity and openness Actively develops themselves and others Self -awareness in terms of emotional intelligence, biases and personal triggers with cultural sensitivity and awareness Demonstrable commitment to partnership working with a range of external organisation

Knowledge

Essential

Knowledge and experience of quantitative evaluation methods to demonstrate the value of healthrelated programmes or innovations Knowledge and experience of qualitative evaluation and the ways in which it can build the evidence base for innovation adoption and spread Knowledge of innovation adoption and business cases, and the types of data required to inform business decisions Knowledge of project delivery in a field such as research, service evaluation, audit, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, programme transformation Knowledge and experience of governance and assurance in an NHS setting either directly or by working in partnership with the NHS. Understandi Understanding of the NHS Long Term Plan, Operational plans, sustainability agenda and Health Inequality agenda and the implication for the Integrated Care Systems. Strong understanding of multidisciplinary issues, collaborations and networking

Desirable

Knowledge and experieKnowledge and experience of codesigning evaluations of novel pathways and of co-designing evaluations of novel pathways and programmes. Knowledge and experience of delivering complex messages to diverse audiences. Demonstrable expertise in statistics, data science or health economics Understanding of theory and best practice principles for managing projects and programmes. An excellent understanding of the research/innovation funding environment Knowledge of regulatory requirements for digital and medical technologies