Job vacancy: Evaluation Healthcare Scientist, The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, 317 Trustwide

Job summary

Main area: 317 NIHR Newcastle Diagnostics Co-operative 531000
Grade: Band 7
Contract: Fixed term: 54 months (Until 31 March 2029)
Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref: 317-2024-24-042-A

Employer: The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type: NHS
Site: Trustwide
Town: 317 Trustwide
Salary: £46,148 - £52,809 per annum
Salary period: Yearly
Closing: 08/09/2024 23:59
Interview date: 30/09/2024

Evaluation Healthcare Scientist

Band 7

Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of the busiest, largest and most successful teaching NHS foundation trusts in the country, with around 16,000 staff and an annual income of £1 billion.

We have a long history of providing high quality care, clinical excellence, and innovation in medical research regionally, nationally and internationally.

We’re also proud to be the second largest provider of specialised services in the country. This means we support people with a range of rare and complex medical, surgical and neurological conditions, cancers and genetic orders.

Our staff oversee around 1.84 million patients ‘contacts’ each year, delivering high standards of healthcare.

We are committed to promoting equality and diversity and recognise the benefit in providing an inclusive environment. We value and respect the diversity of our employees and aim to recruit a workforce which reflects the communities we serve, and is equipped to deliver the best service to our patients. We welcome all applications irrespective of people’s race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion or belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity and in particular those from under- represented groups.

Newcastle Hospitals are proud to be one of the exemplar organisations across the NHS on sustainability, with a long history of delivering Sustainable Healthcare in Newcastle (Shine) and the first healthcare organisation in the world to declare a climate emergency. Our strategy includes commitments to being Net Zero by 2030, for our direct carbon footprint, and Net Zero by 2040 for our footprint plus. Delivering these ambitions will not be possible without the help, support and action of every single member of our team.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To work within with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) HealthTech Research Centre (HRC) in Diagnostic and Technology Evaluation (DTE) team, taking the lead on HRC DTE research projects to evaluate diagnostic tests and other medical technologies. This will involve contributing to all aspects of the design and delivery of research projects and ensuring that relevant expertise and resources are brought into the project when these cannot be provided by the HRC DTE.
To contribute to research projects associated with health technology development and assessment.
To contribute to the development of evaluation research methods (e.g., care pathway analysis), evaluation challenges (e.g., when the reference standard is imperfect), test implementation (e.g. clinical decision aids) and processes.
Contribute to the process of continuous development, implementation, and improvement of quality assurance processes for quantitative and qualitative data management and analysis, to ensure that outputs and research are reproducible, auditable and are relevant to the UK NHS.
Work collaboratively with all NUTH stakeholders, principally the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust, Newcastle University, the NIHR HRC DTE, other NIHR infrastructures and industry partners.
To contribute to HRC DTE professional development activities (e.g. internal teaching, seminars, and journal clubs).

You will have a PhD or Masters in a relevant area, with experience of working with UK health data and in conducting research evaluating medical devices or clinical tests. Expertise in quantitative, statistical, or health economic methods used in device and test evaluation is essential, as is evidence of related skills, such as research funding application writing, study design, data analysis, reporting, and dissemination of results.

We’d like to hear from motivated and enthusiastic researchers who have the relevant experience and skills to be involved in delivering this exciting research.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement. If it works for the service, we will do our best to make it work for you.

Please note it is a requirement of The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust that all successful candidates who require a DBS for the post they have been offered pay for their DBS certificate. The method of payment is a salary deduction from your first month’s pay.

Person specification

Qualifications & Education

Essential criteria

Relevant postgraduate level qualification to a minimum of Masters level with work experience in evaluating medical technologies (devices, diagnostics, digital)
Certificate of Good Clinical Practice

Knowledge & Experience

Essential criteria

Specialist, knowledge of the quantitative, statistical, and health economics methods used to evaluate medical technologies including diagnostics
Significant experience in conducting research evaluating medical technologies including diagnostics. This should include experience in writing research and funding proposals, and/ or completing and administering research ethics applications, and/or data management and analysis, and report writing
Experience with R, Python, or other programming languages for quantitative analysis
First-hand experience of working for, or in collaboration with, the UK NHS

Desirable criteria

Knowledge of human factors research
Knowledge of the UK diagnostic landscape
Knowledge of the methods of evidence synthesis
Use of library and information resources to find, acquire and disseminate new knowledge
Experience of working in a healthcare research environment
Experience of working within a Quality Management System
Experience of working in or with industry
Experience of reproducible research methods

Skills & Abilities

Essential criteria

Good written and oral communication and presentation skills
Evidence of skills relevant to medical technology and diagnostic test evaluation. This should include skills such as critical appraisal, study design, protocol development, data management, data analysis, reporting and dissemination of results

Desirable criteria

Skills in systematic reviewing and meta-analysis
Skills in mapping patient pathways, information flows, and clinical and laboratory workflows
Skills in health economic evaluations

Important note on completion of reference section of Application Form

All references from current and previous employers will be sought and must cover a minimum of 3 years employment. Therefore, when completing the reference section of your application form, please give the address, telephone number and work email address of each of your current/previous line managers that cover 3 years employment. Failure to complete this section may result in your application not being processed.

Candidates who are shortlisted for interview will be contacted by e-mail. You should check your SPAM folders as well as your inbox. If you have not been contacted within 4 weeks of the closing date you should assume your application has been unsuccessful.