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Job description

NHS England is now recruiting for the new cohort of National Clinical Directors (NCDs) and National Specialty Advisors (NSAs). Our NCDs and NSAs are a group of senior practising clinicians who provide overarching national clinical leadership to the organisation to support our programmes and priorities in addition to their clinical practice in the NHS. They have extensive knowledge of their specialty areas, current experience in frontline NHS services, and can provide agile and responsive advice to sense check local and national initiatives.

The NCD will provide overarching specialist clinical leadership and advice for NHS England in these respects:

• Clinical advice and leadership to drive transformation of services for patients through corporate programmes and Long-Term Plan workstreams;
• Clinical advice and leadership to support the commissioning of services. The NCD may, where appropriate, be responsible for chairing the relevant specialised commissioning programme of care board.
• Clinical advice to support development of policy and parliamentary accountability.

Please note that the reason for the fixed term of your contract is short-term vacancy.

The NCD plays a crucial role in promoting effective coordination and collaboration with other clinical leads within the organisation. This includes working closely with the GIRFT chair, GIRFT clinical leads, CRG chairs, WTE leads, and NHS Impact programmes to ensure that all their specialty areas are aligned with national policy and strategy.

We welcome applicants for the NCD role to consider whether they might also aspire to take on additional opportunities in GIRFT or specialised commissioning after appointment.

The NCD will take the lead role in driving improvement in quality across all relevant domains of the NHS Outcomes Framework. As part of that the NCD will be the lead neonatal clinical advisor to the Maternity and Neonatal Transformation programme and National Specialised Commissioning Clinical Reference Group. The lead will work collaboratively with other senior clinicians to ensure there is a coherent approach across regional teams, ICBs and specialised commissioned services.

The lead, working with patients and clinicians, will develop and deliver through commissioning the key interventions and ambitions that will support neonatal transformation in practice, increase quality and value.

The lead will also drive the outcome measures by which the clinicians and patients recognise services should be judged. The post holder as a National Clinical Director will at times need to act as the ‘conductor of the orchestra’, in whom the members e.g. National and regional specialized commissioning teams, Maternity & Neonatal Transformation Team, Neonatal Operational Delivery Network, finance, improvement partners etc., in the other Directorates of the NHS England come together to support and enable the delivery of the neonatal transformation programme, positive safety culture and the requirements and ambition of the NHS Mandate and Outcomes Framework.

The Government’s Maternity and Neonatal Ambition is to halve the 2010 rates of stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths and brain injuries in babies occurring during or soon after birth by 2025. The ambition also includes reducing the rate of pre-term births from 8% to 6%. The Long-Term Plan (LTP) made a commitment to fund the three key NCCR recommendations, these are:
1. Developing the expert neonatal workforce: extra neonatal nurses and expanded roles for some allied health professionals to support clinical care
2. Re-design and expand neonatal critical care services to improve the safety and effectiveness of services and experience of families.
3. Enhance the experience of families during the worrying period of neonatal critical care

There is increased scrutiny on neonatal services to deliver the safety recommendations and outcomes as outlined in both the Shrewsbury &Telford and East Kent Reports. This role will support the governments ambitions, LTP neonatal commitments, Neonatal Critical Care Review recommendations, Maternity and Neonatal Three Year Delivery Plan and help to optimise outcomes for both mother and baby. The post holder will provide credible, effective and visible professional and clinical leadership at National level and will make a corporate contribution in achieving and delivering neonatal healthcare.

This role will provide national Clinical commissioning leadership for the provision and quality of neonatal services, and will provide more general advice and support for healthcare for conditions specific to neonates.

The NCD will also contribute to definition of the outcome measures by which clinicians and patients recognise services should be judged.

Please see attached job description and person specification for further information about the specific responsibilities of the post.

The reason for the short term vacancy is because these roles are offered on a 3 year tenure. The end date for this post is therefore 31st October 2026.