HRC Paediatric Cardiology Nurse

This job presents an exciting opportunity for a dynamic and dedicated nurse to shape the development of new children's healthcare technologies (HealthTech), ensuring that the voices of patients and families affected by congenital heart disease (CHD) are heard.
By working with patients, families, carers and staff, putting their experiences at the heart of this work, and promoting their needs to the HealthTech Research Centre (HRC, a new clinical-academic research initiative at our Trust - read more below), we can ensure that new technology is tailored to the children and young people who need it, acceptable to those who use it, and workable for the services that provide it., Curating an unmet needs register
Engaging with the CHD networks served by Evelina London Children's Hospital (ELCH) and Royal Brompton Hospital (RBH) and Harefield Hospital, the post holder will gather, characterise and curate a register of unmet needs, providing a foundation on which new HealthTech can be researched, designed and developed.
Unmet needs might include: the challenges faced by patients and carers, living with CHD; and the difficulties encountered by NHS staff in their ambition to deliver excellent, highly personalised, and inclusive care.
Administration of the Paediatric Technologies HealthTech Research Portfolio
New submissions to the unmet needs register will be reviewed, considered and prioritised twice a year, by a multidisciplinary panel of patient advocate, clinical, academic and innovation experts.
In addition to sitting on the panel, the post-holder will be responsible for coordinating meetings and interacting with core HRC staff (detailed description below) to convey our findings and promote unmet needs for dissemination. The post-holder will support established research projects, including: protocol review, study setup, interaction with R&D and sponsor, ethical review, documentation, recruitment, data collation and reporting, financial reporting, presentation and dissemination of findings and maintenance of research portfolios and registries., GSTT has been funded as a HealthTech Research Centre (HRC) focusing on cardiovascular and respiratory health, supporting translation of novel technologies, devices and digital solutions designed to improve health and care. This will close the gap between the unmet needs of patients, research and commercial innovation, accelerating development of technologies that improve health, patient experience and outcomes. The HRC's core team serves four clinical themes and a research methodology theme.
Recognising that the needs of children differ significantly from those of adults, the HRC includes a clinical theme dedicated to heart disease in children and paediatric technologies. The post holder will work directly with our theme leadership and join our panel of experts to review and prioritise the most pressing needs that emerge from their investigation. This means working with patient representatives and staff with a range of clinical (nurses, cardiologists, psychologists, clinical scientists), scientific (researchers, experts in AI and artificial heart technologies) and professional backgrounds (commercial innovation, intellectual property).
The post holder will benefit from formal line management and support from the specialist Paediatric Cardiology nursing team. We are supportive of candidates who wish to maintain and develop their clinical nursing practice alongside their duties within the HRC. Depending on the applications received, this might be through a job share., The HRC Paediatric Cardiology Nurse will play a key role in achieving the objectives of the HRC congenital cardiac diseases in children theme. They are responsible for providing individual packages of work and service support to ensure project outputs are delivered effectively. They will have duty of care in supporting children and their families throughout their participation in any project activity, acting as the participants' advocate at all times.
The post holder will take a lead on specific projects or aspects of a project aimed at identifying, validating and prioritising the unmet needs of children and young people living with congenital heart disease, their families and the NHS workforce responsible for their care. The HRC Paediatric Cardiology Nurse will have responsibility for, day-to-day delivery and adjusting plans as required to ensure that risks and issues are mitigated.
The HRC Paediatric Cardiology Nurse will coordinate and undertake efforts to better understand the unmet health and care needs experienced by individuals within the integrated care networks served by our hospitals (ELCH and RBH). Provided with tools for data collection, characterisation and storage, the post holder will engage patients, families and staff to identify unmet needs, supporting them to describe the challenges they face. This might be through direct, in-person conversation, presentation at network events, secondary interactions with staff, receiving electronic submissions or in response to promotional materials.
The post holder will join and organise the Paediatric Technologies HealthTech Research Panel ("the panel"), presenting the unmet needs they have found, supporting their promotion to the core HRC teams for research support. Where we are successful in gaining HRC support and are able to set up projects in response, the post holder will liaise with project teams, the panel, and academic and industrial partners.
It is expected that the specific projects managed by the post holder will change over time as the portfolio of work changes.
Main responsibilities
Project Management
+ Actively gather unmet needs within a provided, computerised database, ensuring that as far as possible, records are accurate, complete and current.
+ Organise meetings of the Paediatric Technologies HealthTech Research Panel.
+ Coordinate interactions between key stakeholder groups and the Paediatric Technologies Panel.
+ Liaise with the Core, Methodology and PPI teams of the HRC to share unmet needs and coordinate the support of projects in the Paediatric Technologies portfolio.
+ Interact with collaborative partners (including academic researchers and industrial developers) to understand and ensure effective HRC support.
+ Support the development of project plans and the delivery of agreed milestones and objectives.
+ Provide project support to the individuals in the project team.
+ Organise project meetings, ensuring that regular meetings are established, reports are produced and disseminated in a timely way and actions are followed up - adjusting plans to accommodate complex and changing priorities.
+ Set up and maintain risk and issues logs. Working closely with more senior project leads to monitor and address risks and issue resolution to ensure projects deliver to time, quality and cost.
+ Lead service level workshops with admin, management and clinical teams. Produce presentation material and follow up information to introduce change projects and delivery plans.
+ Communicate information on the delivery progress of the project(s) to key stakeholders as required.
+ Provide scheduled highlight and exception reports per project, tracking milestones, for circulation to more senior project leads
+ Co-ordinate minutes, agendas and papers for distribution in preparation for meetings, ensuring this is done in a timely manner.
+ Support evaluation and audit of projects across sites and organisations.
Financial management
+ Manage a delegated budget for own area of work to ensure best value for money, including signing off invoices, monitoring expenditure and providing budgetary reports.
+ Actively monitor expenditure against budget and address problems at an early stage.
+ Support the commissioning and procurement of products, equipment, services, systems and facilities, as required for the delivery of the project.
Staff and stakeholder management
+ Support engagement plans for project to proactively ensure that positive and effective relations are developed and maintained between members of the team, all stakeholders including children, young people and their families and key internal and external stakeholders throughout the project.
+ Act as a participant advocate enabling patients and families to make informed choices concerning their involvement in the project and /or research studies, ensuring advice and information is provided.
+ To communicate effectively with children, parents/carers and families, including the provision of ongoing information, education and support.
+ Report any health concerns which occur whilst the participant is taking part in the study to the appropriate clinician in a timely manner, and to the relevant members of project team or investigators
+ To maintain the child's and family's confidentiality and safety at all times.
+ Respond to concerns raised by participants and visitors in a proactive manner and take remedial action as necessary.
+ Ensure that nursing practices comply with Trust policies and procedures
+ Support strategies to achieve acceptance, consensus and alignment of views, both formally and informally from senior managers and clinicians.
+ Build strong professional relationships with other departments in order to promote a good working environment integration of research and open channels of communication.
+ Educate appropriate medical and nursing personnel and departments on the projects
+ Support delivery plans and ensure these are regularly updated for all projects.
+ Support specific project management training and model practices to both internal staff members and external stakeholders and partners.
Information management
+ Maintain project information management systems, produce reports and maintain project plans.
+ Maintain data collection systems that will provide accurate and timely data, including quantitative and qualitative data.
+ Maintain databases required by the project.
+ Interpret policies and protocols to support the project that are consistent with Trust standards.
Strategy, change and service improvement
+ Support the development of a project strategy including research and development to identify, develop and promote best practice.
+ Support test and review of new concepts, models, methods, practices, products and equipment.
+ Support innovative methods to gain patient and public involvement to inform service direction, improvement, user satisfaction and as a tool for performance management.
+ Regular horizon scanning of best practice and ways of working within the sector and within project management.
Personal Development
+ Maintain up to date knowledge of a range of skills including service improvement techniques and be responsible for developing and maintaining own CPD programme.
+ Develop the role according to patients changing needs and research findings, within the resources available.
+ Organise own work and manage own caseload and practice, identifying and maintaining supportive networks for self and other staff members.
+ To keep up to date on research management issues through liaising with the Matron for paediatric research and the wider MDT team attending national meetings if necessary.
+ Continue clinical and practice development and maintain working knowledge of care pathways relevant to speciality.
Research and Development
+ Undertake primary and secondary research, audits and evaluations as required.
+ Administer the portfolio of projects and associated studies supported by the theme, liaising with theme leads.
+ Liaise with study set-up teams to facilitate smooth and effective study set-up where required.
+ Assist in completing submissions to Research & Development departments.
+ Deliver projects within the boundaries of Good Clinical Practice, Research Governance Framework for health and social care and Trust policies.
General
+ Autonomy for specific areas of directorate, to assess the impact of change and make decisions, balancing risks and priorities.
+ Provide advice to the GM/DMT.
+ Proactive in identifying and addressing issues which are significant within and across directorates.
+ Act as a role model, mentor and preceptor to the nursing team.
+ Work collaboratively with colleagues across R&D and wider GSTT to facilitate the achievement of objectives and shared learning.
Guy's and St Thomas' celebrates, respects and values the diversity of its staff and patients. We review our policies, procedures and practices to ensure that all employees, patients and carers are treated equitable according to their needs. We are actively committed to ensuring that no one who applies for a job, works or study's at the Trust, or accesses our services is discriminated against on the grounds of race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, religion or belief, age, gender identity , gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity/paternity, or marital/civil partnership.
Applications are welcomed from applicants with a disability. We can make reasonable adjustments and offer support and advice in a variety of ways throughout the application process. Equality of opportunity is our policy.
As an organisation we are committed to developing our services in ways that best suit the needs of our patients. This means that some staff groups will increasingly be asked to work a more flexible shift pattern so that we can offer services in the evenings or at weekends.
Flexible working
We are committed to supporting all employees to achieve a healthy work life balance and to work in a way that is best for them and our patients. We will consider all requests to work flexibly, taking in to account the individual's personal circumstances as well the needs of the service. We encourage all prospective applicants to discuss their individual circumstances with the recruiting manager as part of the on-boarding process.
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NHS AfC: Band 6
Guy's and St Thomas' is among the UK's busiest and most successful NHS foundation trusts. We provide a full range of hospital and community services for people in south London and as well as specialist care for patients from further afield including cancer, renal, orthopaedic, respiratory and cardiovascular services.
Guy's is home to the largest dental school in Europe and a £160 million Cancer Centre opened in 2016. As part of our commitment to provide care closer to home, in 2017 we also opened a cancer centre and a kidney treatment centre at Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup. St Thomas' has one of the largest critical care units in the UK and one of the busiest emergency departments in London. It is also home to Evelina London Children's Hospital.
Evelina London cares for local children in Lambeth and Southwark and provides specialist services across south east England including cardiac, renal and critical care services. We lead a number of specialist service networks aiming to ensure children are treated locally where possible, but have access to specialist expertise when they need it. Our community services include health visiting, school nursing and support for families of children with long-term conditions.
Our adult community services teams deliver care at the heart of the local communities we serve, working in partnership with GPs, local authorities and other healthcare and voluntary sector organisations. Working with our partners in Lambeth and Southwark, we are focusing on new ways of working to improve care for local patients.
In February 2021 the Royal Brompton and Harefield joined Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, bringing together world-leading expertise in the care and research of heart and lung disease. Our merger provides a once in a generation opportunity to build a lasting, world-renowned heart and lung centre, providing the highest quality care for patients and conducting world-leading research.
We have a reputation for clinical excellence and high quality teaching and research. We are part of King's Health Partners, one of eight accredited UK academic health sciences centres. In partnership with King's College London we have dedicated clinical research facilities including an MHRA accredited Phase I clinical trials unit.
Patients are at the heart of everything we do and we pride ourselves on ensuring the best possible patient experience as well as safe, high quality care. We are proud to have one of the lowest mortality rates in the NHS. Following a comprehensive Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection in 2019 we maintained our overall rating of 'good'. Our adult community services achieved a rating of 'outstanding'.
The commitment of our 23,500 staff is key to our success. We are one of the largest local employers and we aim to develop and support all our staff so they are able to deliver high quality, safe and efficient care. The 2019 NHS staff survey results show that we have one of the most engaged and motivated workforces in the NHS. We know this has a positive impact on the care provided to our patients.
We have one of the most ambitious capital investment programmes anywhere in the NHS.