Mission control - hiring our digital leaders

NHSX is leading our ambitious digital transformation programme in health and care, significantly improving the experiences of citizens and staff and helping to sustain the service for many years to come. Success hangs on the achievement of five missions that will deliver the greatest benefits:

• Mission 1 - Reduce the burden on our workforce, so they can focus on delivering care.
• Mission 2 - Give people the tools to access information and services directly, so they can best take charge of their own health and care.
• Mission 3 - Ensure information about people’s health and care can be safely accessed, wherever it is needed.
• Mission 4 - Aid the improvement of safety across health and care systems. 
• Mission 5 - Improve health and care productivity with digital technology.

As deputy CEO, I have the privilege of leading this work and I’m looking for the best people to join my team and make this happen. From developers to directors, we have lots of opportunities coming through for talented individuals with a passion for technology and a drive to improve our health and care system. Over the last week, I have been focusing on recruiting our director level positions. I have spoken to lots of people interested in joining the team and a few common themes have emerged during the conversations. I’ve described some of the key ones to bring to life how exciting and important the roles are.

Each mission director role comprises three groups of functions.

Firstly, you will own the expected benefit encompassed by that mission, across the whole of our delivery within NHSX. By this I mean to be the advocate for service transformation in line with the mission in every activity that NHSX undertakes.

Secondly, you will advocate the mission objectives across the wider landscape with health and care system stakeholders, including other ALBs and NHS organisations, and with external stakeholders, such as the charitable sector.

The third function is to manage the delivery of that mission. Each has a budget and teams responsible for a specific number of delivery programmes. Our mission directors are responsible for ensuring, not only that these are delivered to the health and care system, but that their full benefit is realised.

Recruitment is currently live for three of our five missions. Each one a significant and complex challenge, here is a little bit more detail about each one:

Mission two is our drive to empower citizens to an equal place in their healthcare delivery. By this I mean reducing the knowledge gap between clinician and patient or service user and provider, and thereby improving the control and engagement that people have with their health and care. Within this mission we are delivering a number of key products and services and guiding the overall digital ecosystem for people, patients and carers. These include:

1.    NHS login, providing a secure and accredited access route to NHS digital services.

2.    The NHS App itself and integrated services, creating a dynamic ecosystem of digital tools for citizens to use to stay healthy and manage their interactions with the NHS.

3.    Supporting maternity and child health transformation through digital maternity and child health and services and infrastructure. 

4.    Citizen access and input to their care plans 

Mission 3 aims to ensure clinical records are available wherever they are needed to enable the best care. It covers frontline digitisation including our Global Digital Exemplars programme, the new Digital Aspirants programme, and Local Health and Care Records. It will be delivered in partnership with the NHS CIO, Mission 3, our commercial team and our enterprise architects.

Mission 5 looks to facilitate the use of digital tools to improve productivity and process efficiency across health and care. It includes the digital support for the reduction in unnecessary face to face outpatient appointments. It covers developing a solution for community providers including pharmacists, optometrists and dentists to allow them easy access to the digital NHS. And it includes our back office efficiency drives such as e-rostering.

So, if you are excited by what you have read, we want to hear from you. We want NHSX to be as rich and diverse as the people we serve. We’re working hard to ensure fair and open recruitment, with a broad mix of talented applicants and inclusive shortlists.

If you want to discuss any aspect of the roles, please get in touch via the details provided in the adverts. To give time to speak with interested candidates, we’re extending the deadlines of the roles outlined here until 22 January.

We look forward to bringing on board some great digital leaders to support the transformation of health and care – come and join us!