Principal Clinical Scientist (Xr08)

The post holder works across these clinical technical services areas: Improvement, planning and clinical governance work with medical devices across Trust-wide clinical services Research and innovation work associated with medical technologies. Scientific support for Renal Services, including support for routine clinical data collection and management. This support potentially covers other clinical services as well. The post holder will provide expert scientific and technical assistance and advice to medical staff or other health care professionals associated with medical devices and associated data. This will involve advising, supporting and developing aspects of clinical services at Leeds Teaching Hospitals with scientific and engineering methods as required across the Clinical scientists areas of specialism. They will be first point of contact to liaise with clinical services requesting support and will proactively work with other Clinical Engineering teams to identify and progress opportunities for service development arising from their routine work. The post holder will embed work into clinical/technical practice through the development of procedures and training material. Where appropriate, the post holder will develop innovation opportunities into research projects, including developing appropriate collaborations and writing grant applications. The post holder is expected to manage staff for appraisal, performance, quality of work, workload allocation who are working in the same area. They are also expected to coordinate and supervise the training and project work of several trainees in a specific rotation of the Scientific Training Programme. Policy and Service Development Produces and update processes and procedures for the clinical/technical services that the post holder works with. Drives forward quality improvements by identifying and delivering improvement projects within Clinical Engineering and in clinical services. Works with other parties in LTH and relevant external bodies such as medical device suppliers and regulators in order to develop and support quality improvement specific project work. Promotes service improvement by promoting value of improvement projects for patient benefit, and encourages and enables workforce to develop skills in this area. Clinical Measurement Plans, organises and carries out specialist clinical measurements on cases where post holder has the relevant expertise. Examples of measurement may be body fluid composition with renal patients and 3D gait analysis. Measurements require highly development manual skills for examining, and accurately undertaking tests on the patient. Designs and support training packages for advanced measurements (for example, in dialysis) Advises clinical staff on specialist clinical measurements, including when to refer for tests, the most appropriate test in a specific case and interpretation of results for management of patient care. Provides specialist advice on acquisition and management of medical devices for clinical measurement used by clinical teams where post holder has relevant expertise. Research and Development Duties Identifies specific areas with requirements for research and innovation through monitoring and reviewing enquiries to Clinical Engineering from clinical teams. Prepares external applications to seek funding for work when required and seeks out collaborators which may involve university and industry colleagues. Advises on, and supervises research and innovation studies, for example: apprentices project and STP trainees Master degree projects; undergraduate projects with university students. Carries out agreed research/innovation activity as appropriate Contribute to national professional meetings and initiatives when appropriate. Undertakes audit activity associated with medical devices as required, in clinical services and in own department. Represent Medical Physics and Engineering (MPE) and clinical teams such as renal with whom we work on research and innovation committees relevant to our activity. Presents the results of scientific research and innovation to the professional community at conferences, peer reviewed journals or other publications. Planning and Organisation Plans own work, and that of junior staff and trainees, in line with clinical service requirements and other demands. Plans and organises training of Clinical Scientist trainees and engineering apprentices. Engages with staff across the Medical Physics and Engineering service to support and develop both a culture and specific projects in research, development, innovation. Works with wider Medical Physics and Engineering management team and clinical teams to develop robust support from Clinical Engineering in innovation and improvement Maintains knowledge of policies and best practice guidelines in areas such as quality improvement, research and innovation, data security and interprets these for application in Clinical Engineering and in clinical services. Undertakes work within MPE quality management system with quality manager and quality leader as appropriate and to other quality standards that are relevant to areas of work. Information and Data Able to develop and run complex queries on databases for audit, service development and research purposes. Has detailed understanding of clinical pathways to translate clinical issues into suitable data solutions. Coordinates with regional and national bodies (e.g. Renal Regional Networks, UK Renal Registry, NHS England) around clinical data management and reporting of benchmarking and metrics of service delivery Analyses and interprets complex clinical data, and makes recommendations from it for patient care, including (for own area of expertise) where expert opinions differ. Develops and manages clinical decision support tools, within the requirements of software as a medical device, in response to clinical need (e.g. anaemia algorithm in renal). This involves embedding clinically agreed algorithms into computer code, facilitating reporting of results using appropriate software and managing changing needs of the tools. Provide first line support to clinical users of the renal clinical data system relating to managing reporting software and database queries Staff Management and Leadership May have to deputise for Head of Clinical Engineering, in areas of Clinical Scientist responsibility Responsible for delivery of training to healthcare scientist trainees in own area of work. Supervises training of the STP scheme in Clinical Engineering and coordinates Clinical Engineering trainees. Responsible for the day to day management of staff who are working in the area of improvement, research and innovation where the post holder has responsibilities. Freedom to Act The post-holder interprets policy (for example, Medical devices regulations, national standards,) as part of service development and improvement projects using medical devices and technologies. The post-holder will have significant discretion to work within a set of defined parameters and is guided by a broad range of principles and policies referring to the Head of Section or other expert staff to review work status. Continually maintains knowledge of aims of Leeds Teaching Hospitals, Department of Medical Physics and Engineering & Clinical Engineering service. Works with Head of Clinical Engineering to support development of new clinical services and methods of healthcare delivery.