Lead Manager for Research, Development and Innovation

Overview

We have three main hospitals providing acute services to around 330,000 local residents. The organisation also provides specialist tertiary care for cardiac and haematology services, delivers community health services to over 445,000 residents including those in North Lancashire and hosts the National Artificial Eye Service across England. Plus, we provide urgent and emergency care services to an estimated 18 million people who visit the seaside resort each year.

We employ over 7000 people from 68 different countries. We welcome and encourage application from anyone with protected characteristics, as well as supporting reservists and Veterans who are looking for a rewarding and challenging career within the NHS. Blackpool Teaching Hospitals encourages flexible working in all our roles to support staff in maintaining healthy home-life balance. Working patterns such as: part time working, self-rostering, compressed hours, annualised hours, term time, reverse term time and flexitime working can be explored.

The post holder will provide operational leadership for the R&D Department at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (BTH) working closely with the Director of Research, Development and Innovation (RD&I), the Senior Research and Development (R&D) team, and an over 80-strong team of research nurses and research active clinicians, as well as working closely and collaboratively with key stakeholders particularly academic and life science partners.

The post-holder will oversee the successful running of the BTH R&D Department as well as BTH s National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Commercial Research Delivery Centre (CRDC). BTH R&D collaborates closely with the NIHR, DOH and commercial sponsors alongside our colleagues from the 35 partner CRDCs. BTH R&D has a key role leading in-house, regional and national projects of great significance, looking to coordinate and accelerate the delivery of high-throughput late phase clinical research trials as well as innovative trial design.

This role will involve working closely with commercial sponsors, Contract Research Organisations (CROs) and the ABPI. The post holder will be expected to work closely with the NIHR Regional Research Delivery Network North-West (NIHR RRDN NW), the NIHR Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC) hosted by Blackpool Council, and the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) as partners in their recent NIHR BRC bid.

The role includes but is not limited to:

• Overseeing day-to-day R&D operational tasks to ensure the effective and efficient operational management of the R&D service.
• Ensuring that the work of NIHR Blackpool CRDC is consistent with other CRDCs and its national remit making sure that appropriate infrastructure is in place for the long-term sustainability of the CRDC.
• Working with the NIHR RRDN NW (National Institute for Health Research Clinical Regional Research Delivery Network North-West) and other relevant bodies, to maintain a clear understanding of local, regional and national policies relevant to NHS R&D and a balanced portfolio of research activities. This includes working closely with chief and principal investigators to ensure that opportunities for recruitment to portfolio studies are maximized.
• Working with BRC Manchester to develop Trust capacity and capability within early phase research maximising the available opportunities for BTH staff.
• Working with HDRC:
  Blackpool, potentially establishing a Joint Research Office supporting research in public health and prevention for the benefit of our community.
• Maximizing new potential funding opportunities to support the Trust R&D agenda.
• Ensuring that the UK Policy for Health and Social Care Research is adhered to through a rigorous approval and monitoring programme.
• Promoting Research and Development work across the Trust, Provider Collaborative Board and Integrated Care Board.
• To manage the successful delivery of research studies at BTH, planning and coordinating significant multi-disciplinary research activities, and ensuring the right delivery team is available and in place.
• To manage the successful delivery of…