Programme Director

Programme Director Role Summary:

Job Title: Programme Director

Headline Purpose of the Role:   To contribute to the development of and lead/coordinate the successful implementation of the TMSFA national transformation programme to improve the care services, experience and outcomes for people with MS

Responsible To: Full reporting line to Michael Paisey (TMS CiC Board); dotted reporting line to David Rog (Senior
Responsible Officer for TMSFA)

Manages: Digital Communications & Administration Officer, plus additional team members as recruited

Budgetary Responsibility: As per self-generated funding secured for implementation
projects

Type of Contract: Fixed term for 12 months.  Permanent appointment pending further funding for year 2 and beyond.  The postholder will be expected to generate their salary through future work/applications

Salary:  £75,000 dependant on experience.

Work Pattern: Full Time – if necessary, can be negotiated

Location: Remote working

Personal Flexibility: Agreed beforehand - occasional travel to London, Plymouth attendance at national/international MS Events and to MS Centres across the UK, especially whilst relationships are built up   

Full Job Description – Programme Director      

Strategic Context:

In 2019 an audit of 70 UK MS Centres identified a care crisis and a treatment paradox.  It predicted that if these issues were not addressed promptly there would be further deterioration in care quality. 

MS Care Crisis:  the audit demonstrated that services for people living with MS (PLwMS) across the UK are in crisis with a widespread recognition among the MS clinical community that something must be done to improve care.  The audit demonstrated high and expanding caseloads, inconsistent team staffing structures, inadequate staffing when compared with recommendations, limited access to MS specialist clinicians (neurologists, nurses, coordinators, pharmacists and neuroradiologists), poor data maturity, a limited ability to influence change and variation in prescribing.  A central problem identified by the audit was the lack of a strategic approach to MS care development that would enable the limited pool of skilled personnel to work to the top of their license resulting in wasteful acting down and dangerous acting up.

MS Care Paradox:  the audit of MS Centres exposed the paradox.  That is, year on year, there is more MS teams can do for PLwMS to influence the natural history of the disease.  Yet, year on year, there is less MS teams can do for PLwMS due to limited care quality which is diminishing.  This is not just a consequence of the crippling service pressures created by the MS Care Crisis described above but is also worsened through highly skilled and experienced MS specialists (particularly Consultants and Nurses) who are retiring, or choosing to leave the NHS in unprecedented numbers.  A knock-on impact of this paradox is that MS care is failing to attract sufficient high-quality staff to address the retention issue and does not have a strategic succession planning approach to ensure knowledge and experience transfer.

TMSFA is a collaboration of the 70 MS Centres across the UK.  It was formed in response to the audit and has a shared purpose to deliver transformation which results in improved care services, experience and outcome for people living with MS.

Job Purpose:

Collaborating with joint Senior Responsible Officers (SROs), the Programme Director (PD) will play a role in leading, shaping and contributing to the implementation of the national TMSFA programme. They will maintain oversight of, and coordinate all, programme activity ensuring successful delivery of expected improvements, benefits and outcomes. 

As PD, they will partner with internal and external stakeholders to drive forward successful delivery of the national transformation programme ensuring alignment to overall objectives and priorities set by the TMSFA collaboration.  They will be the change expert, partnering with the SROs and all MS Centres, in the design and implementation of large-scale change programmes that supports the future care model, improves quality of patient care, improves patient and staff experience, enables continued cultural change, improves efficiency and productivity of clinical pathways and services.

The PD will proactively look ahead and gather relevant information to inform the future direction of the transformation effort.  They will have an external lens through which to identify national and international world class standards of healthcare and engage with others to accelerate adoption of appropriate best practice.  In doing so, they will effectively engage and involve MS experts from across the MS Centres and beyond including international MS experts and those from Pharma.  They will ensure that resources from a range of disciplines and professional areas such as clinical, operational, digital, change, communication, HR, finance and external suppliers are in place to support the transformation programme.  They will provide regular assurance to the joint SROs / Transform MS board relating to progress and outcomes to inform strategic decision making and will provide regular updates to all stakeholders to ensure there is a common understanding of progress and outcomes.    

Key Working Relationships:

Internal to TMSFA

Senior Responsible Officers

Clinical Teams

Non-Clinical Teams

All UK  MS Centres including Senior Leadership Team; Clinical and non-Clinical Leaders;

Transform MS CiC

External to TMSFA

Pharma Companies

International MS Experts

MS Charities

MS Research & Development Teams

NHS England

NHS Confederation

ICS/ICB CEOs and Executive Teams

NHS Foundation Trust CEOs and Executive Teams

Carer Groups

Dimensions of the Role: 

Scope of Operation: National UK MS Centre network

Budget: As per self-generated funding secured for implementation projects

Direct Reports: As above

Virtual Team: Access to all national MS Centres

Authority Limits: As agreed with Senior Responsible Officers

Core Areas of Operation:
 

Spans areas including: development of transformation programme for the medium (eg 3-5 years)  and long-term;  all aspects of programme and project management (eg: roadmaps, programme and project planning, delivery governance, measures of success, reporting etc.), engaging and involving healthcare professionals to ensure clinical input; coordinating quality improvement and service development, researching new innovation opportunities, supporting business case development,  stakeholder engagement and communication, development of effective communication channels such as the website; organisational change readiness, interface with Pharma organisations, MS Charities, developing effective change partnerships (eg: with Trusts, ICBs, NHSE, Academic Health Science Networks, regional and national, and international MS Networks, Innovation and Change networks etc.

Organisation Structure:

TMSFA is hosted by Transform MS Community Interest Company (CiC), which is responsible for providing support and governance oversight for TMSFA activities, ensuring the work carried out is of benefit to people with Multiple Sclerosis and Related Conditions.

All TMSFA activity is directed by the TMSFA leadership team, which includes the operational management of TMSFA team members. However, those working for TMSFA will be employed through TMS and will be the organisation responsible for the line management and legal duties associated with the employment of staff.

The successful candidate will be given daily support, supervision and operational direction by the TMSFA manager and will be line managed by TMS, with the division of employment responsibilities of the two organisations outlined in the Recruitment Pack.

Key Accountabilities:

• Work closely with the SROs and oversee the successful design and implementation of the national MS transformation programme ensuring effective engagement and involvement of the UK MS Centres and other key stakeholders;
• Ensure the SROs are sighted on progress in a way which provides high level assurance and alleviates the pressure on them to be involved in the detailed implementation;
• Ensure the transformation agenda is understood, translating & interpreting impacts both internally and externally to enable tracking of expected benefits and outcomes;
• Lead the development and implementation of a Stakeholder Engagement approach which builds collaboration and trust across all stakeholders engaged in the TMSFA endeavour. In particular, have a focus on engagement of NHS related stakeholders to successfully navigate implications of changes at a local, regional and national level;
• Lead the engagement and involvement of healthcare professionals to ensure the appropriate clinical input is received to guide and inform the transformational change;
• Establish and organise a portfolio of transformation projects focused on improving MS care, experience and outcomes for people living with MS. Ensure effective coordination across projects to manage interdependencies effectively and resulting impacts internally and externally with key stakeholders;
• Ensure appropriate governance arrangements are in place that facilitate continuous SRO oversight, including budgetary, assurance is delivered to the Transform MS CiC host, and a shared understanding of all stakeholders connected to the MS transformation endeavour is maintained;
• Ensure effective programme and project delivery governance is established and maintained. This will include planning, reporting, risk and issue management, business case development and decision-making approvals, and budget management;
• Ensure a continuous learning approach is undertaken to enable lessons learned to be shared, to facilitate learning from the best in the world and to accelerate rapid adoption of best practice and to enable greater consistency of care service delivery. This approach must enable the capacity and capability needed for future transformation work to be undertaken successfully.

Key Responsibilities:

In partnership with SROs:

• Lead the delivery of the national MS transformation programme ensuring the objectives and expected outcomes are met on time and within budget demonstrating a proven track record and expertise working across organisational boundaries;
• In collaboration with others, set the programme medium and long-term roadmaps, programme strategy including values, implementation priorities, resources, milestones and measures of success to deliver agreed outcomes and benefits;
• Proactively lead researching national and international world class MS healthcare innovation via learning from global, national and regional networks and engaging with internal stakeholders to accelerate rapid adoption of appropriate best practice;
• Establish and lead robust governance infrastructure for tracking and reporting delivery of the programme plan ensuring the overall integrity, coherence and adoption of approach is maintained;
• Be responsible for programme budget, business case production, decision making approval etc. in line with agreed policies/agreements.

Leadership:

• Develop and support teams delivering the programme activity to enable them to be successful, effective, engaged and highly motivated;
• Work collaboratively with SROs and MS Leads to navigate the change process to enable forward progress and outcomes to be delivered in a politically sensitive and sometimes contentious environment, and develop appropriate strategies that will support required change to be achieved smoothly;
• Build strong and effective relationships, both internally and externally, with all stakeholders to co-design and co-deliver expected programme and associated outcomes and benefits;
• Work effectively within complex and ambiguous structures to achieve results where resources may not be under the direct control;
• Provide input to the development of a suite of education, training and development resources through which the two Trusts can build the capability and capacity to successfully deliver change and innovation;
• Ensure effective leadership of any relationship and negotiations with external suppliers/partners providing support to the programmes.

Communication:

• Establish excellent relationships with internal and external stakeholders (as listed above) to enable positive support to the implementation of the programme through joint leadership, a shared motivation and ambition;
• Build, and maintain, strong network of relationships externally to enable effective partnership working and collaboration;
• Lead the development and maintenance of effective communication channels (eg: website) to enable effective sharing of information, receiving and assimilation of highly complex and sensitive (and sometimes contentious) information;
• Develop content for sharing/publication via the most appropriate communication channel;
• Ensure there is transparency and a strong shared understanding of the programme, it’s progress including opportunities, risks and issues to enable timely and effective decision making to ensure the programme remains on track;
• Create strong partnerships and working relationships with national and international MS experts and network to enable learning from the best and acceleration of rapid adoption of best practice.

Freedom to Act:

• Works autonomously within delegated levels of authority;
• To maintain one’s own high professional standards and discuss opportunities to develop with SROs;
• To adopt professional standards when representing TMSFA at meetings, visits or events or interactions relating to the programme;
• To work within policies and agreements;
• To adopt the agreed values and behaviours;
• To use managerial and judgemental skills to analyse complex situations and formulate appropriate solutions/responses;
• To be responsible for organising own, and that of the team, workload, prioritising to meet the needs of the programme and budgets.

Other Responsibilities:

• To take part in regular performance appraisal of self and their team;
• To undertake any training required in order to maintain competency including mandatory training;
• To contribute to and work within a safe working environment.

The full Person Specification can be found within the Recruitment Pack