Head of Insight & Evidence

The Head of Insight and Evidence leads the design, delivery, and communication of evidence-based insight work to drive continuous improvement of health and care. This work can be delivered as discrete insight projects, as part of larger funded projects or as part of Q's core membership offer. The postholder will lead and support insight work that is an essential part of our income generating work within Q's collaborative improvement services team. This role also oversees evaluation design for the Q team - developing pragmatic, proportionate approaches that translate findings into actionable recommendations that are critical for increasing Q's impact.

Main duties of the job

• lead the design, delivery, and communication of evidence-based insight work, to drive continuous improvement of health and care
• taking a pragmatic approach, ensure Q's work is underpinned by the best available evidence and research, drawing on a wide range of practice, lived experience and academic evidence
• provide thought leadership for various aspects of improvement in health and care, including quality management, representing Q to a wide range of external audiences, influencing the policy and practice landscape
• establish robust evaluation approaches for Q, using pragmatic, proportionate methods that support the Q team to continuously learn and improve

We would love to hear from you if you:

• have excellent quantitative and qualitative research, evaluation and impact measurement skills
• are knowledgeable in health care improvement, quality management and achieving change in the health and care system.
• have experience securing, designing, managing and delivering high quality funded insight projects, including on a commissioned basis
• are excellent at using insights to engage and influence external stakeholders
• are skilled at embedding learning culture and practices

About us

The NHS Alliance is the independent membership body that represents and supports the health and care system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We represent, strengthen and support providers and commissioners of NHS care so that the NHS performs at its best and improves patient care across the UK representing frontline reality to government, shaping policy and building capability. We work across the whole NHS as well as within its individual sectors.

The NHS Alliance is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive environment for our staff. A place where we can all be ourselves and succeed on merit. We offer a range of inclusive employment policies including family friendly policies and flexible working and we have a range of channels to support staff from different backgrounds including our fantastic staff EDI networks and trade unions.

The NHS Alliance is committed to being a flexible employer. We understand the value and benefit to our employees being able to work flexibly and our agile working principles are designed to empower our people to work with optimal flexibility and minimal constraints to enable them to fulfil their potential at work whilst balancing home life and health and wellbeing.

Job responsibilities

• Securing, designing, managing and delivering high quality funded projects that bring fresh perspectives to pressing challenges within health and care. This post will identify and deploy appropriate approaches including, but not limited to, quantitative and qualitative social research methods.
• Leading activity to ensure that Q's collaborative improvement services (such as Q Labs or Quality Management Systems) are informed by the best available evidence and insight. This will include developing theories of change, synthesising shifts in the policy landscape, and drawing on a wider range of practice knowledge, lived experience and existing academic evidence.
• Providing thought leadership for various aspects of improvement in health and care and communicating insights to internal and external audiences. This will include producing formal outputs in a wide range of written and spoken formats and more informal opportunities for sharing and influencing with Q's stakeholders.
• Working with Q's leadership team to establish an appropriate evaluation approach overall for Q and for specific projects. Embedding data capture and analysis throughout a project cycle and synthesising evaluation findings to inform continuous improvement.
• Supporting the team to continuously learn and improve in a way that is proportionate to available resources, purposeful, collaborative, and inclusive. Embedding a range of quantitative and qualitative methods into Q's work and coaching team members to undertake insight and evaluation activities.
• Contributing insight and evaluation data to regular performance and planning processes. Reporting evaluation findings to Q's senior leadership team and wider stakeholders including our funders, partners, and Advisory Group.
• Building strong strategic partnerships with others across the health and care system including other parts of NHS Alliance, Q members, policy makers, practitioners, and academics. This will include forming productive collaborations with other individuals or organisations that may jointly deliver contracted services with Q.
• Ensuring Q's commitment to equality, diversity and inclusivity is embedded and progressed through the content and conduct of all of our insight and evaluation work

Person Specification Experience Essential

• 1. Excellent quantitative and qualitative research skills including collection, analysis and governance.
• 2. Excellent evaluation and impact measurement skills including theories of change, logic models and
• developing evaluation and impact frameworks such as KPIs.
• 3. Strong knowledge and understanding of health care improvement and the health and care system.
• This should be combined with the ability to rapidly build knowledge in new topics at short notice.
• 4. Excellent written and spoken communication skills, capable of synthesising information from a
• range of sources into actionable and accessible insights for a range of specialist and non-specialist
• audiences. This includes demonstrable experience of using insights to influence external
• stakeholders in order to achieve strategic objectives.
• 5. Excellent convening and facilitation skills that support inclusive and active participation from a wide
• range of groups.
• 6. Experience of engaging others in positive learning cultures and a personal ability to learn from
• successes and mistakes and improve as a result.
• 7. Experience of winning and delivering high quality work on a commissioned basis for external
• funders.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer details Employer name

The NHS Alliance

Address

2nd Floor, 18 Smith Square

Westminster, London

SW1P 3HZ

United Kingdom

Employer's website

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