Job Description
As we expand our Data Science team, we are looking for a capable and enthusiastic individual with a background in Informatics or Data Science. You will be eager to develop your technical portfolio and gain further experience helping NHS Wales by delivering insightful and impactful analysis.
Your responsibilities will include a large variety of data science and analytical projects, offering great insights to the wider NHS Wales system by triangulating patient outcomes, financial data and healthcare activity.
We understand the wide breadth of data science and data engineering techniques, and so we encourage interest from individuals with interest and experience in at least one of these skillsets: R/R Studio, Python, business intelligence software and dashboard visualisations within PowerBI, Tableau, Qlik or Cognos, automation software such as PowerAutomate, operational research modelling techniques, SSMS/SQL, machine learning packages, analysis and reporting on complex data.
This is an exciting opportunity for an individual who loves exploring data, developing and using varied techniques in analysis, data science and operational research, and communicating the findings to multi-disciplinary teams. The main functions and duties of this role to provide analytical support to our programmes, including:
- Routine Monitoringand analysis of monthly financial returns, facilitating and understanding of the NHS Wales financial position.
- Employing Effective Analytical Techniques– to deliver unambiguous and robust insight of a complex healthcare system.
- Creative Data Manipulation and Analysis- of routine data sources, to support problem identification and provide situational awareness using varied techniques, data science and operational research.
- Enabling Confident Use of Data– enabling the directorate to use data confidently and appropriately through data support and mentoring;
- Communicating Analytical Findings- using effective data visualisation, as well as written and verbal communication, to communicate analytical findings to stakeholders.
Key Working Relationships
The post holder will be required to create relationships as appropriate with key stakeholders, to include:
NHS Executive
Welsh Government
Public Health Wales
Trusts & Health Board staff
Other NHS organisations (including Digital & Health Care Wales)
Social Care staff
Local Authorities
The NHS Wales Executive is a new, national support function, operational from 1 April, 2023. Our key purpose is to: Drive improvements in the quality and safety of care - resulting in better and more equitable outcomes, access and patient experience, reduced variation, and improvements in population health. The NHS Wales Executive is hosted by Public Health Wales.
This post sits within the Financial Planning & Delivery directorate of the NHS Executive.
The Financial Planning and Delivery Directorate of the NHS Executive works to ensure financial sustainability and delivery, alongside maximising the impact and use of health and social care spending in Wales. We also support the pursuit of an integrated quality and safety agenda, focussing on how the NHS in Wales uses its resources and the outcomes it achieves, to identify opportunities for improvement.
The directorate maximises its skills and resource with a team of financial professionals and data scientists, to deliver on this agenda to maximise its contribution to wider system financial improvement.
1. Communication & Relationship Skills
- Develop and maintain collaborative working relationships with colleagues in the Financial Planning & Delivery Directorate, wider Public Health Wales and University Health Boards and Trusts.
- Develop and produce detailed reports, graphs, charts and associated presentation materials using a variety of software applications.
- Provide and act on feedback on pieces of work appropriately for the relevant audience and purpose
- Present complex information verbally and in writing to ensure messages are conveyed accurately to multi-disciplinary audiences. This will include post holder using a variety of presentation methods that are appropriate to the audience’s collective confidence and understanding of analytical techniques.
- Ongoing responsibility to support the delivery of training for multi-disciplinary groups, specifically on the use of data and measurement. This includes delivery to clinicians and senior managers across multi-organisational programmes and workshops about a variety of subjects.
1. Knowledge, training and experience
- Qualified to Degree level or equivalent, in a discipline such as operational research, mathematics, computer science, social science, data science or similar.
- Experience of performing complex analytical tasks, with minimum guidance.
- Experience or equivalent knowledge of using MS Excel for advanced analysis.
- Desirable experience or equivalent knowledge of one of the following: • Developing small-scale data collection tools or databases, using tools like, Microsoft VBA, Python, or other programming languages and frameworks;
- Developing visualisation utilising business intelligence tools such as Qliksense, R Shiny, Tableau or Power BI.
1. Analytical and judgement skills
- Engage with clinicians and front line services to tease out the nub of an issue through curious enquiry and gentle scrutiny and challenge.
- To use robust statistical and analytical techniques and a range of software to interpret highly complex data gathered from a wide variety of sources and clinical information.
- To use mathematical modelling techniques such as computer simulation to inform analysis.
- To develop and implement simple bespoke data collection tools to facilitate internal projects.
- To monitor and investigate data quality issues, ensuring any problems are raised to the attention of the senior members of the analytical team.
1. Planning and organisational skills
- Be capable of organising their own workload to deliver the required output to sometimes tight timelines.
- As part of a team, to adapt to changing priorities and focus on new priority areas.
- Perform within an environment where intense concentration is required throughout the day on a wide variety of complex issues.
- Aptitude for attention to detail and extremely high standards of excellence for analytical output. The post holder will ensure timely provision of output to senior team members to ensure the appropriate level of quality assurance.
1. Physical skills
- Good keyboard skills required for completing reports, documents, data entry and manipulation from databases
- Frequent VDU use is required for this post for periods exceeding 4 hours at a time in order to analyse data, develop computer-based models and produce complex reports and analysis.
1. Responsibility for Patient/Client Care
- Not applicable within this role.
1. Responsibility for Policy/service development implementation
- Implements departmental policies within own work area, proposes changes to working practices as a result of new guidelines or legislation
1. Responsibility for Financial and physical resources systems
- Operate in accordance with PHW policies
- Responsible for the care and safe use of office equipment and security of office premises, reporting faults/failures to responsible person.
1. Responsibility for Human resources
- Operate in accordance with PHW policies
- Participate in self-development to continually improve performance and undertake development activities identified.
1. Responsibility for Information resources
- Regularly required to produce a range of reports and documents using a variety of project information and IT systems.
- Responsible for maintaining existing and establish new systems for keeping accurate records of information in a variety of formats.
- Responsible for ensuring that data is held in accordance with and comply with information governance policies and procedures
- Ensure security of records in line with the Data Protection Act.
- Responsible for maintaining version control.
1. Responsibility for Research & Development
- Continuously improve work practices through evaluation and research and development techniques.
1. Freedom to Act
- Agree objectives with the line manager but will have significant autonomy to determine how these will be achieved.
- Responsible for producing analytical plans in association with Programme Leads and expected to initiate remedial action should a plan be forecast to be off track.
- Not be expected to seek authorisation before approaching a programme lead, Director or Senior Manager.
- Responsible for monitoring their own work level and maintaining their own work diary.
- Take responsibility for own actions.
1. Mental effort
- Requirement for ongoing concentration to undertake complex analyses requiring accuracy and attention to detail.
1. Emotional effort
- Stay calm, react positively and professionally when under pressure
- Exposure to distressing situations is rare. Conflict in the workplace may occur when investigating current working practices or implementing change to existing work patterns
1. Working conditions
- The post holder will work in office conditions or from home.
- The post holder will be required to use a computer/VDU equipment for most of the day
- There will be possible prolonged periods of travel to projects teams across Wales