Clinical Director, National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NATCAN)

Job description

Job title:

Grade:

Department:

Clinical Director, National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NATCAN)

Clinical Consultant scale, 2 PA

National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NATCAN), based in the
Clinical Effectiveness Unit (CEU)

Responsible for:

Strategic clinical leadership and oversight

Accountability
and
Relationships:

Member of NATCAN Executive Team, which is accountable to NATCAN
Board

Works collaboratively with the Director of Operations as a key leadership
partner to ensure integration of clinical priorities with operational delivery

Reports to: Director of the CEU

Job summary

The  Clinical  Director  position  provides  a  unique  opportunity  to  shape  a  national  centre  of
excellence dedicated to strengthening NHS cancer services and reducing variation in care. The
role  is  based  at  the  National  Cancer  Audit  Collaborating  Centre  (NATCAN)  within  the  Clinical
Effectiveness Unit (CEU), jointly run by the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England)
and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

The  Clinical  Director  is  a  member  of  NATCAN’s  Executive  Team  (with  Prof  David  Cromwell,
Director  of  the  CEU,  Dr  Julie  Nossiter,  Director  of  Operations,  Prof  Kate  Walker,  Senior
Statistician,  and  Prof  Jan  van  der  Meulen,  Senior  Epidemiologist).  NATCAN  delivers  a
programme of 10 national cancer audits, which undertake activities to support benchmarking and
the improvement of cancer services, and encompasses a portfolio of development activities that
aim to strengthen the audits’ methodological robustness and clinical relevance.

The  Clinical  Director  plays  an  important  role  in  ensuring  NATCAN  translates  NHS  cancer
priorities into strategies related to performance assessment, outlier detection, the use of national
data  sources,  and  quality  improvement  activities.  The  ideal  candidate  will  have  extensive
experience  and  expertise  in  all  these  areas  at  a  national  and  international  level.  The  Clinical
Director  helps  NATCAN  respond  to  changes  in  cancer  service  delivery,  with  an  effective
communication strategy that ensures the cancer audits remain clinically relevant and impactful

The Clinical Director acts as an ambassador for NATCAN, supporting dialogue with the wider
NHS  cancer  care  community  and  with  NHS  commissioners  and  providers,  especially  in  the
context of performance assessment and quality improvement. The successful candidate will be
familiar with the existing national quality improvement landscape and will identify opportunities to
improve collaboration and avoid duplication.

The Clinical Director supports the Clinical Leads of NATCAN audits so that each cancer audit
benefits as much as possible from the “critical mass” of expertise available within NATCAN, and
consistently  implements  Centre  strategy  and  policy  whilst  recognising  the  specific  clinical
requirements and circumstances within each audit.

The  Clinical  Director  works  with other  members of  NATCAN’s  Executive Team  to  support the
portfolio of NATCAN’s developmental activities, ensuring the clinical perspective is represented
at the highest level within the Centre, and liaising with the Clinical Leads within NATCAN.

Specific duties and responsibilities:

1.  Strategic Clinical Leadership

•  As a member of NATCAN’s Executive Team, contribute to the strategic direction
of NATCAN ensuring the Centre priorities reflect developments in cancer policy
and service delivery

•  Provide expert clinical perspective on the translation of NHS cancer policy into

Centre strategies and goals, related to performance assessment, quality
improvement goals, outlier management, and the use of national data sources.
•  Provide senior clinical input into NATCAN developmental activities, advising on

clinical relevance, feasibility, and impact

2.  Cross-audit Clinical Coherence and Governance

•  Support and advise audit Clinical Leads on the consistent implementation of

centre-wide strategy, policies, and clinical standards

•  Provide expert clinical perspective on NATCAN audit outputs, recommendations

and dissemination activities in relation to their clinical relevance and likely impact

•  Contribute to maintaining a coherent centre-wide approach to the interpretation of

audit findings, the management of outliers, and the publication and
communication of results

•  Review strategic issues, emerging risks, and opportunities to support

improvement of cancer services.

•  Facilitate cross-audit learning through monthly meetings with the internal

NATCAN team (staff employed by the RCS England and LSHTM), regular
meetings with the Audit Clinical Leads and annual cross-NATCAN face-to-face
events.

3.  External representation and stakeholder engagement

•  Contribute an expert clinical perspective to NATCAN’s communication strategy
and individual centre-level communications with the NHS clinical cancer care
community, commissioners, cancer charities and patients

•  Liaise with professional bodies with respect to centre-level issues, with the aim of

enhancing links with relevant clinical communities

•  Represent NATCAN on relevant national bodies and structures
•  Maintaining the confidence and trust of all relevant stakeholders, especially the
clinical communities, in the relevance and robustness of NATCAN’s outputs

4.  Quality improvement and impact

•  Contribute an expert clinical perspective on refining the framework for NATCAN’s
quality improvement activities, ensuring each NATCAN audit benefits from the
expertise within NATCAN, the CEU and RCS England, and external QI experts.
•  Support the delivery of an effective ‘closing the audit loop’ strategy at a national
level, through “enhanced audit and feedback” mechanisms which promote the
clinical interpretation of audits findings and support local quality improvement.

•  Communicate QI lessons from the audits to professional bodies and other
national stakeholders that promote clinical audit and quality improvement.

5.  Other

•  Be available for the mentoring of NATCAN Clinical Fellows as required.
•  Contribute to other occasional duties within NATCAN, for example, but not

exclusively, staff development

This  job  description  will  be  subject  to  review  in  the  light  of  changing  circumstances  and  may
include other duties and  responsibilities as may be determined.  It is not intended to be rigid or
inflexible but should be regarded as providing guidelines within which the individual works.

March 2026

Person specification

Essential

Desirable

Qualifications

•  Fellowship of a relevant

•  Evidence of relevant

publications in the area of
healthcare performance
assessment and quality
improvement at national
level.

•  Extensive research output,
including peer-reviewed
publications

•  Evidence of a detailed

understanding of analysing
large electronic datasets
•  Strong understanding of
epidemiological and
statistical methodologies
relevant for healthcare
performance assessment

Experience and
skills including
technical
competencies

People and
interpersonal skills

Royal College

•  A national clinical profile in
the area of cancer services
•  A proven national leadership
role in cancer care quality
improvement

•  Extensive experience in

developing and
implementing novel
approaches for the
performance assessment of
cancer services at national
level

•  Evidence of a leadership
role in multidisciplinary
teams at national level

•  Excellent verbal and written
communication skills at
national and international
level

•  Outstanding organisational

skills

•  Demonstrable leadership

skills within and outside the
health service.

The post holder will also need to demonstrate the following values:

Collaboration

Respect

Excellence

We embrace our collective responsibilities working
collaboratively and as one college.

•  We work together, using our collective expertise and

experience to effect positive change

•  We are open, honest and transparent, straightforward in our
language and actions, acting with sincerity and delivering on
our commitments

•  We take our responsibilities to each other, to patient care and
to the environment seriously and we act with this in mind
across our work

We value every person we come into contact with at the College
as an individual, respect their aspirations and commitments in
life, and seek to understand and meet their physical and
wellbeing needs.

•  We treat everyone we meet with kindness and integrity and

we seek to promote these behaviours in others

•  We actively seek a range of views and experiences across

our work, and we listen to, and make everyone feel, a valued
part of the team

We aspire to excellence and success. We share learning from
our experiences, apply feedback into practice, and commit to
continual improvement.

•  We work hard to be the best at what we do, recognising and
celebrating effort and achievement, and reflecting on our
work, so we can learn and improve

•  We value and invest in research, education and training to
drive excellence and put improvements in surgical practice,
dentistry and patient care at the heart of our work
•  We always seek to learn and discover more, valuing

knowledge and scientific evidence, basing our decisions on
insights, fact and experience

The Royal College of Surgeons of England is an Equal Opportunities Employer. We are open to all
talent  and  we  actively  ensure  that  all  qualified  applicants  will  receive  equal  consideration  for
employment without regards to age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership,
pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

About the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre  (NATCAN)

National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre
Evaluating and where necessary improving the treatment for cancer patients is a key priority
for the NHS Cancer Programme, and the Quality Statement for Cancer Wales. The
Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership, on behalf of NHS England and the Welsh
Government, has commissioned the development and establishment of a new centre of
excellence for national cancer audits.

NATCAN is part of the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP).
NATCAN is home to all ten national cancer audits. This includes new audits in breast cancer
(primary and metastatic), ovarian, pancreatic, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and kidney cancer. In
addition, this includes existing clinical audits in prostate, lung, gastro-oesophageal and
bowel cancer. These audits have helped to identify and address variations in cancer care
across England and Wales and improve outcomes for patients. They have also promoted
quality improvement initiatives within NHS cancer services and identified best practice.

NATCAN aims to:

1.  Provide regular and timely evidence to cancer services of where patterns of care in

England and Wales vary.

2.  Support NHS services to identify the reasons for the variation in care in order to

guide quality improvement initiatives.

3.  Stimulate improvements in cancer detection, treatment and outcomes including

survival.

NATCAN began on the 1 October 2022 in the CEU, a collaboration between the RCSEng
and LSHTM.  NATCAN collaborates closely with professional groups, clinicians and patient
charities to ensure that all relevant stakeholders inform the quality improvement goals of
each audit. NATCAN has approximately 45 staff from a range of disciplines including
statistics, data science, health services research, epidemiology, healthcare quality
improvement and clinical audit management. It is led by Dr Julie Nossiter, Director of
Operations, NATCAN; Prof David Cromwell, Director of the CEU and Professor of Health
Services Research, LSHTM; Prof Kate Walker, Professor of Medical Statistics, LSHTM; and
Prof Jan van der Meulen, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, LSHTM.

NATCAN is a key source of information that supports various quality assessment and
improvement activities, both at a local level (by NHS trusts and boards, Cancer Alliances,
Integrated care Systems) and at a national level (e.g., CQC inspection and regulatory work).
The activities of NATCAN and the individual audits drive quality improvement across the
country aiming to help cancer services reach the highest standards possible.

About the Clinical Effectiveness Unit

The CEU is a collaboration between Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England)
and the Department of Health Services Research & Policy of the LSHTM.

The work of the CEU involves carrying out national clinical audits, developing audit
methodologies and producing evidence on clinical and cost effectiveness. The CEU currently
delivers cancer audits in prostate, lung, bowel, oesophageal and stomach cancer, and
recently completed an audit of breast cancer in older patients. These audits have helped to
identify and address variations in cancer care across England and Wales, and improve
outcomes for patients. They have also promoted quality improvement initiatives within NHS
cancer services and identified best practice.

An essential element of the CEU’s strategy is that it considers audit projects as
epidemiological studies of the quality of hospital care. Epidemiological methods are used to
generate high quality evidence on the processes and outcomes of hospital care as well as
on their determinants. Another important feature of the CEU’s strategy is the emphasis it
gives to joint clinical and methodological leadership.

The CEU has 50 staff members, of whom 12 are academic staff members of the LSHTM.
The background of the staff demonstrates the multidisciplinary character of the Unit
(medicine, health services research, medical statistics, epidemiology and public health). The
Unit’s Director is Professor David Cromwell.