Innovation and Improvement Fellow for the RCS England SUPPORT2 Improvement Collaborative

Job description

Job title:

Grade:

Innovation and Improvement Fellow for the RCS England SUPPORT2
Improvement Collaborative.

Pay scales for surgeons / doctors in training in England up to up to ST5
(£52,656 to £65,048, plus London weighting) in a full-time position or
from ST6 to ST8 (£73,992 pro rata plus London weighting) in a part-time
position, depending on qualifications and experience.

Department:

Quality Improvement Department within the RCS England Research and
Quality Improvement Directorate.

Responsible for:  No direct line reports.

Accountable to:

Quality Improvement Programme Manager and ultimately Director of
Research and Quality Improvement.

Job summary

This one-year Innovation and Improvement Fellow post offers a unique opportunity to work within
the SUPPORT2 (SUrgeon Peer-led POst-incident Response Teams) Improvement Collaborative
being run by the Quality Improvement Department within the RCS England Research and Quality
Improvement Directorate.

The SUPPORT2 Improvement Collaborative represents the next phase of our commitment to enhancing
support systems for surgeons following adverse events. This new round will build directly on the
achievements and lessons learned from the original SUPPORT1 collaborative, which successfully
established practical approaches and peer-led support across participating hospitals. SUPPORT2 will
continue this momentum and work with up to 25 Sites across the UK and Ireland. Fellows joining
SUPPORT2 will have the unique opportunity to contribute to a programme with a proven track record,
while also shaping its future direction and impact

You will help the team to provide support to participant organisations across a 12 month period,
with participants initially orientated to these approaches and then assisted to introduce them into
their hospitals.  The Improvement Collaborative will then support participants to maintain these
approaches, sharing their experiences across the collaborative, and learning and collating data
about this activity and its impact.

The successful candidate will work in partnership with the QI Programme Manager, Director of
Research and Quality Improvement and other members of the SUPPORT improvement
collaborative project team, including our Surgical Lead for SUPPORT, Professor Kevin Turner,

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Consultant Urologist at University Hospitals Dorset and Visiting Professor at Bournemouth
University and Mr Arjun Nambiar, Consultant Urological surgeon at  The Newcastle upon Tyne
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
You will work in a vibrant and supportive Research and Quality Improvement environment,
putting you at the heart of a national team that plays a key role in improving the services provided
to surgeons in UK hospitals. The role will provide you with the opportunity to contribute to high-
profile peer-reviewed papers, and other publications, as well as enable you to develop of
research and quality improvement in surgery expertise, and will help you to strengthen the
SUPPORT2 Improvement Collaboratives outputs. Areas of work may include applying and
evaluating different improvement approaches, developing methods for surgical wellbeing
assessment, and analysing the impact of wider quality improvement initiatives as well as how
RCS England might develop these further.

This is a unique opportunity to participate in a national quality improvement and national
transformational change role centred around surgical wellbeing that may in time be applicable to
all hospitals across the UK and more generally across the world.

We would expect the Innovation and Improvement Fellow to build skills in design and
implementation of quality improvement programmes which could be applicable to future QI
collaboratives run by RCS England, either to support surgical wellbeing, or to enhance other
aspects of the care delivered by surgeons.

Further details about the RCS England Research and Quality Improvement department and our
quality improvement collaborative work to date are available at the bottom of the job description.

Specific duties and responsibilities

1.  Quality Improvement
To work closely with the SUPPORT2 team (the QI Programme Manager, the Director of
Research and Quality Improvement, the Surgical Leads for SUPPORT2, the SUPPORT2
team’s two clinical psychologists and staff in RCS England’s Research and Quality
Improvement department) to deliver the work of the Improvement Collaborative. This to
include:
•  Supporting staff at the participant hospitals to engage in the Improvement Collaborative.
•  Developing and delivering online and in person quality improvement activity.
•  Facilitating peer learning sets and other wider QI learning activity.
•  Evaluating and applying quality improvement methodologies that can be translated across
the SUPPORT2 improvement collaborative and wider RCS England quality improvement
work.

•  Engaging with wider stakeholders, integrated care boards and local NHS trusts / Local

Health Boards to support implementation of surgical wellbeing and other quality
improvement activities and initiatives.

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•  Engaging with professional bodies and Royal Medical Colleges to support implementation

of surgical and other medical/clinical wellbeing quality improvement activities and
initiatives

•  Supporting the participant hospital teams with the development and implementation of

their quality improvement plans.

•  Analysing and evaluating wider determinants of surgical/medical wellbeing and

considering how these can be best implemented with the SUPPORT2 Improvement
Collaborative and wider RCS England quality improvement programmes.

•  Evaluating the impact of the SUPPORT2 Improvement Collaborative.
•  Developing and delivering plans for phase three of the SUPPORT Improvement

Collaborative.

2. Communication

•  To report results and impacts of the SUPPORT improvement initiatives in reports and

papers for peer-reviewed publications

•  To present findings at conferences.
•  To liaise with professional bodies, charities and other stakeholders in order to publicise

and support the work of SUPPORT2.

•  To contribute to developing and implementing plans for SUPPORT2 (and wider RCS

England) quality improvement activities including: improvement events, workshops and
webinars

•  To promote engagement with trainee networks, professional bodies and patient panels
•  To contribute to wider RCS England Research and Quality Improvement communications

(newsletters, emails, social media, website)

3.Collaboration with MPS, NHS England, and other relevant organisations to improve
quality and timeliness of data, and increase the engagement of staff within NHS
hospitals
•  To liaise with MPS, NHS England and other relevant organisations with an interest in

surgical and medical wellbeing to ensure the SUPPORT2 Improvement Collaborative has
maximum impact.

•  To liaise with staff in participating NHS hospitals in order to publicise SUPPORT2 and its

findings

•  To liaise with wider professional bodies (ie surgical specialty associations) involved in
supporting surgical and wider medical wellbeing and to represent SUPPORT2 at their
regional and national meetings.

4. Other
•  To undergo further training in statistics and audit / research methodology including

implementation science

•  To maintain the confidentiality of data at all times and to ensure that the requirements of

the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are met throughout the project
•  To ensure that the data collection, analysis and reporting is carried out to the highest

professional standards

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•  To carry out other occasional duties within the RCS England Research and Quality

Improvement department, e.g., contributing to training workshops

There will be no clinical duties or on-call commitments but there is flexibility to allow the post-
holder to maintain some clinical practice.

We encourage trainees to reach out to Sheena MacSween, QI Programme Manager with any
queries:   SupportImprovement@rcseng.ac.uk

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.

Person specification

Essential

Desirable

Qualifications

•  Membership / Fellowship of
RCS England or another
relevant Royal College (for a
non-surgical trainee).

Experience and skills
including technical
competencies

•  Relevant clinical experience
•  Experience in analysing clinical

data

•  Familiar with software for data
management and statistical
analysis

•  Good numeracy (e.g., good

pass at A level or equivalent)
•  Good understanding of health-
related research and quality
improvement methods

•  Good understanding of basic

statistical principles

•  Evidence of peer-reviewed

publications

•  Evidence of presenting
research at professional
conferences
•  Understanding of

epidemiological research
(study design, data collection
and analysis)/
•  Understanding of
implementation
research/Quality improvement
methods

•  Evidence of NHS based quality

•  Good understanding of

improvement

national clinical audit and
quality improvement
programmes

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People and
interpersonal skills

•  Excellent verbal and written

communication skills
•  Good organisational skills
•  Ability to think systematically

and critically

•  Computer literate and proficient

with office software

•  Ability to work independently
•  Ability to work in a small team

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

Collaboration

Respect

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

Excellence

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

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•  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.

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