Department: Department of Surgical Affairs
Tenure: Full time, temporary – 12 month contract initially
Location: Dublin 8, Dr Steevens Hospital. (ability to travel and overnight stays is required)
Reporting to: This role will report to the HSE Director of Strategic Programmes, Office of the Chief Clinical Officer, and have a close working relationship with the RCSI National Clinical Programmes
This post is envisaged to be a full-time role but Part Time of 0.5 FTE and above will be considered.
RCSI will be the employer of this role, but the role itself will be based in the HSE.
Secondments from within the HSE will be considered
RCSI is a community of academic, research, clinical and professional staff working collaboratively to lead the world to better health. Here, you will thrive in an innovative and inclusive atmosphere and your personal development and wellbeing will be supported. We invite you to join us to help deliver on our exciting mission “To educate, nurture and discover for the benefit of human health”.
For each of the last six years, RCSI has been positioned in the Top 300 of universities worldwide in the Times Higher World University Rankings. We are proud that RCSI ranks fifth in the world for “Good Health and Well- being” in the Times Higher Education #SDG #SDG Impact Rankings 2024. This reflects our commitment to supporting people of all ages to live healthy lives and our work to promote the concepts of well-being and positive health. Our values of Respect, Collaboration, Scholarship and Innovation continue to unite and direct our purpose.
Innovating for a Healthier Future 2023-2027 is RCSI’s new five-year strategic plan. Through it, RCSI will enhance human health by meeting the health workforce needs of society, creating the insights and inventions that drive health improvements, and working in partnership with patients and the public in support of better health and well-being for all. The strategy unites the RCSI community in supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals – with a particular focus on Goal 3, which targets good health and well-being. More details about RCSI can be found at www.rcsi.ie; in particular.
RCSI is a community of academic, research, clinical and professional staff working collaboratively to lead the world to better health. Here, you will thrive in an innovative and inclusive atmosphere and your personal development and wellbeing will be supported. We invite you to join us to help deliver on our exciting mission “To educate, nurture and discover for the benefit of human health”. We seek candidates whose experience to date has prepared them to contribute to our commitment to the “Race Equality Action Plan 2025-2029” at RCSI. Our students come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds. This makes our university stronger and ensures we hire the best talent.

SUMMARY OF POST

The post-holder will provide expert support to the team within the office of the HSE Director of Strategic Programmes to deliver NPPPEP and related Strategic Programmes of improvement. This will enable the creation of improved patient value with respect to pathways and services, improved clinical and operational outcomes through innovation and the optimization of resources.
The Programme Manager has responsibility for overseeing change and improvement projects within NPPPEP and associated projects. The post holder will work alongside Clinical and Management Teams to provide practical support in the development and delivery of projects that support cost improvement and quality service improvement.

The post holder will also:

• Provide robust project management support using evidence-based project management methodologies.
• Facilitate the provision of change capability to support the deployment of the Service’s Improvement Portfolio, ensuring improvements are sustainable, by supporting and facilitating service improvement interventions with all staff across the various projects of services.
• Supporting Operations Managers, Senior Clinician and clinical staff in the definition of benefits and development of a benefits model, testing benefit assumptions and defining appropriate measures to assess benefits
• Establish performance monitoring and review processes to ensure effective management of the project on behalf of the Steering Group. They will be required to provide evidence, analysis, assessment and confirmation that the project is progressing to plan.
• Establish and maintain a project risk register. Identify and escalate project risks to the Steering Group and work towards the resolution of risks as deemed appropriate by Steering group. Update the risk register following Steering Group’s assessment of risk and follow up on actions assigned to owners or the various risks identified.
• Plan and prioritize your own workload to ensure timescales are met and work is delivered to the expected quality standard.
• Regularly assess project progress against targets and report as required to the Steering Group and individual project partner organisations.
• Consult and engage with relevant stakeholders and subject matter experts to identify opportunities for service improvement innovations and designs.

The post holder will oversee and programme manage all aspects of the NPPPEP implementation phases within hospital sites and Health Regions including the following:

• The implementation of the Theatre Measurement Model (TMM)
• Compile, interpret, analyse TMM outputs for capacity, access and flow metrics for collective sites/Health Region
• Support teams in setting SMART goals around local opportunities i.e. on specific lists on specific days
• Support sites/Health Regions in setting system-wide goals for strategic and collective opportunity based on Right Patient – Right Place (shift left) aligned with collective waiting lists
• Support the local team in the development of a plan to sustain the programme structure and scale up and spread

KEY MANAGEMENT REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

• Develop, maintain and co-ordinate a standard suite of programme implementation/project reports to meet the requirements of key stakeholders and governance fora.
• Ensure the consistency and standardisation of programme tracking and reporting.
• Ensure programme portfolio adherence to all relevant organisational and legislative requirements.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

• Demonstrable understanding and experience of managing transformational change projects within the health sector.
• High level of understanding of service or process redesign methodologies and evidence of application over sustained period of time
• High level of understanding of change management methodology and evidence of successful application over sustained period of time
• High level of skill acquired through experience of project management packages
• Ability to collect, analyse and interpret complex data and information from a variety of sources ensuring high degree of accuracy.
• Excellent communication skills including presentation skills.
• Experience of interpreting data to inform decisions and recommendations.
• Experience of managing and working collaboratively with multiple internal and external stakeholders, as relevant to this role.

The Programme Manager role will support the delivery and implementation The National Perioperative Patient Pathway Enhancement Programme (NPPPEP)
NPPPEP is a multiphase, data-driven programme which will bring together knowledge and insights from frontline theatre staff and operations departments from hospitals across Ireland.
NPPPEP is a collaborative initiative between the HSE, the RCSI, the National Clinical Programme for Surgery (NCPS), National Clinical Programme for Anaesthesia (NCPA) and participating Health Regions and hospitals to improve operating theatre access and flow. Frontline theatre staff along with Hospital and Regional management participate in a data-informed governance and improvement system to optimally use scarce HSE theatre and procedure room resources.

The RCSI is the Technical Partner for this programme providing guidance on programme design, development, and delivery with specialised input to the measurement system used. This measurement system enables traction to achieve the programmes objectives of

• Increase overall theatre effectiveness.
• Increase overall theatre throughput.
• Ensure procedures are undertaken in the most effective locations within hospitals.
• Utilise any additional capacity created to reduce hospitals groups surgical waiting lists.

The core focus within the Programme manager’s remit is to effectively bring together the expertise of the clinical teams along with the perspectives of internal and external stakeholders to drive major change initiatives that improve healthcare service delivery. A fundamental priority is to support the redesigning of clinical service delivery to ensure that services are integrated and are optimized. There will be an emphasis on the use of project management skills and the application of best practice in change management and implementation to support innovation in clinical service delivery to improve care and provide an end-to-end service.
The post-holder will have autonomous responsibility and will have the ability to balance a very busy workload and competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
This is a full-time temporary role, offered on a one-year fixed term basis initially but part time will also be considered from 0.5 FTE and above.