Clinical Research Fellow in Patient Safety

Salary: Candidates will be appointed on the appropriate scale up to a maximum salary of £57,359 per annum, depending on skills and experience

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 22 October 2023

The Role

This is a unique opportunity to join the newly awarded Newcastle NIHR Patient Safety Research Collaborative (Newcastle PSRC) as a Clinical Research Fellow in Patient Safety. This is an integrated clinical academic (ICA) career development role and you’ll become a next-generation leader in patient safety research with a strong presence in NHS practice.

The Newcastle PSRC aims to achieve a step-change improvement in safety within the health and social care systems for people with Multiple Long-Term Conditions (MLTCs). The PSRC has a particular focus on research highly relevant to disadvantaged communities most impacted by MLTCs. It is led by a multidisciplinary team of pharmacists, allied health professionals, nurses, medical doctors, and methodologists. 

You’ll be joining a team that has a strong emphasis on support and career development. annette.hand2@nhs.net and  niina.kolehmainen@newcastle.ac.uk are two of many people that will help you navigate the landscape of this exciting opportunity. We strongly encourage you to contact them to find out more information, prior to applying.

The role is funded by the Newcastle PSRC, and will reside in the intersection of the PSRC and the NHIP Academy, the flagship programme of Newcastle Health Innovation Partners (NHIP). NHIP is an Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC) that brings together excellence in research, health education and patient care. Its partners include Newcastle University; Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust; Newcastle City Council and the Academic Health Science Network for North East and North Cumbria. You’ll also have an academic home at the Newcastle University Population Health Sciences Institute. Together these provide a vibrant clinical academic community with colleagues from a diverse range of disciplines and specialisms.

To be suitable for this role, we’ll need you to evidence the below key points in your application:
•    Hold current registration with a relevant professional regulatory body.
•    Successfully completed and graduated with a higher research degree, ideally a PhD.
•    A track record of high-quality original research publications relevant to the broad topic of patient safety, delivery of good quality care, and/or multimorbidity.
•    Demonstrated ability to secure external research funding (research grant or fellowship funding). 

This unique opportunity will be funded for 30 months and in that time, you’ll have the chance to shape how this position will look and fit into the wider team, including an integrated clinical academic role at post doctoral level.

On a day-to-day basis, your important deliverables will be spread across three key areas:

•    Leadership – inspiring and supporting junior trainees, planning and delivering interactive capacity building activities with the PSRC trainee community, and growing your own clinical academic role regionally and nationally.
•    Clinical practice – continue to develop your clinical practice to establish yourself as a clinical academic post-doctoral leader in patient safety. 
•    Research - Act as a positive and visible role model by leading on your own research and building research activity related to patient safety, including through further grants and an advanced fellowship.

To find out more, please see the full job description or contact annette.hand2@nhs.net or niina.kolehmainen@newcastle.ac.uk 

To apply for the position, we’ll need your CV and a personal statement outlining how you are suitable for the role using evidence to highlight how you meet the essential criteria in the knowledge, skills and experience as listed in the job description.

Key Accountabilities

•  Act as the main day-to-day contact for Education and Training for the Newcastle PSRC, providing support, mentorship and guidance to patient safety research trainees (doctoral and masters students, and research interns)
• Supervise a small selection of students (doctoral and/or masters) as a co-supervisor with one of the senior colleagues in the Newcastle PSRC
• Support and mentor current and future potential patient safety trainees with external fellowship and grant applications (e.g. NIHR, Health Foundation) alongside the Education and Training leads
• Take the lead on planning and innovating the Newcastle PSRC multidisciplinary Education and Training annual capacity building offer, contributing to the development of all professions and working collaboratively with the trainee community, the senior Education and Training Leads (Hand, Kolehmainen) and the NHIP Academy team to ensure the offer responds proactively to the emerging local and national landscape
•  Work with the relevant local and regional NHS and Local Authority partners and leaders, providing clinical and professional leadership to colleagues working across all partner organisations, motivating and empowering others and influencing the clinical academic contribution to the development of efficient, high quality, patient-centred and safe interventions/services; by integrating research and practice experience, expertise and activities
• Represent Newcastle PSRC nationally as a clinical academic emerging leader, as appropriate and in collaboration with the other team members – including routinely and proactively share research findings (their own and that of others) across in a range of forums, maximising the dissemination of the generated knowledge for consideration in practice, policy and improvement initiatives
• Develop own research, with focus on externally funded projects and/or fellowship as the lead applicant, and ensure consistent year-on-year research outputs several of which as first author

The Person (Essential)

Knowledge, Skills and Experience 

• Has expert knowledge in practice, research, and leadership in specialist field and within own profession
• Demonstrates advanced research knowledge and skills, ideally beyond or close to doctorate level, with clear evidence of application and resulting research outputs – including external, academic grants and peer-reviewed publications as the project lead and first author
• Very strong evidence of sustained, proactive commitment to continued development of own knowledge and skills across clinical, research and leadership
• Demonstrates excellent interpersonal skills across disciplinary and organisational boundaries and while undertaking leadership activities
• Significant experience across several disciplines in leading, as the senior within a team, research and/or improvement activities, including leadership outside own organisation
• Self-motivated, pro-active and resourceful
• Experience in applying evidence to shape clinical practice and/or supporting others to do so
• Evidence of strong academic writing skills, including publications in diverse, multidisciplinary peer reviewed journals
• Experience in supporting others in building their research capacity, and evidence of commitment in supporting research training and mentorship beyond own activities
• Ability to lead area of practice with high degree of autonomy
• Ability to prioritise a complex workload and work in a rapidly changing environment
• Experience of developing/leading service development/audit projects
• Knowledge and understanding of relevant practice policy or project specific policy context
• Has understanding/experience of adult/child safeguarding
• Highly developed communication and influencing skills, including outside hierarchical structures

Attributes and Behaviour

• Willingness to participate in collaborating teams and openness to work in an interdisciplinary way
• Desire to contribute to a positive research culture aligned to the University’s four Guiding Principles and its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy
• Willingness to contribute to broader activities that fall within the typical remit of an academic member of staff such as membership of committees, involvement in working groups, EDI activity, outreach, etc
• Willingness to develop others, for example, through teaching, mentoring, and supervision

Qualifications

• Postgraduate research degree in a relevant area of research
• Hold current registration with their relevant professional regulatory body

Desirable

• PhD (or equivalent) in a relevant area of research
   

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society.  We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent.  We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a silver Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality.  We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe. 

Requisition ID: 26138