Head of Research & Development and Innovation - NHS
Work in an organisation that supports its staff and focuses on staff experience as much as it does the experience of its patients? You can live and breathe in an area that has the cleanest air, cost effective living, great nightlife, some of the best schools with a wealth of history available on your doorstep.
Sound too good to be true? Well it isn’t, this is what you get when you work for Northumbria Healthcare and, this is…the Northumbria Way!
What the Northumbria Way means for you:
- Extensive staff health and well-being programme including access to our specialist Wellbeing Hub
- Support and connection through a variety of Staff Network groups
- A range of flexible working opportunities
- Generous annual leave and pension scheme
- Access to lease car and home electronics scheme (qualifying criteria applies)
- Opportunities to improve your professional development through our vast training programmes
- On-site nursery places via salary sacrifice
- Access to savings scheme via salary sacrifice with Northumberland Community Bank
Our teams deliver care from hospitals, a range of community venues and people’s homes. Our hospitals include a specialist emergency care hospital (the first of its kind in England), three general hospitals and community hospitals. In the community we deliver a wide range of community and public health services.
We lead in innovation and quality, having opened the Northumbria Healthcare Manufacturing and Innovation Hub during the Covid-19 pandemic and have recently launched our Community Promise – a pledge to make a real impact not just in healthcare but on the wider factors that affect people’s lives, such as education, employment and the economy.
If Northumbria Healthcare sounds like somewhere you could belong we would love to hear from you. Visit our website to catch up on our latest news.
Whilst Northumbria Healthcare are a highly innovative organisation, the use of Third Party Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents a risk to the integrity of our Recruitment & Selection processes. If you use AI, and it poses a risk to the integrity your individual recruitment process, we may withdraw your application at any stage of the process.
Job overview
An exceptional opportunity has arisen for a Head of Research & Development and Innovation to play a pivotal role in managing the product development lifecycle, including development and introduction of new products, coordination of stability studies, and formulation development within the Medicines Manufacturing Centre (MMC).The role will also lead on the development of new and innovative methods of manufacture within the MMC such as robotics, fully automated or semi-automated systems as well as working with the MMC senior management team to scope out and deliver further MMC facility and service development opportunities.
Based in Seaton Delaval, Northumberland, the MMC is a state-of-the-art NHS facility dedicated to the sterile manufacture of injectable medicinal products. Operating under MHRA Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards, the MMC will ensure a secure supply chain for Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT) products for the next 10 years, while also delivering Ready-to-Administer (RtA) medicines to enable nurses to spend more time on patient care.
At MMC, patients and quality are at the heart of everything we do. The success of MMC relies on delivering safe, effective, and innovative medicines for NHS patients. This role is vital in ensuring safe, efficacious products and effective manufacturing processes to maximise delivery of medicines across the North East and North Cumbria region.
Main duties of the job
You will be responsible for delivering new medicinal products and purchasing and introducing new equipment to ensure the MMC is a leading- and cutting-edge pharmaceutical manufacturing facility as well as supporting the Head of Quality and Head of Production in assuring excellence in quality and GMP standards.
Key responsibilities include:
- Provide specialist technical advice and support to ensure development and introduction of GMP compliant systems and equipment at the manufacturing site.
- Lead on the development of new and innovative methods of manufacture within the MMC such as robotics, fully automated or semi-automated systems.
- Manage the product development lifecycle, including development and introduction of new products, coordination of stability studies, and formulation development.
- Manage any process modifications to improve efficiency of established products, and allow longer shelf lives.
- Perform external audits, assessing the standards of suppliers of, equipment, starting materials and services.
- In conjunction with MMC SMT develop and lead on the preparation of robust business cases to support new business opportunities.
Working for our organisation
The MMC is in its final design stages, with facility construction planned through to September 2025. Initially, staff will be employed by Northumbria Healthcare Foundation NHS Trust, with employment transferring to the Medicines Manufacturing Centre Legal Liability Partnership (LLP) upon its formation under TUPE regulations.
This is a unique opportunity to shape the development and introduction of medicines and specialist manufacturing equipment, ensuring that the MMC delivers the right medicines across the North East and North Cumbria region. If you are passionate about leading new developments in medicines manufacturing, we’d love to hear from you.Apply today and help build the next generation of NHS medicines manufacturing professionals.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities- To lead on the implementation of a strategy to ensure a robust and fit for purpose workforce within both the MMC NENC PvCv / ICS.
- Manage the product development lifecycle, including development and introduction of new products, coordination of stability studies, and formulation development.
- Manage any process modifications to improve efficiency of established products, and allow longer shelf lives. Publish data in collaboration with national workstreams leading to improvements in patient care nationwide
- Manage procurement, importation and testing of specialist starting materials, made available to national network of manufacturing sites, using MMC as single point of import
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria- Master’s degree in a scientific discipline.
- Post graduate qualification in Pharmaceutical Analysis/Quality Assurance.
- Registered Professional with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) or, the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), or Royal Society for Chemistry (RSC) or Royal Society for Biology (RSB) or Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS)
- Significant post qualification experience in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, Pharmaceutical Quality Control or Quality Assurance.
- Experience of strategic project management.
- Advanced theoretical and practical knowledge, gained through training, of technical areas of pharmacy, including pharmaceutical manufacturing, preparation, procurement and contracting, auditing and unlicensed medicines.
- Highly specialist QA Professional requires detailed current knowledge of: MHRA Guide to Good Manufacturing Practice, and the British and European pharmacopeial requirements for raw materials, intermediates, and finished products. Legislation relating to medicines e.g. HMR 2012/1916
- Full Qualified Person eligibility (permanent provisions).
- Management qualification
Experience
Essential criteria- Advanced theoretical and practical knowledge, gained through training, including pharmaceutical manufacturing, preparation, procurement and contracting, auditing and unlicensed medicines.
- Previous experience as Head of Production or Head of Quality roles on an MHRA license (MMC contingency)
- Evidence of continuing education/professional CPD
- Awareness of policies and procedures which impinge on role
- Detailed knowledge of the manufacture of parenteral nutrition, cytotoxic chemotherapy, intravenous additives, Homecare
- Microbiology/formulation/product design, and the chemical, pharmaceutical and clinical properties of ingredients
- Knowledge of gassing isolators
- Evidence of awareness of the NHSE Aseptic Transformation process
- Evidence of participating within an MHRA Regulatory inspection
Applicants who are members of the Armed Forces, and those who have a disability that requires support in the work place (two ticks pledge) and who meet the essential criteria will be interviewed under the Trust's interview guarantee scheme.
We recognise the positive value of diversity and inclusion and are committed to a workforce that is diverse, equal and inclusive. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds. We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) candidates as BAME people are currently under-represented in our workforce as well as other under-represented groups such as LGBT+ and disabled candidates.We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer, a Stonewall Diversity Champion, we have a Gold award from the Defense Recognition Scheme, and we are delighted to support Apprenticeships, Age Posi+ive and are a mindful employer.
If you require any reasonable adjustments to attend interview please make the recruitment team aware as soon as possible by calling our HR Recruitment Team on 0191 203 1415 option 2.
Applicants who meet the Fit and Proper Person Requirements (FPPR) will require additional pre-employment checks in line with CQC and NHS England statutory guidance.
Make sure to read the ‘applicant guidance notes’ before submitting your application and make sure you know everything there is to know before joining our fantastic trust!
Please note that it is a requirement of this Trust that all successful applicants pay for their own DBS certification if a DBS check is required for the post. The method of payment is a salary deduction from your first monthly pay.