Detailed job description and main responsibilities

1.    Patient / Client Care

·   To provide advice, guidance and practical assistance with regard to legislation, regulation, safety and use of medical devices and upon technical aspects of their design, functionality, application, calibration and maintenance.

·    To support RehabHRC in providing specialist advice to clinical, nursing and other staff, and patients, on issues relating to the use of medical devices and technology and in ensuring that the Trust meets its legal and regulatory obligations for medical device management and development.

·     To support RehabHRC in providing specialist advice to clinical, nursing, technical and other staff on the evaluation and assessment of medical devices and to lead in evaluation exercises.

·  To perform expert technical examinations to assess the safety of problematic or unconventional medical devices, and to advise on the approval or prohibition of their use within the Trust accordingly.

·   To support RehabHRC in advising the Trust on specialist engineering matters (such as electrical and electromagnetic radiation safety and legislation, and electromagnetic compatibility)

·     To serve as design and development engineer for the RehabHRC, for the production of novel medical and scientific devices and systems.

·      To provide design and general engineering and scientific support on the device development; to participate in equipment development projects.

·       To provide compliance engineering support to the RehabHRC, to ensure safe and regulatory compliant products; to identify necessary test, verification and validation procedures and to personally perform these, or arrange for them to be performed, as appropriate.

·  To support the planning, budgeting, management and delivery of healthcare technology development projects to support improvements in patient care.

2.    Policy and Service Development

·       To assist in the strategic planning of the RehabHRC.

·      To support the Innovation Pipeline Manager and through them the HRC Directors) in their responsibility for ensuring compliance with a range of policies, practices and developments with regard to medical device safety, compliance, quality and efficacy of engineering activities undertaken by the RehabHRC.

·     To actively seek opportunities to improve and increase the scope of the RehabHRC.

·    To act as project manager or member on engineering experimentation and development projects and on miscellaneous service development initiatives.

·    To initiate and lead or participate in service-related developments and R&D programmes and to actively seek innovation and collaboration opportunities.

·  To support and promote development of RehabHRC services for technology test and evaluation, and engineering experimentation.

·  To provide technical advice and practical expertise to support the engineering activities of the RehabHRC.

3.    Physical & Financial Resources

·  To support management of project budgets, and to produce financial performance reports accordingly.

·  To help cost engineering development and research proposals, and proposed service developments.

·   Responsible for the safe use of highly complex medical equipment by other groups of staff.

· To maintain a safe working environment, adhere to the Trust’s, Department’s and local Health, Safety & Welfare policy and procedures and to bring to the attention of senior staff any issues of Health & Safety as they occur.  

4.    Human Resources

·    To support the management of project teams and the coordination of activities within them to meet project schedules.

·    To prioritise and manage own work and, when project lead, those of other team members.

·    To provide instruction and direction to junior staff members and wider project team members.

·    To be a source of guidance on professional issues for engineering and technical staff.

·      To deliver internal teaching / training / assessment to RehabHRC staff.

·  To supervise and support trainees and students on development programmes if required.

·      To liaise with and support the Medical Devices Clinical Support Unit on matters relating to the training & competency management of the Trust’s clinical staff, and to support the delivery of training / assessment sessions to clinical staff where appropriate where these relate to new RehabHRC technologies.

5.    Information Resources

·   To maintain a current knowledge of changing legislation, regulations, standards and guidance applicable to the activities of Clinical Engineering, and to establish and manage a reference library / database of relevant publications.

·  To maintain a broad knowledge of medical technology and its applications, and to be conversant with the whole range of basic to highly complex medical equipment and systems managed by Clinical Engineering, including an understanding of their clinical usage; to additionally maintain an awareness of emerging technologies.

·       To actively monitor external sources of information on patient safety and medical technology, and to ensure that pertinent information is communicated to relevant members of the RehabHRC and partners.

·    To maintain expertise in the regulatory and financial environments for clinical and scientific research; in particular clinical trials/investigations involving medical technology.

·       To be a competent user of engineering design software systems

·   To actively support in the efficient and optimal use of the Clinical Engineering Department’s equipment management software/database system, and from which support the acquisition of service performance reports and monitoring of performance indicators; to support the Head of Equipment Services in his role as database manager.

·      To be meticulous and consistent in use of the equipment management database system; to support the planning of system application and advise on usage; to actively promote rigour and quality in data entry to other staff and to be an example of good practice in this respect.

6.    Research & Development

·     To provide technical support for, and collaborate on, clinical research projects involving healthcare technology - including experiment design and critical data analysis.

·       To develop and maintain a portfolio of collaborative clinical research and development work, initiated both by clinical staff, partner organisations and by the postholder.

·   To seek out research and development opportunities and funding for RehabHRC.

·  To support clinical trials involving medical devices, assisting with submissions for Ethics and other approvals as necessary

·     To support the production, maintenance and continual improvement of assurance systems for the performance and support of clinical trials/investigations involving medical devices.

·     To support the production, maintenance and continual improvement of assurance systems for the delivery of engineering experimentation, evaluation, test and inspection services.

·    To support the production, maintenance and continual improvement of assurance systems for equipment design, development and modification within the Clinical Engineering Department, and the upkeep of quality system registrations (eg: ISO-13485) for these activities.

·   To understand requirements for protection of Intellectual Property on behalf of the Trust.

· To present papers/posters at professional/scientific meetings and conferences

·       To write articles for publication in professional/scientific journals.

·    To write or support the writing of grant applications on behalf of the HRC.

·   To maintain an awareness of practices and initiatives within the Trust, NHS and in healthcare generally.

·   To actively engage in relevant continued professional development; to undertake periodic professional development review and to receive training appropriate to the development of the service and postholder; to maintain an individual record of training to support the postholder’s personal development plan.