Job overview

This Clinical Lead role sits within NHS England's Transformation Digital & Data Directorate, forming part of a multidisciplinary team delivering national programmes across Digital Clinical Informatics (DCI) and the Digital Primary Care Portfolio.

Primary care operates at the interface of some of the NHS's most interconnected clinical systems, spanning GP IT, pharmacy platforms, national infrastructure, and third-party integrations. Understanding where clinical risk emerges across these systems, and how national standards translate into real-world delivery, is central to this work. Rather than building systems directly, we set national standards, work alongside policy and systems partners, and support regions in delivering safe, impactful digital solutions at scale.

As a Clinical Lead, you will provide a senior clinical voice across multidisciplinary teams, lead Clinical Informaticians, oversee national programmes, and advise on digital risk, with clinical safety and assurance at the core.

We are looking for experienced Clinical Safety Officers with a strong background in digital clinical safety, assurance, and risk management, and a deep understanding of the interdependencies between GP IT, community pharmacy, and the national infrastructure that underpins primary care.

This post is multidisciplinary (Agenda for Change: pay band 8c or MDL1 dependant on professional registration)

Main duties of the job

In this role, you will be required to have regular contact with internal and external stakeholders and will often need to engage with them over sensitive, complex and contentious issues.

You will also be expected to lead and support other clinicians across the organisation, ensuring programmes and services have access to appropriate clinical support and are represented in externally facing Programme Boards, Clinical Reference Panels or Clinical Advisory Groups. You will join a multi-professional team of experienced clinicians with a variety of clinical backgrounds, all of whom have chosen informatics as a specialist area of expertise.

You will be joining the team at an exciting time, as the role of clinical informaticians becomes more important than ever before in supporting the safe and effective use of technology across health and social care services, for the benefit of patients and citizens.

Working for our organisation

NHS England has a wide range of statutory functions, responsibilities and regulatory powers. These are focused on supporting the wider NHS to deliver high quality care, as well as doing those things that are best done once for the whole NHS.

Our staff bring expertise across clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial specialisms — enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.

In March 2025, the Government announced that NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the department. 

If you currently work within the NHS and if successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the process.

Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in our offices.

Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.

We cannot offer visa sponsorship for any vacancies.