Principal Statistician

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is a Special Health Authority within the NHS, responsible for optimising the supply of blood, organs, plasma and tissues and raising the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of blood and transplant services. The Statistics and Clinical Research group is responsible for the design and analysis of studies in organ and tissue donation and transplantation, blood donation and transfusion medicine. The NHSBT Clinical Trials Unit is part of the group and is responsible for the design, conduct and analysis of clinical trials in all areas of NHSBT's activity. The analysis and interpretation of results informs decision-making on developments in donation, transplantation and transfusion, the clinical care of donors and patients, and equity of access to treatment. A permanent opportunity has arisen for a Principal Statistician, tenable at our offices in Bristol, with hybrid working from home for some days if preferred. You will lead statistical work in an area of transfusion medicine, organ and tissue donation and transplantation and engage in a broad range of statistical and management activities. You will have line management responsibility for a small group and be a member of the Statistics Management Group, which provides leadership for the team.

Main duties of the job

The Statistics and Clinical Research service of NHSBT is responsible for the design and analysis of studies in organ and tissue donation and transplantation, blood donation and transfusion medicine. Your individual responsibilities will include:

1. Providing expertise on a specialist area (such as the design and analysis of clinical trials or kidney transplantation) and reporting results of statistical analyses of data to the NHSBT specialist Advisory Groups, the Department of Health, clinicians in blood and transplantation services and other interested parties.
2. Co-ordinating, planning and allocating the work of the Directorate as part of the statistics management team in line with the workload of the service and business and clinical research plans.
3. Advising senior and other statisticians on work issues such as priorities, managing workloads, appropriate courses of action and database issues in both their specialist area and project work to help staff work more effectively.
4. Being responsible for full line management, including appraisal, staff development, staff motivation, work plans and discipline, of a group of senior and other statisticians.
5. Being responsible for the line management of a small group of statisticians.

About us

It takes all types of people to deliver the kind of service that saves and improves lives. At NHS Blood and Transplant, you'll join a team of more than 6,000 people who are making a genuine difference to communities, families, friends, relatives and more across the UK. We play a unique and special role in the NHS by helping people do something extraordinary - donate blood, blood products, organs, tissues, or stem cells to save someone in need. Our three core values are what set us apart. They guide and inspire everything we do. By being caring, expertly meeting the needs of our patients and our people, and accepting nothing less than the best quality, we can do extraordinary work and help our people to do something extraordinary in their career, too. Three small words, one big difference - Caring, Expert and Quality. Together we'll save and improve more lives than ever. You will join us on our journey to create an inclusive workplace and aim to reflect the diverse communities we work with, and we positively encourage applications from all sectors of the community.

Job responsibilities

Please view the attached recruitment profile which is a summary of the detailed Job Description and Person Specification for the full personal attributes we require for the role. You will need to demonstrate these throughout the recruitment process.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• MSc in a statistical subject, or demonstrable experience in statistical equivalent to formal Masters qualification in statistics.
• Demonstrates commitment to own continued professional development (CPD).

Experience

• Use of univariate and multifactorial survival analysis and advanced modelling techniques.
• Experience of leading on a statistical project or a programme of statistical work.
• Experience of managing a team, including work allocation and assessment.
• Use of software for statistical analysis, such as SAS (preferred), Python, Stata or R.
• Managing workloads and resources to meet deadlines.
• Substantial experience in the application of statistics.
• Experience of working with information technology using Microsoft Office packages (Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams and PowerPoint).