NHS Milton Keynes / MILTON KEYNES COUNCIL

ROLE PROFILE

NHS Milton Keynes / MILTON KEYNES COUNCIL

POST TITLE: / Assistant Director of Joint Commissioning (Adults)
PAYBAND: / NHS Agenda for Change Payband 8 or MK equivalent
HOURS OF WORK: / Full-time (37 ½ hours per week)
OTHER ESSENTIAL POST DETAILS:
BASE: / Civic Offices, Milton Keynes Council
DIRECTORATE: / Strategy & Planning/Public Health (NHS Milton Keynes) and Community Wellbeing (Milton Keynes Council)
REPORTS TO: / Chief Executive (NHS Milton Keynes) and Corporate Director, Community Wellbeing (Milton Keynes Council)
ACCOUNTABLE TO: / Chief Executive (NHS Milton Keynes) and Corporate Director, Community Wellbeing (Milton Keynes Council)
JE Code: / JE1392
DATE / August 2009

1. JOB PURPOSE

This post is a joint appointment between Milton Keynes Council and NHS Milton Keynes to lead and develop joint commissioning of health and social care for the residents of Milton Keynes.

In particular, the postholder will provide authoritative leadership to the Joint Commissioning and Contracts teams, facilitating the development of a definitive strategic vision for joint commissioning of health and social care for adults across the local authority and NHS that ensures care is integrated and promotes independence and wellbeing.

In particular, the postholder should be:

Providing the impetus and the support to engender a climate of continuous improvement in adult health and social care provision.
Challenging and changing the shape of services that are available for people, in response to their assessed needs, in order to deliver better quality services and improved outcomes for users:

Using the opportunities of ‘Transforming Community Services’ to encourage and drive innovation in service configuration
Anticipating, identifying and planning to meet the social and primary health-care needs of the population
Developing new services, or working with existing providers to re-design the way services are delivered to embrace new technologies and innovative methodologies and, where appropriate, de-commissioning services no longer required
Ensuring commissioned services support and encourage the independence and wellbeing of their users as far as possible, working, where appropriate with public health/health promotion colleagues
Identifying and working to eliminate inequalities in health and wellbeing and access to services across the population
Engaging with the needs and aspirations of users and carers in order to inform the shape of services;
Maximising use of all available resources and ensuring that optimal value for money is being achieved at all times;
Gaining and maintaining a detailed understanding of local demand and supply within the market;
Linking financial planning and forecasting with service planning/forecasting;
Driving the development of effective partnerships with, for example, housing and independent sector stakeholders

Working in conjunction with the Assistant Director (Partnerships, Commissioning and Performance) in the Council’s Children and Young People’s directorate to ensure joint commissioning arrangements for adults and children are complementary and integrated.
Helping the Council, PCT and partners to ‘get ahead of the game’ by effective modelling of future needs and expectations rather than just reacting to present demand, including supporting the development of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (in conjunction with the Children & Young People’s directorate at MK Council and the Public Health team at NHS Milton Keynes).

2. PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES

This job profile is a guide to the work that you will initially be required to undertake. It may be altered from time to time to meet changing circumstances. It does not form part of your contract of employment.

To have responsibility for the development and implementation of the MKC (Community Wellbeing)/NHS Milton Keynes Adult Joint Commissioning Strategy in conjunction with Council, Public Health, commissioning NHS and directorate colleagues, ensuring the availability of appropriate social and health care services to meet the assessed needs of the population and reflecting national Transforming Community Services policy.
To have responsibility, in conjunction with the Director of Strategy and Planning (NHS Milton Keynes) and the Adult Commissioning Board, for the development of a (Joint Commissioning) Action Plan, arising from the Joint Commissioning Strategy.
To lead and implement the redesign of adult joint commissioning between NHS and Council in Milton Keynes in order to ensure clear governance and accountability for joint commissioning of health and social care to both organisations, and have a robust and effective joint commissioning team.
To have responsibility for driving the development of partnerships across the health and social care economy that support and promote improvements in service outcomes for users / patients, service quality and efficiency.
To have responsibility for the development and initial implementation of Section 75 (formerly section 31) Health Act Partnership Agreements in conjunction with the Director of Strategy and Planning (NHS Milton Keynes), the Adult Commissioning Board, corporate and DMT colleagues. To have responsibility for the management of specific commissioning budgets and for the allocation of any new, ring-fenced social care funds allocated to the Council from time to time.
To have specific responsibility for:-

Setting service specifications and contracts / service level agreements and monitoring arrangements for all social care services whether commissioned from the independent and voluntary sectors or from the Council, in collaboration with the Care Quality Commission and the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG);
All aspects of the tendering process and subsequent letting of contracts for adult social care services and to monitor performance against contracts / service level agreements; to broaden the application of competitive tendering principles for all services; to produce quarterly reports to DMT / NHS MK Trust Management Team with, where appropriate, recommendations to address service failures;
Reviewing and evaluating the services provided with a view to any necessary re-provisioning of those services to meet ever-changing population needs;
Management of specialist commissioning projects, for example those requiring high levels of change management and political skills and 1expertise, and as identified within the Joint Commissioning Strategy;
Operations of Adult Social Care Payments mechanisms (single gateway) in respect of domiciliary and residential / nursing care, in conjunction with Mouchel and Corporate Finance colleagues;
Negotiating with independent sector care providers unit costs, cost pressures and fee increases for services to be commissioned by the Council, in conjunction with the Head of Adult Social Care;

To contribute to achievement of NHS and Council corporate priorities
To ensure the commissioning and review of effective support mechanisms for carers are in place.
To contribute to the development of strategies and systems to ensure effective public engagement and consultation; to have responsibility for implementing these mechanisms to obtain specific (commissioning-related) customer feedback from the services we either provide or commission.
To represent the Corporate Director as required and to deputise for the Director with regard to Social Services statutory duties.
As a member of the Council’s Community Wellbeing DMT, contribute to the overall management of the Directorate. Similarly, as a member of NHSMilton Keynes’ commissioning Trust Management Team, to contribute to the overall management of the organisation.
This job description reflects the major tasks to be carried out by the post holder and identifies a level of responsibility at which the post holder will be required to work. In the interests of effective working, the major tasks may be reviewed from time to time to reflect changing circumstances. Such reviews and any changes will be carried out in conjunction with the post holder.

3. MANAGERIAL

To directly line manage and develop the adult joint commissioning team and contracts team, including ensuring regular appraisal and development of the team members.

The constitution of the joint commissioning team is (at the time of writing) under review and the postholder will be responsible for picking up the recommendations and onward actions from that review in order to redesign a robust and effective joint commissioning team that is dually accountable to both NHS Milton Keynes and Milton Keynes Council. The team currently has responsibility for joint commissioning of care in the following areas (although this is subject to change following review):

Carers
Drugs and alcohol
Long term conditions (including neurological long term conditions)
Prison
Learning disability
Older people
Severe and enduring mental health

The joint commissioning team is based at Milton Keynes Council’s Civic Offices but has access to hotdesk facilities at NHS Milton Keynes’ headquarters in Bletchley.

4. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

In order to fulfill the job responsibilities and the environment in which these responsibilities are carried out the job holder is required to:

High level of concentration to be maintained
Accurate and Extent of precision and accurate work required
Keep accurate and professional records and information about staff, patients and clinical care, using the document based and computer based systems in operation in the Trust.
Take responsibility in the team for the security and confidentiality of personal and sensitive information about the PCT and its staff, partners and patients, through adherence to Information Policy and authorized use of smartcards and passwords.

5. AGENDA FOR CHANGE KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS FRAMEWORK (Relevant to NHS contract holders)

1. Communication:Level 4

2. Personal and people developmentLevel 4

3. Health and SafetyLevel 2

4. Service ImprovementLevel 4

5. QualityLevel 4

6. Equality and DiversityLevel 4

HWB1. Promotion of Health & WellbeingLevel 4

G2. Development & InnovationLevel 4

G3. Procurement & CommissioningLevel 4

G5. Services & Project ManagementLevel 3

G6. People ManagementLevel 3

G7. Capacity & CapabilityLevel 4

6. ORGANISATIONAL CHART

Please refer to structure charts for the Council and NHS within this booklet.

7. ROLE DIMENSIONS

Key meetings include:

NHS Milton Keynes

Senior public health/strategic planning team meetings (weekly)
Commissioning Top Management Team (TMT, weekly)
Executive Committee (monthly)
Non-voting attendance at Milton Keynes PCT Board meetings (monthly)

Milton Keynes Council

Joint commissioning team meetings
Departmental Management Team (DMT, weekly)

Responsibility for joint commissioning budgets, including:

Joint commissioning and contracts team staff budget
Spend against Section 75 pooled budgets

8. WAYS OF WORKING AND ORGANISATIONAL VALUES

Focused on improving the quality of healthcare, NHS Milton Keynes is committed to engaging patients, the public, clinicians and commissioners in developing local strategy.

Engaging with clinicians in strategic planning and service design,
Public and patient engagement
Evidence-based approach to commissioning

The organisational values, culture and desired behaviours of the Trust are:

Organisational - ‘we are agents of the public and buy services on their behalf – we buy high quality safe care for the people of Milton Keynes’
Quality and safety - ‘we are happy to personally use the services that we buy’ and ‘we are happy to recommend these services to our friends and family’
Efficiency – ‘if this was our own money we would be confident and happy with the way it is being used’
Work Ethics - ‘we are a small workforce of less than 150 people with a budget of over £300 million, and therefore everyone in the organisation has a critical role to play’

9. NOTES

The post holder will maintain confidentiality where appropriate in relation to PCT matters keeping any information about individual patients confidential, subject to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998.

This job description lists the main duties but is not exhaustive and will be regularly reviewed with the post holder.
The post holder will be expected to work to any objectives and standards set in order to provide an acceptable level of service.
If the role requires prescribing expertise and the post holder has been in the clinical area for at least a year, the post holder may need to be a Non-medical prescriber and demonstrate the clinical need within the role to justify prescribing. The post holder will need sufficient knowledge to apply prescribing principles to their own area of practice and be able to demonstrate appropriate numeracy skills for prescribing practice.
The PCT has a no smoking policy and the post holder will not be allowed to smoke on PCT property.
The post holder must be aware of the responsibility placed on the employees under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 and ensure that the agreed safety Procedures are carried out to maintain a safe environment.
This post may be subject to a Criminal Records Check.
The post holder will adhere at all times to the PCT’s polices, procedures and guidelines and the Code of Conduct for NHS Managers.
The post holder will be expected to participate in the PCT’s objectives, contractual obligations and governance agenda.
The post is subject to an exception order under the provisions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. This stipulates that all previous convictions including those that are ‘spent’ must be declared. Previous convictions will not necessarily preclude an individual from employment within the PCT but must be declared in writing at the appropriate stage during the recruitment process.
Managing risk: maintaining skills and learning from problems - Reducing risk is everyone's responsibility. The post holder must attend training identified by their manager, or stated by the PCT to be mandatory. The PCT uses risk assessments to predict and control risk and the incident reporting system to learn from mistakes and near misses and so improve services for patients and staff. All staff are expected to become familiar with these systems and use them The PCT has designated the prevention and control of infection as a core issue in the organisation's clinical governance, managing risk and patient safety programmes. Therefore the post holder is expected to follow consistently high standards of infection prevention and control practices, especially with reference to hand hygieneand be aware of, and adhere to, all Trust infection prevention and control guidelines and procedures relevant to their work.

Candidate Brief – January 20101

MILTON KEYNES COUNCIL - PERSON SPECIFICATION

Job Title: Assistant Director of Joint Commissioning (adults)Post Number50010778
Directorate: Shared post (NHS Milton Keynes and MKC/Community wellbeing)
Section / Location:Civic Offices, Milton Keynes Council

CRITERIA

/ Method of Assessment
Essential / Desirable / Application
Form / Interview / Other
(State)
Skills & Abilities
Skilled communicator and negotiator with effective influencing and presentation skills. Able to communicate verbally and in writing with a wide range of people at all levels. / E / X / X
Effective management and leadership skills – able to manage and deploy professional teams and corporate resources producing positive and effective outcomes. / E / X / X
Entrepreneurial - able to identify opportunities for developing effective and efficient service delivery. / E / X / X
Has an eye for detail, is a completer-finisher and has strong risk-management orientation. Good project and programme management skills and able to understand and work with the detail as well as the ‘blue sky’ / E / X / X
Able to manage change and respond flexibly to non-routine situations. / E / X / X
Ability to manage using objectives, targets, performance management, problem solving and project management techniques. / E / X
Ability to analyse complex organisational issues, needs and date and identify a range of appropriate responses. / E / X / X
Strong diplomacy skills and an ability to provide leadership and strategic direction / E / X / X

CRITERIA

/ Method of Assessment
Essential / Desirable / Application
Form / Interview / Other
(State)
Experience
Minimum of 5 years senior management experience in managing and or commissioning care in the public sector. / E
Significant evidence of experience and achievement in developing strategic policies and policy initiatives. / E
Experience of working with a range of agencies including housing, health, voluntary and independent sector. / E
Contract management
Quality management / E / X / X
Knowledge
Extensive knowledge of key care issues and statutory requirements / E / X / X
Knowledge of the principles of Best Value; VFM / E / X / X
Thorough knowledge of legislation relating to health and social care / E / X / X
Education, Training and Qualifications
Relevant qualification for example Diploma in Social Work / Nursing / DMS / MBA / E / X / X
Evidence of continuing professional development / E / X / X

Other Requirements

Thorough understanding and commitment to operating and promoting Equality of Opportunity in relation to service users, employees and contracting organisations / service providers. / E / X / X
Willing and able to work flexibly in terms of the requirements of the role, working hours and place of employment. / E / X
Committed to continuous development of job-related and organisationally relevant knowledge and skills. / E / X / X
Able to travel effectively to a range of external locations. / E / X

Candidate Brief – January 20101