University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) employs more than 20,000 staff and treats 2.2m patients each year. It also has one of the largest NHS R and D (R&D) departments and the senior team structure is a vital element to the successful expansion of the department across the merged Trusts. Key operational posts that interlink are the Lead Nurse posts for R&D, the NIHR/WTCRF Clinical Manager post and the Business Operations posts that span both R&D and the CRF.
A robust reporting structure includes a fortnightly senior team operations group which discusses operational issues within R&D, and this group feeds into the R&D Committee which meets six times per year. The Board of Directors receives a bi-annual R&D report which outlines the current and planned work.
The R&D Lead Nurses manage approximately 23 research delivery teams who are based outside the CRF, whilst the clinical manager leads a team equal in size spanning a hub and spoke model across a variety of clinical areas, and these posts are a vital element to strong and expanding teams.
The business ops team are led by a senior manager, managing a large team of core administrative posts as well as providing business support for all aspects of R&D delivery. These key posts integrate with service delivery structures where the R&D and clinical teams merge on a daily basis and facilitate the establishment of new groups, sharing good practice such as speciality gantt charts and workload planning tools. The senior team form a Research Facilitation Group, have driven the development of R&DManager® and ensure transparency, leadership, engagement and a shared vision to deliver excellence in patient care.
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