JOB DESCRIPTION

JOB TITLE: Senior Technical Solutions Design Specialist

PAY BAND: Band 7

DEPARTMENT: Digital Services

RESPONSIBLE TO: Head of Technical Solutions Design

Technical Solutions Design Manager

DATE: December 2023

DIMENSIONS OF JOB:

 Post holder will work to agreed objectives set by senior staff but with the freedom to act in
order to deliver defined objectives.

 Post holder will be expected to use own initiative to decide relevant actions and make
recommendations to Sponsor/ Manager, with the aim of improving deliverables and
compliance to policies.

 Post holder will be involved in strategic planning across a range of specialised areas
related to digital services infrastructure.

 Post holder will demonstrate capabilities to manage their own workload with those of other
team members and make informed decisions in the absence of required information, working
to tight and often changing timescale.

 Post holder will develop and deliver specialised training to end users across FHFT.

 Post holder will be expected to matrix manage staff in relation to specific projects
deliverables by coaching and mentoring.

1
PURPOSE OF JOB:

 To ensure the integrity of the trusts Information Architecture; ensuring that new and
upgraded systems are fit for purpose and comply with the standards necessary to
maintain a robust, consistent and integrated technical infrastructure.
 To act as an escalation point for more junior team members for all matters concerning
End User Computing (EUC).
 To provide regular updates to the Technical Design Authority (TDA) in relation to
project specific deliverables.
 Post holder will be accountable for supporting the strategic programme across Frimley
Health.

KEY TASKS & RESPONSIBILITIES:

 The post holder will work with and where required deputise for the Head of Technical
Solutions Design.
 Perform as a lead technical role in complex, multi-disciplinary, projects and
programmes on which they are assigned, ensuring that solutions are adequately
captured in a Statement of Work or Project Initiation Document, analysed, designed
and delivered to recognised industry best practices.
 Ensure the NHS Digital Service developments align and adhere to local Frimley
Health NHS Foundation Trust (FHFT) policies and act as an active voice in the future
development of the strategy for deliverables to local trusts.
 Technical Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Infrastructure across FHFT interpret
strategy information from NHS Digital; implementing transition and operation,
ensuring continuous service improvement methods are embedded within FHFT.
 Proactively identifying and implementing mitigation plans for project specific
programmes of work.
 Undertake research and review of existing practises across FHFT in specific areas
that will be affected by the implementation of the Digital Services projects.
 Act as a senior escalation point within the team to advise and assist the trust on all
issues identified as part of specific projects ensuring there are quick and effective
resolutions to all infrastructure related issues.
 Championing and taking responsibility for End User Computing, Modern Desktop, &
up-to-date cloud technologies.
 Operating in a technical advisory capacity, to carry out analysis on complex projects,
and allocate team resources as appropriate.
 Working with 3rd party vendors and internal infrastructure departments to provide
integration assistance for Active Directory & Group Policy for the #OneFrimleyHealth
initiative.

2
 Taking responsibility for ensuring that assigned projects are executed and completed
within agreed time, quality, scope and costs parameters and that an appropriate level
of governance is applied to maintain and manage risks, changes and issues.
 Accountable as the lead specialist, contributing to the technical projects including any
Support and Security updates or Feature Updates within the Microsoft release
cadence.

Process and ITIL Framework

 Working within a full ITIL process led environment in all disciplines.
 Work with the IT Service Desk to enhance processes and improve service as projects
move to BAU.
 Continually ensuring trust satisfaction and excellent outcomes from project outset to
completion.
 Proactively question and evaluate existing systems, standards, documentation and
procedures and make recommendations for improvement.

IT Strategy and Future Developments

 Working with the wider organisation and business partners on pre-sales and pipeline
opportunities, assisting with exploratory discussions, high level designs, estimating
resource costs, preparing bid responses and peer reviewing proposals where these
opportunities are of a multivendor, multi-technology, or highly-complex nature.
 Working with the trust on assigned projects to identify commercially viable, technical,
solutions to business problems and streamlining of business process.
 Quickly understanding and taking the lead in any new infrastructure patterns and
technology.
 Provide support to senior colleagues to Research new technologies and emerging
business best practices that could support the trust digital strategy moving forward.
 Working in partnership with the Digital Services Enterprise Architect senior staff to
advise on possible future directions and to operate in an advisory capacity to any
proposals.

Training
 Act as a coach, mentor and technical escalation point in all areas where they are
considered a subject matter expert, providing expert-level knowledge and peer-level
review in respect of issue resolution, standards, design, best practice, delivering quality and
reference target architectures.
 Develop, ratify, publish and manage technical information to support the business in
delivering quality, referenced solutions. This includes technical standards and
processes, reference architectures and technology roadmaps.
 Provide and maintain an appropriate business level documentation repository for
review and guidance by peers and IT Service desk for troubleshooting, assistance
and supporting end users.

Financial Management
 Authorised signatory with responsibility to procure physical IT assets.

3
 Responsible for providing and installing kit to end users, fixing any issues as they
arise.
 Delegated responsibility for managing portion of revenue budget for defined projects
ensuring that any budget variances are reported to the Senior Team with plans to
deliver balanced budget by year end.
 Authorised signatory for timesheets and team expenses.
 Financial responsibility to negotiate good deals with Agencies when recruiting contractors to
ensure best value for money.

Professional Development
 To keep up to date with emerging technologies and best practice and share
knowledge with professional colleagues as appropriate.
 To train and develop the team, and other IT staff where appropriate.
 To provide technical leadership where required to move projects into BAU teams.
 Holds, maintains and continues to develop industry-recognised expert-level technical
relevance for core specialisations, plus additional skills in other areas.
 Through prior experience from being involved in delivering complex projects, Hold or
be working towards appropriate vendor certifications, technical training in core and
associated skills (multi-skilled), vendor relationships, industry awareness and
attendance / participation in trade/vendor events.
 Desire and proven capability to deliver quality projects/outputs and team leadership.

Policy Development
 Implement policy and procedures within own work area, proposing service changes where
necessary.
 Contribute to the Design, development and implementation of service-related policies
and procedures covering the use of Trust clinical, critical-clinical and office business
systems, including software, hardware, security, desktop management and support.
 Write and publish policies to non Digital Services groups in order to ensure the best use of
solutions within the Trust as a whole.
 Write and Implement standards, guidelines and other help facilities for users, with the
aim of reducing the overhead on the support teams.
 Review and propose changes to implemented policies and procedures based on
experience, user group feedback and lessons learned exercises.

People Management
 Manages one or more teams of technical resources assigned to projects, for the
duration of a project.
 Responsible for staff performance and disciplinary issues throughout the projects.
 Design prototypes and proof of concepts for staff that best fit the trust’s needs.
 Manage the resource allocation to effectively deal with daily and ongoing requests
and workloads.

4
 Educate teams and other IT staff as necessary to ensure the smooth transition from
project to BAU.

Communication and Working Relationships

 Seek new channels to communicate services, processes and other useful information
to end users, adopting communication styles to the audience so that complex and
multi-stranded information or issues can be understood.
 Accountable for communicating highly complex concepts and technical issues to
users in a way which is understandable – and when dealing with a major fault or
systems issue or incident, to be able to actively engage with senior medical, clinical
and managerial staff outside of IT to explain, reassure and resolve or negotiate
resolution of their concerns, in potentially clinical-critical circumstances.
 Management of the provision of user related help and information on the intranet.
Publishing a user help or FAQ page to allow users to self-help, or access more in
depth – but user related – support information.
 Establish and maintain communication channels to ensure an understanding of the IT
Services.
 Negotiate, Motivate and influence teams to achieve service delivery excellence.
 Negotiate and Influence stakeholders across the organisation in a positive manner.
 Contribute to the production of and facilitate the review of policies, procedures and
values to ensure organisational objective alignment and support for positive change
through the introduction of new and improved information and decision support
technology.

General
 Achieve and demonstrate agreed standards of personal and professional
development within agreed timescales.
 Act consistently with legislation, policies, procedures and other quality approaches
and alert others to the need for improvements to quality.
 Work effectively in own team and as part of the whole organization.
 Prioritize, organize and carry out own work effectively.
 The post holder is responsible for the management of risk in all the areas of defined
responsibility. The successful candidate is also responsible for ensuring compliance
with the Trust's Health and Safety Policy. The post holder must ensure that duties are
carried out in accordance with health and safety regulations. The post holder should
not endanger the health and safety of him/herself or others whilst at work.
 The post holder must ensure that duties are carried out in accordance with health and
safety regulations. The post holder should not endanger the health and safety of
him/herself or others whilst at work.
 As an employee, post holders also have a duty to take reasonable care of your own
health and safety. This includes ensuring that you are aware of and follow all Trust
health and safety and infection control procedures relevant to your work and
participate in relevant mandatory training and annual infection control updates. You
will be expected to consistently follow high standards of infection control practice and
this includes hand cleansing and aseptic techniques for clinical staff.
5
 Employees who come into contact with vulnerable adults or children and their parents
during the course of their normal duties need to be aware of their responsibility to
safeguard and promote the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.
 Post holders are required to comply with and maintain awareness of the Trust’s
Policies relating to Equal Opportunities. The Trust is an equal opportunities employer.
The post holder is at all times expected to promote and implement the Trust’s equal
opportunities policies.
 Post holders are required to comply with and maintain your awareness of the Trust’s
Policies and procedures relating to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Data
Protection Act 1998.
 Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust operates a no smoking policy. Staff smoking is
not permitted on any Trust premises.

This job description is an indication of the type and range of tasks that are expected of
the post holder, and other duties may be required, in line with the role and the banding. It
will be reviewed and amended from time to time in consultation with the post holder to
take account of changing organisational need.

6
 PERSON SPECIFICATION
JOB TITLE: Senior Technical Solutions Design Specialist

PAY BAND: Band 7

DEPARTMENT: Digital Services

CRITERIA Essential Desirable

Qualifications  Educated to Masters degree  PRINCE2 Practitioner.
level or equivalent experience
 ITIL.
Professional qualifications e.g.
MCP, MCSE or significant and  TOGAF.
extensive relevant experience.
 Technical qualifications e.g.
MCSE (IT Related) or
equivalent work experience.
Experience  Minimum of 3 years IT
system management in the NHS,
public sector or major private
sector organisation.
 At least 2 years working in a
senior IT role managing other
technical staff.
 Advanced knowledge &
experience of IT systems.
 Technical knowledge of best
practice in the field of security
and systems and relevant
standards.
 Experience of installation and
commissioning of complex IT
systems.
 Able to effectively work with
3rd party suppliers.
 Experience of developing and
testing disaster recovery plans for
systems.
 Providing a customer service
preferably using an ITIL based
framework.
 Significant experience in the
day-to-day operational support of
systems within large or multi-site
7
 environments.
 Significant experience of
configuring and deploying
complex services and systems in a
24/7 environment minimising
downtime.
 Experience of working with
external contractors on the
delivery of IT infrastructure.
 Knowledge and experience of
system performance management
services.
 Extensive understanding of IT
security issues.
 Production and maintenance
of accurate systems inventory,
build documents, licence and
patch management records.
 Development of technical
protocols and documentation.
Skills &  Server architecture and
Knowledge peripherals.
 Expert in MS Windows Server
2003/8/12 and support tools.
 Expert in MS Exchange.
 MS SQL Server.
 CITRIX XEN APP Servers or
equivalent.
 Oracle RDBMS.
 VMware ESX or equivalent.
 Expert in Desktop
Virtualisation techniques.
 Expert in Storage Area
Networks (SAN) and Network
Attached Storage (NAS)
technologies – deploying,
managing, monitoring.
 VMware View 5+ or
equivalent.
 Detailed knowledge and
experience of IT Security
including Data Protection
requirements.
 Expert in centralised and
8
 virtualised backup techniques.
 Proactive systems and
applications monitoring
techniques.
 Evidence of IT Continuing
Professional development
particularly with regards to
remaining current with
desktop, server and storage
technology and best practice.
Special  Travel to and working from
Requirements multiple bases.
 Willingness to travel at
short notice.
 Flexible working at peak
periods particularly go-live.
 Contactable / On call Cover
/ Call out in Major Incident in
the Trust or Major IT incidents.

Values &  Self-motivated, enthusiastic, organised with excellent attention

Behaviours to detail.
 We will expect your values and behaviours to mirror those of the
Trust, available at: https://www.fhft.nhs.uk/about-us/our-values/