Clinical Entity and Natural Language Programming (NLP) Service Lead

At South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, we believe in providing excellent care delivered with pride and compassion. Everything we do aims to improve the lives of the people and communities we serve and promote mental health and wellbeing for all. Access to information extracted from electronic health records is essential for day-to-day clinical decision making through clinical decision support tools and for clinical research. The Clinical Entity and Natural Language Processing (NLP) Service Lead is responsible for defining and managing services that extract key clinical information from free text and structured records for use by clinical services through LUCi and for research via CRIS. In addition to managing internal services, the role includes designing and overseeing the externally facing commercial Mental Health Text Analytics Cloud (MH-TAC) service. MH-TAC enables NHS Trusts and universities to access and use NLP pipelines developed within SLaM safely and securely to extract information from local clinical text. The successful applicant will have advanced technical expertise in NLP, AI methodologies and cloud infrastructure, alongside excellent leadership, supervision and communication skills. They will possess extensive knowledge of electronic health record systems within a secondary mental health NHS Trust and experience working with clinical and academic partners and customers. Key Responsibilities: Manage the SLaM Clinical Informatics Entity and NLP Service, ensuring policies are implemented effectively. Manage service operations, including maintenance of an ITIL-aligned service model. Line manage the service’s technical developer and administrator. Lead engagement with senior clinicians and IoPPN academics to identify information extraction needs, assess feasibility and design effective solutions. Lead development of pipelines to extract complex clinical entities using advanced NLP and AI techniques. Supervise and train staff in new information extraction processes. Design and implement DevOps and change management processes in line with industry standards and SLaM Digital Services policies. Manage deployment of pipelines into operational services, including monitoring and performance reporting. Ensure services remain cost-effective and within budget. Communicate service design, availability, outputs and performance to stakeholders. Coordinate testing of service outputs for clinical and research use and ensure the SLaM cloud-based NLP infrastructure remains operational. Work with SLaM technical teams and suppliers providing 4th-line support to ensure infrastructure meets operational needs. Design and manage all aspects of the MH-TAC service, including commercial, contractual, governance, budget and costing activities. Lead relationships with MH-TAC partners and customers. Develop and deliver MH-TAC training and awareness materials. South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond. We are committed to provide a high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for our care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’. The trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role. We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust. Our Values We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I’m going to do is at the heart of everything we do. When you join us, you’ll be part of something special. As a Trust we are happy to talk flexible working. About the Location The job will be based at the IoPPN Main Building, part of the wider Denmark Hill campus shared by SLaM and King's College London. The IoPPN main building is home to the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology \& Neuroscience . Denmark Hill is very well connected and staff can reach Victoria or Blackfriars stations in 10 minutes by train, and East London is 25 minutes by overground. At South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, we believe in providing excellent care which is delivered with pride and compassion. Everything we do is to improve the lives of the people and communities we serve and to promote mental health and wellbeing for all. Access to information extracted from electronic health records is essential to support day-to-day clinical decision making through clinical decision support tools and clinical research. The Clinical Entity and Natural Language Programming (NLP) Service Lead is responsible for defining and managing a service to extract essential clinical information from clinical text and / derived from across the record for use in SLAM by clinical services through LUCi and for research via CRIS. As well as managing services for use within the Trust, this role includes the design and management of the externally facing and commercial Mental Health Text Analytics Cloud service (MH-TAC), by which other NHS Trusts and Universities can access and use NLP pipelines developed in SLAM safely and securely to extraction information from local clinical text. . To that end the successful applicant will be someone with advanced technical knowledge and experience using cutting edge techniques and AI methodology in NLP and cloud infrastructure as well as excellent management, supervision and communication skills. They will have extensive knowledge of all aspects of electronic health records structure and use in a secondary mental health NHS Trust and experience working with both clinical and academic partners and customers. Communications and Working Relationships : [FW1] Internal: Senior clinicians including clinical directors and service lead Senior academics, including professors SLaM Digital Services Technical Teams SLaM Business Intelligence Team SLaM Clinical Systems Team SLaM and BRC Clinical Informatics Teams Other Clinical and Administration staff Other ICT staff External: SLaM service users and the general public External suppliers and contractors Colleagues in other academic institutions, Health Authorities, NHS Trusts, and other organisations (e.g. the Office for National Statistics) Social Services departments Government departments (e.g. the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Work and Pensions), etc. Other NHS organisations (e.g. NHS Digital) King’s Health Partners Key Responsibilities: * To actively manage the SLAM Clinical Informatics Entity and NLP Service, establishing how professional and administrative policies should be interpreted and implemented * Responsible for managing service operations including development of a written service models to ITIL standards. * Line management of the service’s technical developer and service administrator * Initiate and lead discussions with senior clinicians in SLAM and IoPPN academics to identify information extraction requirements from clinical records to support best clinical practice, to evaluate technical options and feasibitliy and design effective, cost-effective solutions * Lead on the development of new technical pipelines to extract complex entities out of clinical data, using the most up-to-date technical processes including the latest AI techniques. * Supervise and train junior staff in the use of novel technical processes to extract information from text.Design and deploy an effective service DevOps and change management processes in line with highest industry standards and existing SLAM Digital Services policies and processes. * Actively manage the deployment of novel pipelines into routine operational services and processes, including monitoring and routine reporting of performance. * To ensure all services and solutions are cost effective and meet continue to meet budget requirements * Communicate effectively about the design, availability, definitions and performance of service outputs in response to enquiries from internal and external stakeholders and service users. * Co-ordinate and oversee continuous performance testing of service outputs in line with their usage in day-to-day clinicai practice and academic research use. * Ensure the SLAM cloud-based NLP technical infrastructure is operational and effective. * Work directly with and lead communications with all relevant SLAM Technical teams, and third-party system suppliers providing 4 th line technical support, communicating complex technical requirements and deployment, ensuring the technical infrastructure is able to support all operational requirements efficiently and cost-effectively * Design and manage all elements of the SLAM MH-TAC service, enabling commercialisation of information extraction pipelines to other NHS Trusts and UK universities, including complex negotiation, contractual, costings and budget management and governance elements. * Lead on relationships with commercial partners and customers of MH-TAC * To develop and lead on the delivery of training, awareness and promotional resources to support MH-TAC