Head of Vaccines, Infectious Disease and Diagnostics - 76,000 p.a. + benefits

Reporting to the Deputy Director Benefit-Risk Evaluation I, the purpose of this role is to provide strategic leadership and management to a team of Benefit-Risk Evaluation assessors in the Vaccines, Infectious Diseases and Diagnostics team within the Benefit-Risk Evaluation function to ensure that safe and effective medicines and medical devices continue to be available to UK patients. The post holder will bring together medicine and medical devices expertise to ensure effective matrix working across the Benefit-Risk Evaluation functions, the wider Safety and Surveillance Group and Agency life-cycle Groups to see that scientific, technical and clinical benefit-risk assessment of potential safety issues takes place promptly and contributes to sound regulatory decisions regarding safety and performance. This post holder will ensure that meaningful engagement and partnership work with patients and the public, key senior external stakeholders, government departments, professional bodies and the wider health sector supports the interrogation of data to assess the benefits and risks of all medicinal products in use.Key responsibilities: Provide leadership to a diverse team of scientific, technical and clinical staff, including developing SMART objectives, ensuring a high standard of benefit risk evaluation and supporting professional developmentEffective management of the therapeutic team to ensure operational efficiency and continuous quality improvement to maintain adherence to Agency performance measures, Group targets, benefit risk assessment deadlines, ensuring allocation of resources to effectively meet targets and ensure patients and the public are involved in all aspects of benefit-risk decision making to improve patient safety outcomesEnsure the therapeutic team can make autonomous decisions based on the available evidence, accepting that evidence may be incomplete and/or inconclusive, seeking expert advice and/or Expert Advisory Committee support where necessary Seek to develop and maintain partnerships as necessary across benefit risk groups, the wider agency and with the broader UK health and social care system, professional bodies and associations and with international regulators where appropriate to improve patient safety