Clinical Coding & Data Quality Improvement Lead

Job overview

Important Information for Applicants: This vacancy is for Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (SaBP).

This role is offered through Flexi-Bank, a collaborative temporary staffing service delivered in partnership between Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust. Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust acts as the host provider and manages the recruitment, onboarding and administrative processes on behalf of Surrey and Borders.

Please note that although Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust branding may appear on this advert and within the recruitment system, successful applicants for this vacancy will undertake bank shifts for Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

Location: 18 Mole Business Park, Randalls Road, Leatherhead, Surrey, KT22 7AD

Why join Flexi‑Bank?

Work flexibly – choose shifts that suit your lifestyle and availability

Access more opportunities – pick up shifts across mental health and community

Get paid fairly and on time – competitive rates and fast access to earnings through Stream

Stay supported – benefit from training, development and guidance from our dedicated Temporary Staffing Team

Main duties of the job

Surrey and Borders is looking for someone in a specialist role responsible for delivering improvements in completeness, accuracy and consistency of the clinical information required for productivity analysis and MHNRG currency readiness.

Working with clinicians, operational services, the CCIO function, Business Intelligence, Finance, EPR and SITI teams, the postholder will identify gaps in clinical recording and data flows and support sustainable improvements in the capture of presenting need, diagnosis, interventions, outcomes and complexity factors.

The role combines clinical engagement, data-quality analysis, audit, training and improvement and is not limited to retrospective clinical coding audit.

Working Pattern: Weekdays from 9:00AM to 17:00 PM

Duration: 12 months fixed

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key Responsibilities of the role are:

Clinical Coding Audit & Oversight

• Lead the delivery of the Trust's clinical coding audit programme, ensuring audit methodology, sampling and reporting comply with national standards and support high-quality clinical coding, patient-level costing and emerging mental health currencies.
• Analyse audit findings to identify risks, documentation issues and opportunities to improve coding quality, ensuring coded data accurately supports activity reporting, costing, commissioning and future NHS payment models.
• Act as the programme specialist for clinical coding and data-quality queries, providing advice on the implications for productivity, costing, MHNRGs and statutory data flows.
• Coordinate improvement programmes arising from audit findings, working with clinical, operational, Finance, Business Intelligence and SITI teams to improve coding quality, documentation standards and organisational readiness for mental health currencies.
• Ensure coding quality supports accurate derivation of clinical activity, patient-level costing, service line reporting, commissioning datasets and statutory returns, escalating material risks where appropriate.

Clinical Engagement

• Work with clinicians and service teams to improve the capture of presenting complaints, ICD-10 diagnoses, SNOMED CT concepts, PROMs, MHSDS data items and complexity factors, ensuring high-quality data is captured.
• Provide expert coding advice on complex clinical scenarios, ensuring documentation supports accurate coding, reimbursement, commissioning and service planning.
• Present audit findings and coding intelligence to clinicians and senior leaders, demonstrating the impact of documentation quality on patient safety, mental health currencies, costing and organisational performance.
• Lead documentation improvement initiatives that strengthen the quality of coded data used for commissioning, benchmarking, patient-level costing and future payment models.
• Promote understanding of the relationship between clinical documentation, coding, mental health currencies, costing and the Trust's financial sustainability.

Data Quality & Reporting

• Lead the analysis and reporting of coding quality and MHSDS data quality, identifying trends, risks and opportunities that support mental health currencies, productivity benchmarking and organisational performance.
• Analyse the impact of coding quality on activity reporting, currency assignment, commissioning datasets, financial reporting and service line reporting, providing clear recommendations to senior stakeholders.
• Work with Business Intelligence and Finance to validate coded activity, costing and currency datasets, ensuring they accurately reflect the complexity and delivery of mental health services.
• Develop assurance reports and dashboards demonstrating the relationship between coding quality, activity, patient complexity, costing, currencies and financial performance.
• Undertake root-cause analysis to distinguish between clinical documentation, workflow, EPR configuration, coding, extraction and submission issues, agreeing remedial action with the appropriate owner.
• Monitor implementation of audit recommendations, ensuring improvements are embedded and reflected within organisational reporting.

Improvement

• Lead continuous improvement initiatives that strengthen coding quality, documentation standards and the quality of data used to support mental health currencies, patient-level costing and service transformation.
• Support staff through training and coaching to improve coding consistency and understanding of the wider role coding plays in commissioning, reimbursement and financial sustainability.
• Share audit findings and emerging risks to improve organisational understanding of the relationship between coding quality, patient complexity and future NHS payment arrangements.

Governance

• Act as the Trust's senior specialist for coding governance, ensuring compliance with national coding standards and providing expert advice on the implications for mental health currencies, patient-level costing, commissioning and statutory reporting.
• Maintain governance arrangements for coding policies, audit processes and assurance documentation, ensuring alignment with national coding standards and emerging NHS payment developments.
• Monitor developments in clinical coding, mental health currencies and NHS payment mechanisms, assessing implications for the Trust and supporting organisational readiness.
• Work with EHR and Business Intelligence teams to ensure that agreed improvements in clinical recording flow accurately into MHSDS, the NHS Talking Therapies data set and programme reporting.
• Work closely with Information Governance, Digital, EHR teams to improve the quality and completeness of clinical data submitted for national reporting and emerging payment models.