Clinical Director

Help us end preventable newborn deaths. Neotree is recruiting a senior, part-time Clinical Director to be accountable for the clinical safety and quality of our neonatal digital tools, and to lead the clinical side of our work with Ministries of Health in Malawi and Zimbabwe as they move towards owning the tools. Reports to: Executive Director Time commitment & contract: 3 days per week; 1-year contract (renewable subject to funding) Location: Remote (within 2–3 hours of Central Africa Time), with approximately quarterly travel (Malawi, Zimbabwe and the UK) Salary: £60,000–£68,000 per annum full-time equivalent, depending on experience (£36,000–£40,800 actual for 3 days per week) About Neotree and the role Neotree puts the lifesaving power of technology into the hands of doctors and nurses in low-income countries. Its open-source digital learning health system is co-designed with frontline clinicians and combines real-time clinical decision support, data capture, dashboards and training. It has supported care for more than 60,000 newborns across 19 facilities and trained over 4,000 health workers. Neotree is used in Malawi and Zimbabwe, both as Neotree's own standalone application and, increasingly, as a neonatal module built into national electronic health record systems (MaHIS in Malawi and Impilo in Zimbabwe). Our ambition is for Ministries of Health in Malawi and Zimbabwe to own and lead the use of Neotree at scale within their national systems. The role has two core purposes: Clinical oversight of the product. You will be accountable for the clinical safety, accuracy and effectiveness of Neotree’s standalone application, and will bring the clinical perspective into product decisions from early scoping, working with Product and Technical colleagues to agree where the clinical red lines sit. Once Neotree content is built into a government-owned system, you will hold Neotree's clinical position on it: monitoring quality and safety within the information available and raising concerns and recommending changes to the Ministry of Health. Clinical and technical leadership on governance. You will act as Neotree's senior clinical advisor to government partners, helping to strengthen clinical governance of the Neotree module within national systems towards the transition to government ownership. What you will be accountable for You will work with in-country clinical teams throughout, and be accountable for the following: Clinical safety and quality of the product Safeguard clinical content: ensure the accuracy, safety and currency of clinical management content and algorithms in Neotree’s standalone application across Malawi and Zimbabwe, including updates when national guidelines change. Country content is agreed in consensus with the in-country Clinical Lead. Monitor embedded content: hold Neotree’s clinical position on content deployed within government-owned systems such as Impilo and MaHIS, monitoring quality and safety within the information available and raising formal concerns or recommending changes where appropriate. Clinical input to product development: work with Product and Technical colleagues to agree how clinical risk is handled across the product life cycle: which clinical red lines are non-negotiable, where the team can move quickly, and where it should proceed with caution. Bring the clinical perspective, with in-country Clinical Leads, into feature prioritisation, so priorities reflect value to end users and the health system. Review and sign off changes: lead annual algorithm reviews, sign off clinically relevant features before release, and ensure early involvement so clinical review does not become a late bottleneck. Manage risk and learning: lead incident reporting and clinical risk mitigation when issues are flagged. Coordinate governance: support the Neotree Clinical Governance Group by preparing agendas with the chairs, bringing monitoring issues to the group and ensuring recommendations are followed up. From clinical guidance to the app Translate guidance into logic: turn agreed clinical guidance into clear, structured decision logic for the app, and check that what the implementation team enters and tests reflects the clinical intent. Build team capability: strengthen country clinical teams’ ability to translate guidance themselves over time, while remaining accountable for the clinical result. Using clinical data Review core indicators: monitor an agreed set of clinical safety, outcome and data completeness measures to understand how the app is functioning and flag potential software or guideline issues to the in-country clinical team. Support clinical interpretation: act as a critical friend to country clinical teams on which indicators and trends are worth examining. Improve data communication: oversee the data sent to clinical leadership at Neotree sites, so it reflects local priorities and flags appropriate clinical conclusions. Training and the clinical community Assure training quality: where Neotree develops clinical training alongside app rollout, support the Country Clinical Lead to design it and sign off clinical content and quality on Neotree’s behalf. Align education with the app: where opportunities arise, feed into neonatal education courses in Malawi and Zimbabwe so they reinforce the app’s clinical guidance. Coach clinical teams: coordinate the network of Country Clinical Leads and coach Clinical Officers and Clinical Implementation Leads so that clinical knowledge and good practice move across countries rather than staying siloed. Wider clinical input When requested, provide a clinical perspective on other parts of Neotree's work, for example the design of Neotree’s M&E framework or guidance on how in-country mortality audit meetings are run. Working with government Advise on neonatal content: hold Neotree’s clinical position in government-owned systems and provide technical advice to Ministry and national programme teams when requested. Monitor safety and performance: use information available to Neotree to identify whether embedded content is performing safely and as intended, recommending changes to the Ministry where concerns arise. Escalate urgent concerns: raise urgent safety issues with the Executive Director and the relevant government counterpart, recognising that legal and operational accountability sits with government system owners. Technical assistance and capacity building: provide technical assistance and capacity building support, working alongside an external clinical governance consultant, to government structures and actors to build and strengthen clinical governance mechanisms for the neonatal module within government systems. Engage strategically: join Ministry-facing sessions and other opportunities that directly support embedding Neotree in national health systems. Person specification Essential Clinical expertise: registered medical practitioner (GMC or equivalent) with substantial senior experience in paediatrics or neonatology (e.g. consultant or senior registrar, or equivalent). Low-or middle-income (LMIC) clinical experience: substantial, hands-on experience working clinically in low-resource or LMIC settings. Ability to translate into digital tool : comfortable translating clinical guidance into the structured, practical decision logic a digital tool needs, and checking that what is built does what was clinically intended, or a clear aptitude and willingness to develop these skills. Cross-functional working: able to build trusted relationships with product and technical teams, working pragmatically while holding agreed red lines on safety. Sound clinical safety judgement: ability to make and explain clear decisions to pause or approve clinical content. Data confidence: experience using clinical data to monitor safety and quality. Government-facing technical advice: experience providing technical assistance and capacity building support to government, with an understanding of how clinical governance functions within a Ministry of Health. Communication and facilitation: able to run workshop discussions and hold your own in Ministry-level conversations. Coaching and development: experience of training, mentoring or coaching clinicians. Remote working: ability to work independently and travel approximately quarterly to Malawi, Zimbabwe and the UK. Desirable Experience leading or coordinating clinical work across distributed, multi-country teams. Experience in quality improvement methodologies and approaches. Existing networks in neonatal care and/or digital health in Africa. Experience in clinical or implementation research. Experience in Malawi, Zimbabwe or elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Clinical Safety Officer training, or equivalent. Equal opportunities Neotree values diversity and is committed to equal opportunities. All applicants for employment will receive equal treatment without discrimination on grounds of gender, race, ethnic or national origins, disability, gender identity or sexual orientation, or any other grounds. We are particularly interested in receiving applications from candidates from minority ethnic backgrounds, and the low-resource settings in which we work, to ensure we have a well-balanced and widely representative staff base.