Head of Quality and Patient Safety

Job description

Job responsibilities

Job Purpose

The Head of Quality will lead and oversee the organisations quality and patient safety functions, ensuring robust systems are in place to support safe, effective, and person-centred care and ensure a robust governance framework is in place to optimise standards, manage risk, and facilitate an open learning culture to support continuous quality improvement.

This role will have operational responsibility for the following key areas:

Incident management

Development and implementation of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF)

Supporting activities related to Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulatory compliance and preparation

Complaints, PALS and service user feedback

Clinical effectiveness activity linked to policy, procedure and audit.

Quality reporting

Quality assurance including quality visits.

Medical devices and safety alerts.

This role will be a varied and wide-ranging one with the post holder working alongside a range of quality leadership roles to ensure there is robust oversight and application of quality, safety and clinical care standards.

Alongside the care group Assistant Clinical Directors for Quality and Safety they will take responsibility for ensuring that quality and safety functions are implemented and embedded within care groups to improve and promote quality oversight.

Working in collaboration with the Deputy Director of Nursing, AHPs and Quality, they will play a key role in the strategic development and implementation of quality and safety initiatives and approaches to promote continuous improvement and compliance with statutory and regulatory compliance.

Leadership and Strategy

Provide leadership, expert advice, information and support to the senior leadership team, Board of Directors, managers and staff, on matters relating to quality, patient safety and compliance and ensure that relevant staff are kept informed of relevant national issues and initiatives.

Promote a culture of safety, quality and improvement across all levels of the organisation, encouraging staff engagement and ownership.

Lead the implementation and embedding of PSIRF, ensuring alignment with national guidance and local priorities.

Oversee the delivery of quality related priorities within the clinical quality strategy and associated work plans.

Liaise with regulators, commissioners, existing and new system partners as and when business needs arise.

Work closely with the senior leadership team to assess new service provisions to ensure they are clinically safe.

Maintain an up-to-date knowledge of developments in quality, risk, patient experience, and safety, integrating new knowledge into practice.

Coordinate the completion of the statutory annual quality account for the organisation.

Incident Management and Patient Safety

Ensure effective systems for incident reporting, investigation, learning, and improvement.

Lead the development of thematic reviews and learning reports to inform service and organisational improvement.

Support the organisations response to serious incidents and ensure compliance with PSIRF.

Ensure the notification of serious incidents to the appropriate commissioners and regulatory bodies.

Lead on the coordination, implementation, and monitoring of National Patient Safety Alerts across the organisation, ensuring timely compliance and effective dissemination to relevant teams.

CQC Compliance and Preparation

Work in collaboration with Senior Leaders in the organisations preparation and response for CQC inspections, including self-assessments and evidence collation.

Monitor compliance with CQC standards and coordinate improvement actions where required.

Provide expert advice and support to services on regulatory requirements.

Review all new guidance and information from regulatory bodies to ensure the organisation is on top of new requirements before they are due.

Complaints and Service User Feedback

Oversee the complaints function, ensuring timely, compassionate, and effective responses.

Analyse trends in complaints and feedback to inform service improvement.

Promote a culture of openness and learning from service user experience.

Quality Assurance and Visits

Implement and lead a programme of quality assurance visits across services, producing reports and recommendations from findings. Support care groups with the development of action plans to drive improvement.

Analyse thematic findings from quality visits and quality assurance activity to inform organisational improvement plans and escalate concerns as appropriate.

Quality Governance and Reporting

Ensure appropriate quality governance, assurance and reporting mechanisms are in place to provide assurance both internally and externally on the quality and delivery of the organisations clinical services.

Develop and implement policies and procedures that align with national standards and best practices.

Lead the development and delivery of quality governance reports for internal and external stakeholders.

Ensure accurate and timely reporting of quality metrics, risks, and improvement actions.

Support the Quality Committee and other governance forums with expert input and assurance.

Coroners inquest and Legal claims

Provide support and advice to CityCare legal team, care groups and staff in relation to claims and inquests.

Ensure that learning from inquests and claims are considered within organisational improvements.

Clinical effectiveness

Work with the clinical leads to support quality improvement and audit of clinical practice implementation of NICE Guidance and support service evaluation.

Ensure there are systems in place to co-ordinate the completion, monitoring and follow-up of recommendations from internal and external audits and report on progress.

Develop and implement effective processes and practices to support effective initiation, consultation, approval and continuous review of clinical policies, procedures and guidance.

Patient Safety Specialist Role

Champion initiatives that prioritise patient safety and promote positive patient and family experiences.

Lead the completion of Patient Safety Incident Investigations

Advise and guide staff on complex patient safety issues

Identify training requirements and contribute to the design and delivery of patient safety training programmes.

Conduct regular audits and reviews of quality and safety practices, leading to actionable insights and recommendations.

Team Management

Direct line management and supervision of Quality support roles as outlined in organisation chart

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Educated to degree level or equivalent experience
• Evidence of continuous professional development

Desirable

• Accredited Patient Safety Specialist
• Registered Professional Qualification
• Leadership Qualification

Experience

Essential

• Previous experience in a senior Quality or Governance role
• Extensive knowledge and experience of UK healthcare regulation and compliance
• Clear understanding of CQC standards
• Working experience of clinical risk management, patient safety and quality functions
• Clinical audit and effectiveness experience
• Experience in leading and delivering complex change within an organisation
• Experience of responding to compliance shortfalls in a systematic way
• Experience of planning and delivery of training
• Experience of Policy development and implementation
• Experience of carrying out significant incident investigations
• Experience of leading on complaints

Desirable

• Experience of Quality Management systems in the UK healthcare environment
• Strong understanding of quality improvement methodologies

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

Nottingham CityCare Partnership CIC

Address

Aspect House, Aspect Business Park

26 Bennerley Road

Bulwell

Nottinghamshire

NG6 8WR

Employer's website

https://www.nottinghamcitycare.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)