Director of Midwifery & Neonatal Services

Job responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities listed below are representative of the Director of Midwifery and Neonatal Services role and its purpose within the service; they are not exhaustive, and the post holder may be required to undertake additional or alternative duties and responsibilities commensurate with the level of the post, to support the smooth running of the services.

Strategic Leadership and Development

Corporate leadership of and contribution to the strategic and clinical direction of midwifery and neonatal services across GEH and SWFT.

To work with system and strategic partners, and the Executive Boards, within the context of an Integrated Care System to create a compelling vision for safe and high-quality maternity and neonatal services for the population of Warwickshire, ensuring this improves outcomes and reduces inequalities. This includes identifying and implementing opportunities to redesign, grow and improve maternity and neonatal services and care to ensure they are safe, personalised, modern, adaptable and responsive.

Play a key role in linking and supporting providers of maternity and neonatal services across Warwickshire and influencing, leading and responding to the strategic maternity and neonatal agenda regionally and nationally.

As the most senior lead for midwifery and neonatal services in both Trusts, lead the midwifery and neonatal services workforce strategies to ensure they are inclusive and fit for purpose and for the future.

Establish and maintain professional relationships with all internal and external stakeholders essential to the delivery of a safe and high-quality service provision, including services users.

Work effectively with the Divisional and Directorate Leadership Teams who oversee maternity and neonatal services across both SWFT and GEH to provide objective professional challenge and support to service strategy and plans, governance and assurance.

Represent the Trusts strategically, nationally and locally on maternity and paediatric issues, as required, including attending external meetings and forums.

Foster an open and inclusive style of management and communication and encourage team working and good working relationships.

Agree a system of delegated responsibility across the Directorates within GEH and SWFT, have oversight and provide supportive challenge to ensure their effective functioning with regards to midwifery and neonatal practise.

Be responsible for interpreting and ensuing effective implementation of national, regional and local health policy and professional/national standards and guidance to ensure and assure safe, effective and high-quality care and service provision.

On behalf of the Chief Nurse, support the delivery of wider functions within their portfolio and deputise in areas aligned to the Chief Nurse portfolio.

Participate in the Directors on call rota.

Clinical and Professional Leadership

Responsible for the professional leadership across midwifery and neonatal nursing, including ensuring strategies are developed for continuous quality improvement.

Ensure that self and others practice in accordance with the Nursing and Midwifery Councils Code and all other relevant professional, regulatory, national, regional and local professional standards

Promote and maintain an evidence-based practice culture for midwifery and nursing staff, ensuring the creation of effective local, regional and national networks to share good practice, and be responsible for wide dissemination and implementation of evidence.

Act as a strong patient advocate ensuring that a culture of continuous improvement and learning is supported in order to drive quality care delivery across maternity and neonatal services and facilitate the development of clinical practice, to ensure excellent care.

Service User Experience and Involvement

To be highly visible and approachable in all areas of responsibility, and available to respond to women, relatives and the public by maintaining open and honest communication channels.

Working with service users and carers across Warwickshire to recognise lived experience in the strategic direction of the services and ensuring forums and governance structures to enable meaningful engagement.

Initiate and implement a range of ways for users of the service across Warwickshire to actively feedback on their experience and use this to continually improve service.

Create opportunities for co-design, collaborating with staff, service users and the wider community across Warwickshire to support and/or lead activities aimed at improving experiences of service users.

Demonstrate public confidence in engaging with the public on any issues relating to the development or delivery of Trust services.

Workforce

Inspire the teams and encourage them to seek advice and identify solutions to problems through the promotion of an open-learning culture. Motivate and develop staff so as to maintain staff morale and to create a climate within the clinical areas of responsibility characterised by high standards of openness, where they are able to speak up and raise concerns.

Work to create a culture which engages staff and maximises potential to ensure staff are motivated to consistently deliver optimum care and promote effective team working to ensure a positive working environment.

Ensure close and effective relationships with local and higher education institutes to ensure the provision of attractive, flexible and dynamic education programmes and recruitment supply routes into the organisations.

Ensure that there is an effective system of individual performance review, professional development and support in place across all areas of responsibility.

Research and education

Work closely with research leaders to create a vibrant research focused environment that promotes evidence-based practice and clinical academic careers.

Lead, develop and implement education and research strategies to support innovation to and encourage research-based activity across services.Raise the profile of research opportunities for nursing, midwifery and AHP staff within midwifery and neonatal serviceAs a credible leader for the midwifery and neonatal services, influence and shape the development and delivery of clinical and professional standards and policy in order to impact the quality of care and education delivery across GEH and SWFT.

Lead on the non-medical education commissioning for workforce. Provide professional leadership and oversight to ensure that education commissioning address key national and strategic priorities and meets the needs of women, children and families.

Ensure that opportunities for research and audit are maximised to support the improvement of clinical outcomes and patient experience.

Governance

Accountable and responsible for ensuring the quality governance and assurance functions, systems and processes across maternity and neonatal services within GEH and SWFT are robust and fit for purpose.

Be responsible and provide a high degree of assurance to the Chief Nursing Officer regarding effective risk management in maternity and neonatal services that enables learning and improvement.

Have oversight and leadership across GEH and SWFT for quality assurance of required reporting to external bodies, such as HSIB, NHS Resolution, Commissioners and the Care Quality Commission and, also, compliance with all aspects of Duty of Candour legislation and all other regulatory requirements.

Provide leadership and support for the maternity and neonatal services planning processes and compliance with all regulatory standards and initiatives, including The Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts Maternity Standards/Incentive schemes.

Responsible for robust systems that review maternity and childrens policies and procedures in a timely manner, with a particular focus on the quality of practice and management at local level.

Lead the completion of reports, relevant to portfolio, to the Board of Directors, commissioners and external bodies, as required.

Lead on the development, implementation and effective measurement and reporting of agreed/required performance and clinical and quality governance measures at Executive/Board level, and externally.

Support the clinical leadership of maternity and neonatal services in the delivery of high quality and outstanding services, working effectively with the multi professional team to deliver the best care for everyone in line with the Trusts vision and strategic objectives and compliant with national standards and external regulations i.e. CQC, NICE.

Financial & Operational Performance

Responsible for ensuring that clinical initiatives and service developments become embedded practice and that staff have a clear understanding and opportunity to contribute to the change process.

Work with the Divisional/Directorate Medical and Clinical Directors, managers and senior clinicians of all disciplines and service users, to develop the annual service objectives and support their assessment, planning, implementation, evaluation and reporting.

Ensure all resources are deployed to achieve the best outcomes, with reference to the Trusts and Service Business Plans and objectives.

Work together with the Divisional/Directorate Clinical Directors and General Managers ensure that business cases are robust and justifiable. This includes identifying the operational and financial implications of options, their expected benefits realisation, and the management of any associated risks and impacts on relevant stakeholders.

Ensure financial efficiency and effectiveness in use of resources and in accordance with the Trusts Standing Financial Instructions. Manage the use and efficiency of any variable pay within allocated resource limits, including any bank and agency staff.

In partnership with the Divisional/Directorate Leadership team, ensure that there is a robust communication framework within the services that engages staff at all levels.

Qualifications

Essential

• First level Registered Midwife with current NMC Registration
• Educated to master's level or equivalent.
• Evidence of continuous professional development (completion of postgraduate course/qualification relevant to the role).
• Evidence of Postgraduate qualification or Executive/Leadership Development or substantial and credible worked experience at senior level.

Desirable

• First level Registered Sick Children's Nurse and/or Registered Health Visitor.

Experience

Essential

• Recent and significant senior clinical and management experience at Associate Director of Midwifery level or equivalent in an NHS environment.
• Significant experience of working at or exposure to Board level or equivalent.
• Evidence of recent midwifery clinical practice and delivering transformational change
• Evidence of a track record of delivery of performance objectives and service improvements.
• Evidence of delivering compassionate, patient-focused and women and family centered care.
• In-depth understanding of the Risk and Governance agenda with extensive experience of quality governance and assurance systems and processes and delivering sustainable improvements in patient safety, quality and patient experience.
• A broad and highly developed understanding of nursing and midwifery policy and their implications for the workforce and future health care delivery.
• Demonstrable experience of working successfully across functional boundaries and at a Strategic level.
• Experience of working across other NHS organisations (or beyond) for benchmarking purposes or to identify best practice /areas for improvement.
• Demonstrable experience of overseeing Trust- wide initiatives; leading successful change management; service redesign processes; leading cost improvement programmes.
• Experience of leading large multidisciplinary teams and effective staff engagement.
• Proven experience of building effective partnerships and alliances across different organisations eg. Commissioning, Acute Trusts, Mental Health
• A strong grasp of health inequalities and understanding of diversity and equality issues and how these impacts and translates into service delivery and leadership.
• Evidence of leading cultural change across multidisciplinary and complex services

Desirable

• Detailed knowledge of NHS practices, policies and procedures and experience of implementing new policies, procedures, and guidelines across multiple services.
• An in-depth understanding of Workforce, Education, Standards, and research issues within the NHS.

Personal Qualities

Essential

• Role model and have a strong commitment to openness, honesty and integrity.
• Highly visible leader with the ability to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines.
• Drive, energy, enthusiasm and resilience.
• Role model who understands own impact on others and high levels of self-awareness.
• Ability to work in a climate of rapid change and uncertainty.
• Innovative thinker who is able to cut through the barriers for change.

Skills

Essential

• Evidence of managing competing priorities, complexity and highly sensitive situations, and of delivering to tight timeframes
• Highly developed analytical and problem-solving skills; capable of interpreting and evaluating complex, multi-faceted information; ability to summarise complex information; ability to make judgements and advise on the best course of action.
• Ability to present highly complex/controversial information to a wide range of audiences, with differing levels of understanding, in a suitable format and with appropriate explanation.
• Ability to produce and present reports/papers at a sophisticated level that are suitable to be presented to a Board of Directors and/or outside of the Trust.
• Highly developed leadership and influencing skills. Ability to integrate, collaborate, influence and motivate a wide range clinical and non- clinical staff and other stakeholders across range of organisations to achieve successful partnership working
• Demonstrate passion for and commitment for the development of midwifery and neonatal services; provide a clear vision for change which is a source of inspiration and motivation for others. Skilled in all aspects of managing change, including supporting staff
• Ability to monitor and act to improve and deliver performance and establish high levels of quality and to hold others to account for delivery
• Be able to articulate the evolving strategy and vision for the future of midwifery and neonatal services; demonstrate the opportunities this will provide.
• Politically astute and able to interpret national policies. Sound political judgement and astuteness in understanding and working with diverse groups and common sense in knowing when to 'brief up the line'
• Highly developed communication skills to resolve complex, high- impact situations in highly complex environments and to work confidently in areas of uncertainty.
• High level of work organisation, self- motivation, drive for performance improvement and flexibility in approach.
• Uncompromising and passionate about providing excellent patient care, staff engagement and well-being.

Other

Essential

• Frequent travel between multiple Trust sites (and occasional travel further afield)
• To be proactive and flexible, able to identify and take forward opportunities and work effectively in partnership with others.
• Deep pragmatism with a positive and can-do attitude, willing to roll their sleeves up to get into details where necessary.
• The resilience to thrive when operating in complexity and uncertainty and under high degrees of pressure.
• The political intelligence to be able to navigate a complex social and political eco-system and remain focussed on the shared vision for the future.
• Participate in the Director on call rota.

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

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