Job responsibilities
1. Insight
1.1. To identify and triangulate insight from a variety of internal and external sources to identify emerging or developing patient safety risks or potential opportunities to improve or learn. This would include, but is not limited to;
- internal sources including quality information (e.g. Complaints, Legal, Freedom to Speak Up and Mortality/Medical Examiner) and operational and performance data.
- external sources including regional/national sharing of insight, National Patient Safety Alerts, Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) national investigations, Care Quality Commission inspections and guidance, Staff Survey results, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence publications and academic research.
1.2. To utilise and promote a proactive risk management approach to patient safety to identify and escalate potential risks to patient safety and where required to support or lead on mitigation work.
1.3. To gather insight regarding patient safety culture. This will include measuring and supporting the development and improvement of a patient safety culture across the organisation.
1.4. To support the development, introduction and ongoing use of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) and to have an in depth working knowledge of PSIRF.
1.4.1. To support the development and implementation of the Trusts Patient Safety Incident Response Policy (PSIRP) and Plan.
1.4.2. To support the development, and promote the use of, systems and services which can support the compassionate engagement of people affected by patient safety incidents.
1.4.3. To promote, demonstrate and coach the principles of just culture, system thinking, human factors and transparency across the organisation.
1.4.4. To promote a continuous increase in effective patient safety event reporting and working to remove barriers, including the development of the incident management system and Learn from patient safety events (LFPSE) service.
1.4.5.To measure the appropriateness and effectiveness of responses to patient safety incidents, including measuring whether people affected were appropriately supported and involved in the response using prospective and retrospective approaches to prepare, test, review and improve the organisations processes and practices to respond to incidents.
1.4.6.To support staff to consider and carry out responses to patient safety incidents with the purpose of supporting system learning and continuous improvement in patient safety. This includes supporting Care Groups to develop effective PSIRF panels and developing and participating in Trust level panels.
1.4.7.To iteratively develop processes, systems and methodologies which support proportionate and effective responses to patient safety incidents.
1.4.8.To act as a learning response lead, leading on complex patient safety incident responses, including patient safety system investigations.
1.4.9.To support the translation of findings from incident responses into effective and sustainable local and Trustwide safety actions and improvement plans.
1.5. To promote the appropriate use of patient safety insight (including patient safety incident and incident response data) all levels of the organisation and to challenge the use of inappropriate measures.
1.6. To be actively involved in activities related to a safety II approach (understanding both work as done in the system and why things routinely go right in healthcare) and to develop insight and improvement programmes linked to safety II.
2. Improvement
2.1. To lead on priority Trust-wide Patient Safety Improvement Groups. This will include;
2.1.1.utilising system thinking and human factors principles in the design and delivery of improvement activities;
2.1.2.evaluating the effectiveness of improvement activities implemented
2.1.3.communicating improvement activities across the organisation
2.1.4.supporting adoption and spread of successful improvement interventions across the wider organisation and region where applicable.
2.1.5.ensuring groups have a robust systems based understanding of contributory factors to their theme(s) though;
- undertaking insight activities (e.g. thematic reviews and horizon scanning).
- proactively review system findings, areas for improvement and recommendations identified in patient safety incident responses related to the theme.
- review of patient safety incident data, including ensuring accuracy of data quality.
2.2. To promote and facilitate collaborative improvement activities across organisational boundaries, particularly with partner organisations across the South East London Integrated Care System.
2.3. To promote the development of Care Group and Divisionallevel improvement plans, supporting key priority improvement activities
2.4. To support Trust involvement, where relevant, with the National Patient Safety Improvement Programmes.
2.5. To identify emerging patient safety issues and recommend where relevant local or Trustwide improvement activities.
2.6. To lead on projects related to the measurement and improvement of patient safety culture, compassionate engagement of people affected by patient safety incidents and health inequalities.
3. Involvement
3.1. To collaborate with patient representatives and stakeholder groups, particularly Patient Safety Partners, to improve patient safety; promoting the use of the NHS Framework for involving patients in patient safety.
3.2. To promote the NHS Patient Safety Syllabus and encourage and support all staff to complete modules relevant to their role.
3.3. To design and deliver in house patient safety training programmes related to patient safety such as system approaches to safety, human factors, just culture, quality improvement, responding to patient safety incidents and compassionate engagement of people affected by patient safety incidents.
3.4. To deliver coaching to staff within the organisation regarding the practical application of patient safety principles and methodologies.
3.5. To work with and escalate to the organisations Patient Safety Specialist(s) to develop and embed a patient safety culture and safety systems.
3.6. To consider health inequalities and other equality, diversity & inclusion principles in all aspects of patient safety.
3.7. To promote the involvement of all staff and patients in safety, including the identification of system risks, response to patient safety incidents and improvement activities with the principle that patient safety is everyones responsibility.
3.8. To network across the organisation, and wider region where required to promote patient safety principles. This may include attending ad hoc Trust-wide Safety Committees and involvement in organisational processes (e.g. estates, procurement) and Quality, Governance and Education processes as a subject matter expert in patient safety.
4. General
4.1. To role model best practice in relation to the patient safety principles, to act as a subject matter expert in patient safety within the organisation (and more widely where required).
4.2. To be a visible leader across the organisation.
4.3. To actively engage in continuing professional development in relation to patient safety (and other related skills described such as change and project management). To maintain up to date with patient safety principles and developments.
4.4. To be clinically credible based on experience and understanding of healthcare and patient safety.
4.5. To actively engage, and lead where requested, in departmental system and process improvements.
4.6. To utilise skills and experience to advance patient safety insight, improvement and involvement activities.
