Head of Patient Safety/Patient Safety Specialist

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Head of Patient Safety to join the Risk and Patient Safety team to lead the Patient Safety function made up of a small team of Patient Safety Investigators, a Patient Safety Learning Coordinator and Patient Safety Administrator.

The Risk and Patient Safety team oversees and manages the following areas: Safety Incident Reporting, Patient Safety, Risk Management, Learning from Deaths, Quality Governance and compliance. The whole team works in a hybrid and flexible way to support the needs of the organisation and individual members. We are looking for a friendly, enthusiastic colleague, passionate about patient safety with a good sense of humour to join us.

You will need to be self-driven with excellent communication and interpersonal skills with an ability to work at all levels of the organisation. You will take pride in your work, be highly motivated, professional, have a flexible approach, good organizational skills, have strong professional curiosity and attention to detail and be able to deliver training, work to deadlines and write reports.

If you are passionate about patient safety and can provide leadership and oversight of the Trust Safety Governance processes, ensuring that safety learning responses are proportionate, encourage and support active engagement, meet the required standard and extract maximum systems learning to inform improvement and transformation work, this could be the role for you.

Main duties of the job

The Head of Patient Safety will lead on incident investigation and quality assurance in relation to patient safety. The Head of Patient Safety will be responsible for the provision of expert patient safety advice and input into strategic issues including the development and implementation of the trusts Quality and Safety Strategy, playing a key role in steering the strategic direction for patient safety within the Trust based upon the National Patient Safety Strategy.

The post holder will be a formal named Patient Safety Specialist leading on, or directly supporting patient safety improvement activity, ensuring that systems thinking, human factors understanding and “just culture” principles are embedded in all patient safety processes across the Trust. The Head of Patient Safety will support the development safety systems within the Trust which positively promote learning from incidents and patient feedback.

To support the delivery of a high quality, safe and compassionate healthcare service, all staff are expected to act as a role model to others in all aspects of their work and consistently demonstrate NNUH’s ‘PRIDE’ values of People focused, Respect, Integrity, Dedication and Excellence and demonstrate behaviours that support and encourage an inclusive culture.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Lead, line-manage, and develop the incident investigation team ensuring that they are properly trained, appraised and developed, that investigations are conducted in an impartial and professional manner, co-opting resources as necessary, and that high quality reports are produced in line with national standards.
• Support the shift the focus of incident investigation to the identification of systems failures, analysis of Human Factors and Safety II principles, and promote a “Just and Restorative Culture” within the Trust.
• Offer expert guidance on patient safety investigation methodology and support subject matter expects in completion of learning responses which do not meet Patient Safety Incident Investigation (PSII) criteria in line with Trust’s Patient Safety Incident Response Plan (PSIRP).
• Responsible for ensuring that frameworks and processes are followed for learning assurance for Patient Safety Incidents, never events, patient experience feedback (compliments, complaints and concerns), and mortality reviews including Prevention of Future Deaths notices (s28) and LeDeR reviews and the output from this informs safety improvement work; seeking evidence that learning has been acted upon promptly is key.
• Responsible for oversight of the Trust Incident triage process, ensuring this is regularly reviewed and meets the needs of the organisation.
• Responsible for the management of national patient safety alerts, liaising with the CASLO, ensuring that a gap analysis is undertaken, and actions are put in place to ensure compliance within expected timeframes.
• Identification and oversight of risks associated with patient safety and ensure that these are entered onto the Trust risk Register and managed robustly.
• Support the development, implementation, and monitoring of national and local safety initiatives.
• Provide expert advice in relation to patient safety, safety science ensuring that systems thinking, human factors understanding, and “just and restorative culture” principles are embedded in all patient safety processes across the organisation.
• Actively acts as a role model in own behaviour and fosters an inclusive positive, restorative and learning culture across the Trust.

Please refer to the Job Description for the full specification of responsibilities and requirements for this post.