Clinical Matron - MHUCC/MHL

Job overview

This is a permanent position for a Clinical Matron for:

• Mental Health Liaison (MHLT) service based at Watford General
• Mental Health Liaison (MHLT) service based at Lister Hospital, Stevenage
• Mental Health Urgent Care Centre (MHUCC) based at Lister Hospital, Stevenage

This is an unique opportunity to provide senior nursing leadership within a dynamic crisis service, ensuring the delivery of safe, effective and high-quality care for people experiencing a mental health crisis.

As Clinical Matron, you will provide visible leadership across the service, promoting excellence in clinical practice, patient safety, professional standards and compassionate, recovery-focused care. Working closely with Team Leaders, Operational Managers, Heads of Service, the Head of Nursing and medical colleagues, you will lead quality improvement, clinical governance, workforce development and service transformation.

You will play a key role in strengthening clinical assurance by overseeing safe staffing, professional standards, incident learning, regulatory compliance and continuous improvement in patient and staff experience. This is an excellent opportunity for an established senior nurse who is passionate about leading change, developing others and influencing service-wide improvement. If you are committed to delivering outstanding care and inspiring high-performing teams, we welcome your application.

Main duties of the job

Under the direction of the Head of Nursing, the Clinical Matron is the professional and quality lead for nursing within their specialist areas promoting safe, high-quality and compassionate care, ensuring dignity, inclusivity and best practice in infection prevention and control.

The Clinical Matron is accountable for delivering safe, effective and person-centred care through a strong clinical presence, accessibility and oversight, promptly identifying and addressing concerns. They are accessible to service users, carers and staff, offering advice, support and resolution of issues.

In partnership with the Head of Nursing, the Clinical Matron contributes to strategic service development, delivery of key performance indicators and assurance of compliance with regulatory, professional and internal standards. They lead and develop staff, drive quality improvement, and promote teamwork, learning and continuous improvement.

As a senior divisional leader, the Clinical Matron acts as a professional role model, fostering a just, inclusive and learning culture, upholding Trust values, policies, and equality and diversity principles, and acting up as required.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Duties and Responsibilities

Clinical Leadership & Quality

• Provide visible, authoritative clinical leadership and support to Clinical Nurse Specialists, Team Leaders, and MDT staff.
• Act as professional lead for nursing care, ensuring high standards of quality, safety, timeliness, and effectiveness across the division.
• Ensure nursing practice complies with professional standards, statutory requirements, Trust policies, and the NMC Code.
• Lead infection prevention and control, cleanliness, privacy, dignity, health and safety in line with the Modern Matron’s Charter.
• Ensure care environments are safe, clean, well maintained, and fit for purpose.
• Provide senior nursing advice, including out-of-hours support as required.
• Promote shared decision-making and service user, family and carer involvement in care.
• Lead quality improvement, audit, research activity, and the development of tools to demonstrate nursing quality.
• Foster a learning culture by leading reviews of incidents, risks, and near misses, ensuring lessons are learned and shared.

Staff Management & Workforce

• Ensure safe, effective staffing through oversight of eRostering and workforce deployment.
• Ensure the right staff with the right skills deliver person-centred care.
• Support and deputise for the Head of Nursing when required.
• Provide line management, clinical supervision, mentoring, and performance management for Clinical Nurse Specialists and staff.
• Ensure robust systems for appraisal, PDPs, supervision, and professional development are in place, monitored, and audited.
• Identify learning and development needs, ensure delivery, and evaluate impact on care.

Governance, Performance & Service Development

• Develop, implement, and monitor quality standards, policies, and governance frameworks.
• Collect and analyse data to support audit, quality improvement, and research.
• Work collaboratively across services and the wider Trust to support service development and quality assurance.
• Promote a positive image of services and the Trust.

Communication & Engagement

• Ensure effective, respectful communication with service users, families/carers, and stakeholders.
• Support the management and early resolution of complaints and concerns.
• Work collaboratively with Inclusion, Involvement and Experience teams and investigation leads.
• Ensure service user and carer feedback is actively sought, acted upon, and embedded into service improvement.
• Use Division Quality and Risk forums to address care quality, cleanliness, and IPC issues.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.