Community Clinical Matron

Job overview

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced and inspirational senior nurse to join Adult Community Mental Health Services (ACMHS) as a Band 8a Community Clinical Matron.

Working as part of the Divisional senior nursing team and reporting to the Head of Nursing, you will provide visible, credible and compassionate professional leadership across community services. You will work alongside Clinical Nurse Specialists, senior clinical and operational colleagues to promote excellence in nursing practice, strengthen quality and safety, and ensure that service users and carers experience consistently safe, effective and person-centred care.

You will join an innovative and ambitious service with nationally recognised nursing practice. In 2025, our nurse-led clinic improvement work won the HSJ Patient Safety Award for Early-Stage Patient Safety Innovation of the Year and was runner-up for the HSJ Nurse-Led Patient Safety Award. In 2026, our work was shortlisted for the Nursing Times Awards – Nursing in Mental Health, recognising our continued improvement in patient safety within nurse-led community mental health clinics.

In 2026, our Division was rated Good by the CQC across all domains. This is an opportunity to build on these achievements and help shape the future of community mental health nursing.

HPFT is CQC rated Good, and this is an opportunity to help us build on our achievements and ambitions for outstanding community mental health care.

Main duties of the job

The Community Clinical Matron will provide visible, accessible and authoritative professional nursing leadership across their designated services, supporting Clinical Nurse Specialists, team leaders and multidisciplinary teams to deliver high-quality care.

You will:

• Provide professional and clinical leadership, supervision, support and challenge to nursing teams.
• Maintain oversight and assurance of nursing standards, nurse-led services, medicines-related practice, physical healthcare, safer staffing and the clinical environment.
• Lead and support quality improvement, clinical audit, service development and implementation of evidence-based practice.
• Lead and contribute to reviews and investigations relating to nursing practice, incidents and complex care, ensuring learning is identified, shared and embedded.
• Promote service-user and carer involvement, dignity, inclusion and shared decision-making.
• Support workforce development, professional standards and a just and inclusive learning culture.
• Provide senior nursing advice and deputise for the Head of Nursing when required.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The Community Clinical Matron will provide visible, accessible and authoritative professional nursing leadership across Adult Community Mental Health Services, ensuring high standards of safe, effective and person-centred care.

Key responsibilities include:

• Provide professional leadership, supervision, support and challenge to nursing teams, promoting accountability and high standards of practice.
• Provide robust oversight and assurance of nursing practice, including nurse-led clinics, medicines management, physical healthcare, clinical environments and safer staffing.
• Lead and support quality improvement, clinical audit, service development and implementation of evidence-based practice, reducing unwarranted variation across services.
• Lead and contribute to reviews and investigations relating to clinical practice, incidents and complex care, ensuring learning and improvement actions are embedded.
• Support workforce development, recruitment, retention, professional development and succession planning.
• Promote service-user and carer involvement, co-production, equality and inclusion.
• Work collaboratively with senior clinical and operational colleagues and provide expert nursing advice.
• Deputise for the Head of Nursing as required.

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.