Deputy Chief Nurse & Quality Officer

Job overview

Deputy Chief Nurse & Quality Officer (Mental Health and Learning Disability)

We provide health and wellbeing services for around 1.8 million people in Lancashire and South Cumbria. The Trust specialises in secure, inpatient and community mental health and learning disability and autism services. We also provide community physical health nursing and a range of therapy services including physiotherapy, podiatry and speech and language therapy. Wellbeing services provided by the Trust also include healthy lifestyle services. To deliver these services the Trust employs approximately 8,000 colleagues across more than 150 sites, working with a wide range of partners out of 25 registered Care Quality Care (CQC) locations.

This is an exciting opportunity to work in an innovative Trust and be at the forefront of mental health and community innovation. It is a great opportunity for an experienced and dynamic Senior Nurse.  The Deputy Chief Nurse Officer will act to ensure high quality and effective care for people who use our services is delivered throughout our Trust in accordance with our vision. The Deputy Chief Nurse Officer will actively promote a culture aligned to our values. In addition, the post holder will be expected to perform their duties and fulfil his/her responsibilities in accordance with the behaviours engendered through our Trust values, thus acting as a role model for all of our staff at all times.

Main duties of the job

Accountable and responsible to the Chief Nurse Officer, the post holder will work largely unsupervised and will be able to credibly influence across the organisation and health and social care system at the highest level. As a Mental Health and Community Trust, our services offer significant opportunities to enhance care through the provision of out of hospital care and integrated physical and mental health care.

The post holder will provide system leadership to promote and realise enhancements to quality and patient experience through their direct involvement in these programmes of work.  They will motivate, develop and build teams of clinicians who are able to drive forward service transformation and quality improvement across mental and physical health care, both within our organisation and across organisational boundaries.  The post holder will be skilled at coaching individuals to enable them to deliver the best clinical care.

The Deputy Chief Nurse Officer will provide visible and purposeful leadership within the organisation with a focus on to the nursing workforce and across the Nursing and Quality Directorate. The post holder will be expected to contribute to, and lead the formulation and implementation of, a wide range of national and local standards. Knowledge of, and attention to, national and local standards and best practice requirements will be vital.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder will act to provide recommendations to the Executive team in relation to this and plan and deliver interventions to assure compliance. In addition, the post holder will be required to work with other support services and in partnership with managers and clinicians from our clinical networks to create the opportunity for continuous quality improvement. The role requires an ability to lead change and be skilled at developing others and consolidate their experience before moving to a board level post.

We are looking for collaborative, driven and adaptable leaders with a strong ability to influence the strategic direction for our services. We are seeking a motivated and influential leader who is partnership led and who has significant experience engaging with stakeholders of all levels.  In return, you could be part of an upward journey, in which there is both permission and support to be innovative, in order to ensure the Trust develops excellent Locality services.

We encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and welcome applications from underrepresented groups. In recruiting to our Trust, we are committed to equality of opportunity for all. We believe that the best organisations are those that reflect the communities they serve. We especially welcome applications from candidates from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic heritage, LGBTQ+ communities, and from people with lived experience of disability.

The Deputy Chief Nurse Officer will contribute to the development of policy and strategy and represent the Directorate at appropriate internal and external forums and committees, deputising for the Chief Nurse Officer. Work closely with other senior colleagues, the Deputy Chief Nurse will lead on specific Trust wide initiatives and support the implementation of key projects and programmes of work and will ensure high levels of staff engagement which is outcome-focused, underpinned by robust systems of performance and financial management and holds quality and safety at the heart.