Governance and Assurance Lead

Job overview

The post holder will be responsible for supporting effective governance and risk systems across maternity, neonatal and gynaecology services. They will work with leaders within the women’s and neonatal services to ensure effective communication systems are in place and to ensure excellent standards of care and compliance with national and local standards.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will support the patient safety and the quality improvement agenda, support completion of the Duty of Candour requirements and provide feedback to families following review of clinical incidents. Take a leading role in auditing practice, analysis of results and preparing reports for presentation. They will support quality improvement initiatives including identifying areas for improvement / themes arising from clinical incidents and support the process for developing and updating clinical guidelines. The post holder will provide support with risk management to other areas as service need requires and may be required to provide clinical care to women and their families if required. The post holder will have a key leadership role within the Governance Team and will provide specialist skills and knowledge to support the division’s quality and safety agenda.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Support the quality and safety leads within the perinatal, neonatal and women’s services management team and to ensure all governance arrangements and reporting structures are in place and effective.
• Utilise leadership, communication, influencing and negotiating skills in the provision of advice, support and guidance to the multidisciplinary team to ensure that learning from incidents makes a positive difference to patient safety.
• Ensure the compliance of all relevant Trust wide policies and guidelines within maternity, neonates and gynaecology and that all safety alerts are disseminated in a timely manner and any actions are reported.
• Participate in clinical audit and make recommendations for practice.
• Regularly attend clinical governance meetings and provide specialist patient safety and quality improvement advice.
• Review and develop information packages for service users.
• Escalate any factors which are impeding the delivery of a high-quality service to the quality and safety team leaders and senior management team as appropriate.
• Support benchmarking of service delivery against the national pathways, identify gaps and develop strategies for quality improvement.
• Use a variety of data such as incidents and outputs from Morbidity and Mortality meetings, to identify any themes and trends that require further investigation and action.
• Contribute to written monthly, quarterly and annual reports on risk / incidents complaints issues identifying trends, making recommendations for action and progress on implementation of actions for dissemination.
• Maintain databases of adverse outcomes and service reviews as appropriate.
• Identify, instigate and lead on / participate in specific quality improvement projects related to patient safety.
• Ensure compliance with Duty of Candour in respect of patient safety incidents, providing support for clinical staff and ensuring that the duties of the Trust are met.
• Contribute to the multidisciplinary morbidity and mortality reviews and the dissemination of learning and feedback following review.
• Liaise with Professional Midwifery and Nursing Advocates (PMA,PNA) if appropriate to make sure that all staff involved in clinical incidents and investigations are supported.
• Review and develop guidelines and align to local and national standards.
• Evaluate service user feedback and disseminate trends and themes through shared learning platforms.
• Network with other quality and safety midwives/nurses across the region and nationally as appropriate to share best practice and learning.
• Maintain the highest level of confidentiality; the post holder must exercise considerable initiative in dealing with incidents which are not only complex but distressing.
• Maintain professional development to enable the development, delivery and evaluation of outstanding evidence based care.
• Work within the NMC Code.
• Undertake mandatory and priority training within the required time scales
• Participate in own and other’s appraisals
• Fulfil the requirements as directed by the Nursing and Midwifery Council to maintain and revalidate registration
• Work closely with Research and Innovation to promote research, disseminate outcomes and findings to support evidence-based practice
• Act in such a way that safeguards the health and wellbeing of children and vulnerable adults at all times. Is familiar with and adheres to, the safeguarding policies.
• Raise concerns with regards to risk, danger, malpractice or wrong doing by following the Whistleblowing policy and supporting processes.
• Undertake duties on other wards or departments as and when required by service demands or patient need.