Head of Legal Services

Job overview

Head of Legal Services

Band 8b | Full Time | Permanent Base: Trust Headquarters, Crawley (with travel across SECAmb sites)

Are you an experienced legal professional with a passion for healthcare law and a commitment to improving patient safety and organisational governance? South East Coast Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust (SECAmb) is seeking a dynamic and highly skilled Head of Legal Services to lead our Legal Services team.

About the Role

As Head of Legal Services, you will provide expert legal advice across a broad range of healthcare-related matters, including clinical negligence, coroners’ inquests, personal injury claims, and complex ethical issues. You will act as a trusted advisor to the Trust’s Executive Team, senior clinicians, and operational leaders, ensuring legal compliance and supporting continuous improvement in patient safety and governance.

Main duties of the job

You will lead the legal management of inquests, including advocacy and witness support, and oversee the conduct of claims and litigation. You will also play a key role in identifying organisational learning from legal processes and contribute to policy development and internal training.

Key Responsibilities

• Independently manage and advocate in coroners’ inquests.
• Provide expert legal advice on healthcare law, patient consent, capacity, confidentiality, and more.
• Lead the management of clinical negligence and personal injury claims.
• Support staff across the Trust with legal guidance and training.
• Collaborate with governance, safety, and clinical teams to embed learning and improve practice.
• Line manage legal services staff and oversee the department’s budget.

What We’re Looking For

• Qualified solicitor  barrister
• Extensive experience in healthcare law, litigation, and inquest advocacy.
• Strong leadership, communication, and analytical skills.
• Ability to manage complex caseloads and provide clear, strategic legal advice.
• Experience working within the NHS or public sector is desirable.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder is responsible for the daily management of the Legal Services allocated budget and line management of legal services staff.

Coroners Inquests

Accountable for the effective legal conduct of all inquests involving the Trust, incuding adherence to professional standards of all Legal staff and compliance with evidentiary and Coronial rules by,

• Acting as a confident advocate, including the ability to examine and cross-examine witnesses, present evidence and make submissions to Coroners on relevant law.  To understand the medical complexities of each case in conjunction with senior clinicians and recognise potentially problematic areas, both clinically and legally, which may require further investigation and reporting for the purposes of the inquest.  To provide advice on the preparation and content of witness statements.  To liaise with the Coroner and his/her Officers to meet the requirements of the Court.  In exceptional cases to instruct Counsel where necessary.
• Ensuring close liaison with the patient safety team and divisional quality and clinical leads, highlighting areas of risk identified in inquests investigations to ensure that lessons learned in the claims and inquest process are implemented within the Trust.

Legal Advice

To ensure the provision of the highest level of prompt and accurate expert legal advice by:

• Providing advice on matters including, but not limited to, patient consent, withholding/withdrawing of life sustaining treatment and end of life decisions, capacity, confidentiality, access to patient information, medical ethics, mental health law, trust law, contract law, criminal law, dealings with the police, child protection, occupier’s liability, interpretation of relevant legislation, legal principles and case law.

Participating in and providing legal advice to Trust Working Groups and Committees in the development and implementation of policy, ensuring the Trust’s compliance with the relevant legal frameworks.