Head of Patient Safety & Risk Management

Job overview

The post holder will ensure the effective delivery of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF), whilst maintaining robust governance, assurance and oversight arrangements for all patient safety incidents reported across the Trust.

Working closely with clinical and corporate leaders, the post holder will lead systems that support incident reporting, learning responses, risk identification, assurance and organisational learning. They will use data and intelligence to identify emerging risks, monitor performance and ensure that learning is translated into measurable improvements in patient care and safety.

The role requires an experienced leader with expertise in patient safety, governance and risk management, supported by strong analytical and digital skills, capable of using data systems and business intelligence tools to provide assurance and drive improvement.

Closing Date: Please be advised that this job advert will close as soon as sufficient applications have been received. Please apply for this job as soon as you can, if interested.

Main duties of the job

• Lead the operational delivery of learning responses under the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF), ensuring timely, high-quality outputs that drive improvement and learning across the Trust.
• Work in close collaboration with the Associate Director of Quality for Patient Safety and Risk to ensure the Trust maintains a robust and responsive Patient Safety Incident Response Plan (PSIRP) that aligns with national PSIRF requirements.
• Oversee the end-to-end governance of learning responses and investigations undertaken under PSIRF, ensuring proportionate responses are delivered, learning is identified and improvement actions are monitored to completion.
• Ensure that all learning response outputs, including checklists and reports, are of consistently high quality, evidence-based, and aligned with the Trust’s PSIRP and broader patient safety strategy.
• Maintain oversight of the staffing and resourcing of the patient safety response function, ensuring capacity is sufficient to meet demand and that staff are supported and trained to deliver their roles effectively.
• Ensure that learning responses are integrated into the Trust’s wider governance and quality improvement systems, with clear mechanisms for tracking actions, monitoring impact, and sharing learning across the organisation.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Lead the operational delivery of learning responses under the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF), ensuring timely, high-quality outputs that drive improvement and learning across the Trust.
• Work in close collaboration with the Associate Director of Quality for Patient Safety and Risk to ensure the Trust maintains a robust and responsive Patient Safety Incident Response Plan (PSIRP) that aligns with national PSIRF requirements.
• Lead the Trust-wide governance and oversight of patient safety incidents from initial reporting through to closure, ensuring incidents are appropriately triaged, reviewed, investigated, escalated and reported in accordance with Trust policy, PSIRF requirements and national guidance.
• Oversee the end-to-end governance of learning responses and investigations undertaken under PSIRF, ensuring proportionate responses are delivered, learning is identified and improvement actions are monitored to completion.
• Ensure that all learning response outputs, including checklists and reports, are of consistently high quality, evidence-based, and aligned with the Trust’s PSIRP and broader patient safety strategy.
• Maintain oversight of the staffing and resourcing of the patient safety response function, ensuring capacity is sufficient to meet demand and that staff are supported and trained to deliver their roles effectively.
• Ensure that learning responses are integrated into the Trust’s wider governance and quality improvement systems, with clear mechanisms for tracking actions, monitoring impact, and sharing learning across the organisation.

Responsibility for Staff

• Assumes management responsibility for:
• Patient Safety Managers
• Mortality and Clinical Harm Lead
• Quality Information Lead
• Risk Manager
• Other Patient Safety staff in the absence of the Associate Director of Quality for Patient Safety and Risk

Additional Responsibilities

• Act as deputy to the Associate Director of Quality for Patient Safety and Risk, providing visible leadership, strategic support and operational continuity in their absence.
• Lead and manage the day-to-day delivery of the Trust's patient safety and risk management functions, ensuring effective oversight of incident reporting, triage, investigation, learning responses, risk management and action tracking.
• Support the Associate Director in the recruitment, induction, appraisal, training and professional development of staff within the Patient Safety and Risk team, fostering a culture of continuous improvement, learning and high performance.
• Provide expert leadership and direction to the Patient Safety and Risk team, ensuring workloads, priorities and resources are effectively managed to meet organisational and statutory requirements.
• Quality assure the outputs and deliverables produced by the team, ensuring investigations, reports, learning responses, risk assessments and committee papers are accurate, evidence-based, timely and of a consistently high standard.
• Oversee systems for monitoring incident trends, investigation quality, action completion, thematic learning, emerging risks and organisational compliance, ensuring timely escalation where concerns are identified.
• Support the ongoing optimisation of patient safety information systems and reporting processes, ensuring information is translated into meaningful intelligence that supports organisational assurance and continuous improvement.
• Lead the design, delivery and evaluation of education, training and development programmes relating to patient safety, PSIRF, incident management and risk management, developing resources and presentations tailored to the needs of clinical and non-clinical staff.
• Prepare and present high-quality reports, assurance papers, dashboards and briefings for Trust committees, executive leadership meetings and Board-level forums, providing clear assurance regarding patient safety performance, risk, investigations, organisational learning and compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements.
• Provide expert advice and guidance to senior leaders, managers and clinicians on patient safety incidents, investigations, governance requirements, organisational learning and risk management.
• Work collaboratively with operational, clinical and corporate teams to ensure learning arising from incidents, complaints, claims, inquests and risk reviews is embedded into practice and translated into measurable improvements in patient care.
• Represent the Trust at external meetings, networks and forums, acting as an ambassador for UHCW's approach to patient safety, organisational learning and risk management, while maintaining awareness of national developments and best practice.
• Ensure high standards of data quality, validation and governance across all patient safety and risk datasets.
• Use advanced analysis of incident, harm, mortality and risk data to identify trends, emerging risks and opportunities for improvement.
• Promote the effective use of digital tools, including incident management systems, Excel-based analysis, business intelligence platforms and reporting solutions, to strengthen organisational oversight and assurance.

For further details of the role please see the attached job description.