Lead for Quality & Safety

Job overview

Play a pivotal role in shaping a culture of safety, learning and continuous improvement across the UHB, influencing how patient safety is delivered from Board to bedside.

You will lead the delivery and oversight of patient safety, quality assurance and clinical governance arrangements across the UHB, ensuring robust systems, processes and staff management support safe, effective and person-centred care.

You will be accountable for ensuring compliance with the Listening to People Guidance (NHS Wales, 2026) and associated Regulations, embedding a culture of openness, learning and improvement. This includes oversight of patient safety incident investigations, ensuring timely and proportionate responses, effective organisational learning and implementation of corrective actions.

As the UHB's lead for patient safety, you will provide expert advice on clinical governance, concerns management and the Incident Management Framework, including Serious Incidents and Never Events. Working closely with Care Groups, Executive colleagues and senior clinicians, you will ensure learning is embedded across services, lead the development of policies and strategies, ensure compliance with statutory requirements and national safety alerts, and deliver high-quality reports to the Board, Committees and external scrutiny bodies.

Main duties of the job

The post holder is accountable for ensuring patient safety incidents are thoroughly investigated, with outcomes acted upon appropriately, embedding organisational learning and corrective action in line with Listening to People (LTP) guidance.

The post holder will lead on providing expert clinical governance and patient safety advice to both clinical and non-clinical staff.

Working closely with Care Group leads, they will ensure learning is identified and shared, and will produce Learning from Event Reports where required.

The post holder will maintain a visible and authoritative presence, supporting service users and leading on the interpretation and implementation of national policy.Responsibilities include supporting the development, implementation and monitoring of incident management standards, ensuring compliance with Welsh Government safety alerts, and maintaining robust systems to meet statutory, regulatory and legal requirements across the patient safety agenda.

The post holder will also produce regular and ad hoc reports for Board, committees and scrutiny panels.

Key relationships span patients and families, the Assistant Director, Executive and Board members, corporate and clinical teams, Care Groups, external partners (including Coroner’s services, other NHS bodies and Welsh Government).

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

You will be able to find a full Job description and Person Specification attached within the supporting documents or please click Apply now to view in Trac.

This post is advertised as Welsh Desirable. Whilst the candidate doesn't need to have skills in Welsh, we'll consider it an advantage when short-listing and selecting candidates. This isn’t ‘fluency’, just Speaking & Listening skills at Level 3 (equivalent to CEFR B2) or above. Have a look at our ‘Croeso Candidate’ booklet below for more information. If you have these Welsh language skills, please apply.

This post reports directly to the Assistant Director of Quality and Safety and provides leadership support across the Patient Safety Team, contributing to the delivery of organisational quality and safety priorities within CTM UHB.

The role applies specialist expertise to manage departmental staff and support the provision of safe, high-quality care. The post holder is accountable for ensuring robust systems and processes are in place to meet all statutory and regulatory requirements, including compliance with Listening to People guidance and NHS Wales arrangements for complaints, incidents, and redress. This includes oversight of patient safety incident investigations, ensuring findings are thoroughly reviewed, lessons are embedded, and corrective actions are implemented and sustained across the organisation.

The role provides expert advice on clinical governance and patient safety, leading the implementation of the Incident Management Framework and supporting the effective management of incidents, Serious Incidents, and Never Events. The post holder works collaboratively with Care Groups to promote a strong learning culture and may lead or contribute to the production of Learning from Event reports where required. Working in partnership with the Executive Team and senior leaders, the post holder contributes to the development and implementation of policies, strategies, and best practice in patient safety and concerns management.

The role also requires maintaining a visible and authoritative presence across the organisation, alongside the preparation of regular, high-quality reports for Board, committees, and scrutiny panels to support assurance and governance. Work with Care Groups to ensure compliance with all patient Safety solutions issued by Welsh Government and as well as historical patient safety alerts and notices.Ensuring systems are in place to ensure that all relevant statutory, mandatory and legal obligations relating to the patient safety agenda are met. Produce regular board, committee and scrutiny panel reports as well as ad hoc reports where required.

KEY RELATIONSHIPS

• Patients and their families (occasionally).
• Assistant Director Quality & Safety.
• Executive and Independent Board Members.
• Corporate Departments, including Information Management and Technology, Finance, Performance, Organisational Development, Clinical Governance and Quality & Safety.
• Care Group Triumvirates and their teams.
• Clinical Support Staff across the UHB.
• Coroner and Coroner’s officers.
• Other UHBs and NHS Trusts.
• Welsh Government.
• NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee (NHS Wales JCC).
• NHS Wales Performance and Improvement.

* The term ‘Concerns’ is used throughout to mean complaints, claims and litigation, and reported patient safety incidents, consistent with the Listening to People guidance.*

Applicant requirements

Welsh language skills are desirable