Patient Safety Specialist

Job overview

SCAS is looking to appoint a Band 8a Patient Safety Specialist to provide dynamic, senior leadership, visibility and expert support to the patient safety work in the organisation. You will support the development of a patient safety culture and safety systems and work in networks to share good practice and learn from each other.

You will lead, and may directly support, patient safety improvement activity and ensure that systems thinking, human factors understanding and just culture principles are embedded in all patient safety processes. You will promote patient safety thinking beyond why things go wrong in healthcare (Safety I), to examining why things routinely go right and how that can be maximised (Safety II). This includes ensuring that the Trust has effective processes in place that cross directorate or divisional structures and that these link effectively to national safety systems. This role includes supporting the Trust to ensure that the patient is at the centre of all patient safety activity.

Main duties of the job

• Improving quality and outcomes using insight and evidence for improvement
• Enabling clinical leadership
• Enabling patient and public involvement
• Promoting equality and reducing inequalities
• Partnership and cross boundary working
• Leadership for transformational change
• Developing an excellent organisation

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Improving quality and outcomes using insight and evidence for improvement

Responsibility for / oversight of the implementation of the NHS patient safety strategy within the organisation

• Oversee and support patient safety improvement, ensuring that systems thinking, human factors understanding and just culture principles are embedded in patient safety processes.
• Communicate patient safety issues, including the definition, framing, escalation and presentation of identified issues, risks and proposed improvement approaches at executive/board level.

Enabling clinical leadership

• Support the embedding of patient safety requirements in clinical recruitment, induction training and development systems.
• Lead on collaborative working across the Divisions to improve services by the adoption/embedding of identified required changes or ongoing improvement using effective change management theories, overcoming blockers and resistance to change. To work with but not taking ownership/accountability from individual specialist/management leads.

Enabling patient and public involvement

• Work in partnership with the organisation’s patient engagement team to recruit, manage, develop and support the patient safety partners in accordance with the patient safety partner framework.
• Ensure all public and patient contact is transparent and of the highest professional standard.

Promoting equality and reducing inequalities

• Create an inclusive working environment where diversity is valued, everyone can contribute, and everyday actions ensure we meet our duty to uphold and promote equality.
• Ensure that the patient safety partner information is accessible in a variety of formats and languages.

Partnership and cross boundary working

• Collaborate with the Health Innovation Network / Patient Safety Collaboratives (PSC) to create networking opportunities to support the improvement programmes identified in the patient safety strategy.
• Maintain regular contact with key external organisations and report internally on any relevant information received.
• Work as the conduit between key stakeholders (internal and external) seeking assurances, identify actions/ solutions and drive delivery of the components of the National Patient Safety Strategy

Leadership for transformational change

• Act as the key contact for the organisation’s response on patient safety and risk issues with commissioners/providers and other partners via PCNs, ICS etc.
• Lead on driving improvement for the safety of patients through facilitating an environment of openness and questioning, to encourage on-going development.

Developing an excellent organisation

• Provide a supportive and visible, presence that staff and others can turn to for assistance, advice and support.

Please read the job description and person specification to find out more details about this role.

You will lead /support the local implementation of the NHS patient safety strategy which supports the three strategic aims of improving understanding of safety (insight), equipping patients, staff and partners with the skills and opportunities to improve patient safety (involvement) and designing and supporting programmes that deliver effective and sustainable change (improvement). You will support the Trust’s ‘patient safety partners’ (patient and public representatives specifically involved in patient safety) as identified in the NHS Patient Safety Strategy.

You will work as part of a wider team to ensure that patient safety is appropriately prioritised and considered in the work of the Trust. You will work collaboratively with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders to develop links and relationships with patient safety and other relevant leads in networks to share good practice and act collaboratively to improve patient safety.

You will ensure the Trust is up to date with current patient safety policy, NHS contract patient safety requirements, and regulatory patient safety requirements and engages with the regional/national team to understand national guidance and to advise the Board on the best implementation approach of the NHS Patient Safety Strategy.

This post would suit a registered healthcare individual ideally based anywhere in the SCAS geography but with the ability to travel and work flexibly.

If you are a confident practitioner looking for a new challenge and who wants to work as part of an ambitious, forward-thinking team, we would like to hear from you.