Associate Director Urgent Care

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South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond.

We are committed to provide a high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for our care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as 'good'.

We launched our five-year strategy, Aiming High; Changing Lives in 2021 together with Our Care Improvement System as our quality management system methodology to make a positive impact on patient care, outcomes and staff experience. By joining SLaM, all staff will get the opportunity to be part of this exciting improvement journey supported with learning and development to harness everyone's potential as change makers.

The trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role. We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust.

Our Values

We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I'm going to do is at the heart of everything we do. When you join us, you'll be part of something special.

As a Trust we are happy to talk flexible working.

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for the role of Associate Director Urgent Care

You will be a motivated leader, who will provide operational leadership. Working collaboratively with the Directorates, you will play a key role in the shaping and the delivery of the programmes related to patient flow in the Trust.

We are looking for an exceptional candidate with significant multi-service level general management experience with the ability to manage a fast paced operational role whilst leading Trust wide projects, service delivery and performance responsibilities.

We encourage you to apply if you have highly developed communication skills, are an imaginative and strategic thinker, and are creative and determined in your approach. You will be a credible, visible leader and an experienced manager who will be able to demonstrate effective people leadership skills together with a track record of operational management, budgetary management and implementing service development and improvements. You will contribute to the development and implementation of Trust service strategy, focusing on delivering targets and service improvements that will enhance patient care, improve the patient pathway, enhance the quality of service delivery and deliver performance targets whilst identifying potential efficiencies.

Main duties of the job

The role is to provide central support to the Directorates to drive improvement in patient flow across the organisation and monitor delivery and hold operational accountability of clinical demand and capacity management.

This will include sharing national and internal best practice with teams, co-producing plans with Directorate teams, and providing opportunities for peer review. The post holder would be expected to work with teams across the Trust, focusing on our four working age directorates.

The individual will be expected to report to external and internal stakeholders on progress and help to highlight challenges and determine what resourcing is required both locally and centrally to deliver improved flow sustainably in the long term. They will provide regular interface with PMO and Performance team to support with oversight of programmes and reporting.

The post Holder will provide direct line management to the Acute Referral Centre (ARC) and an Integrated Hospital Discharge Team. They will be the operational lead in the implementation of improvement initiatives for the ARC.

The post holder will be responsible for initiating and responding to escalations related to patient flow in the Trust.

Working for our organisation

(SLaM) provide the widest range of NHS mental health services in the UK as well as substance misuse services for people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. We work closely with the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King's College London and are part of King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre. There are very few organisations in the world that have such wide-ranging capabilities working with mental illness. Our scope is unique because it is built on three major foundations: care and treatment, science and research, and training.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key Responsibilities:

Operational leadership:
• To have operational oversight of Trust programmes related to patient flow.
• To work directly with Borough directorates to ensure execution of programme plans, and to report progress to internal and external stakeholders and highlight delays and plans to mitigate these
• To lead on programme of work to increase Trust Bed Capacity and its effective management
• Initiate and respond to escalations related to patient flow in the Trust.
• Direct line management of the Acute Referral Centre (ARC) and an integrated hospital discharge team
• Provide operational leadership to the CRFD workstream liaising with social care, therapies, nursing and medical colleagues as appropriate
• Chair Trust CRFD meetings
• To jointly lead on the feasibility assessment for additional beds, reviewing the demand and capacity within the trust to help design the right size for the Trust's future bed base.
• To have oversight of the data relating to flow and work with directorates and Quality Centre to help to develop further change ideas to improve flow at directorate level.
• To work with borough directorates, PMO and QI team to remove barriers to execution of flow plan
• To engage with clinical and operational staff across crisis, inpatient and community services to support changes.
• To work with QI Team, PMO and Borough Directorates to identify further changes that need testing/implementation to improve flow.
• With the Deputy Medical Director and Head of Nursing, lead the development of high-quality data, which improve oversight and responsiveness.
• Lead on audit and benchmarking processes that pertain to flow.
• To work with the Deputy Medical Director and Head of Nursing to ensure attendance at key meetings, and to ensure papers are submitted to the relevant governance meetings and committees on time (see below).

The operational lead will support the Deputy Medical Director and Head of Nursing with the following activities as appropriate:
• To engage senior clinical staff (Consultants, Matrons, Ward Managers), in improvement of flow
• To work with local borough clinical leads to arbitrate in clinical decision making that may cause delays and escalate where necessary.
• To monitor and manage with clinical leads variation in clinical decision making that may lead to variation in length of stay.
• To have the authority to challenge variation in clinical practice that impacts on patient flow and quality of care.

Record-keeping and Information Governance
• Provide demonstrable assurance that patient safety is at the centre of service planning, analysis, and performance delivery.
• Provide demonstrable assurance that the Directorate employs robust risk management and systems for governance, clinical quality and safety improvement.
• Promote clinical information for benchmarking and audit to improve patient experience and delivery of excellent performance.
• Provide demonstrable assurance that systems are in place to deliver accurate and timely statutory information (e.g. Data Protection and Freedom of Information).
• Provide demonstrable assurance of strategy and practice implemented to achieve all regulatory duties and other compliance standards.
• To ensure that all information generated is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.
• To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry.

Expectations
• To deputise where appropriate for the Service Director at both internal and external meetings.
• To cover where appropriate for other members of the Operations Directorate SMT.
• There is an expectation that some contracted hours will be worked outside of normal office hours, where the demands of the service make this necessary and there may be a requirement to participate in the Directorate and Trust on-call rota.
• The post holder may be required to undertake additional duties appropriate to the pay band. The post may change over time to reflect the developing needs of the Trust and its services, as well as the personal development of the post holder.

Person specification

Education

Essential criteria

• Masters level education in a relevant subject or equivalent post-graduate experience
• Evidence of continuing professional development.

Desirable criteria

• Recognised Professional Qualification in Social Work (DipSW/CQSW), Mental Health Nursing (RMN), Psychology or any allied health/medical profession. (A)

Experience

Essential criteria

• Senior Management Experience in running a large number multidisciplinary teams with significant clinical and business delivery targets
• Experience of leading business planning processes and delivering targets within an agreed budget
• Ability to monitor and evaluate standards for quality within the service
• Experience of managing budgets and resources effectively.
• Experience of involving service users and carers in the development of services.
• Experience of project management.

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Specialist clinical knowledge relevant to the service, including evidence based practice.
• Understanding of the legislative and quality frameworks that govern provision of mental health and social care.
• Understanding of working in a multi-cultural, inner city environment with diverse communities and complex needs.
• Leadership skills especially the ability to lead and manage change through influence without direct management.
• High level competency in using Information Technology (word, excel, access, PowerPoint etc), especially spreadsheets and databases, to analyse and interpret complex data.

Skills

Essential criteria

• Current good practice in acute and crisis services.
• Knowledge of recent legislation affecting the NHS and local authority.

Desirable criteria

• Knowledge of current research and an understanding of the research methodologies and process.

The Trust is committed to providing services which embrace diversity and that promote equality of opportunity. We are a Disability Confident Employer, we welcome applicants from all sections of the community and people of all protected characteristics. We provide reasonable adjustments for candidates with a disability and are committed to treating people fairly with compassion, respect and dignity and in promoting equality and human rights. We aim to put this commitment into practice by:

• Embedding our commitment to tackling inequality, eliminating discrimination and harassment; promoting equality of opportunity and fostering good relations in our everyday practice
• Ensuring that all our services and all staff understand and support our commitment
• We believe that people who use our services, their carers and our staff, should be treated with compassion, respect and dignity

Please note:

• That all applications for this post will need to be made online
• That you read and understand the Job Description and Personal Specification attached to the role. Your Statement in Support should reflect the requirements specified as your application will be judged against these criteria
• That the closing date listed is a guide only and that the vacancy may close earlier should sufficient number of applicants have been received. We advise that you submit your application as early as possible
• That once you have submitted your application you agree to your application being transferred to a 3rd party e-recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs
• That should you not have heard from us within three weeks from the closing date your application has not successful
• That priority consideration for applications may be given to at-risk NHS employees
• That should you be successful and appointed, you authorise South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to confirm your previous NHS service via an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process
• That we are a smoke-free Trust

SLaM is a Stonewall Diversity Champion , Stonewall is the largest Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans (LGBT) rights charity in Europe'

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post will require a submission for Disclosure to be made to check for any unspent criminal convictions.

Documents to download

• Associate Director (PDF, 504.6KB)
• SLaM Staff Benefits (PDF, 1.1MB)
• Happy to Talk Flexible Working (PDF, 680.1KB)