Head of Patient Safety, Systems and Learning

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Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, (LGT), is a community-focused provider of local and acute care, delivering high-quality services to over one million people living across the London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich, and Bexley. We provide whole-life care and are here to support our communities to live healthier lives as well as taking care of them when they need us the most.

Employing almost 7,500 colleagues, affectionately known as Team LGT, we provide services at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, University Hospital Lewisham, and at over a dozen community settings in Lewisham. We also provide some services at Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup.

We have recently launched our new vision and values to mark the LGT10 - the tenth anniversary of our Trust forming in 2013. Our trust vision is to be exceptional. In the quality of our patient care; our support for colleagues; and in the difference we make through our partnerships and in our communities.

To achieve this we value Respect, Compassion, and Inclusion; Being accountable over staying comfortable; Listening over always knowing best; and Succeeding together over achieving alone. You can read more about our visions and values here

Our hospitals and community sites provide a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services, as well as emergency and planned care. The Trust is rated as "good" or "outstanding" in over three-quarters of the services inspected by the Care Quality Commission.

Every year our work includes performing 10,000 procedures in our theatres; bringing seven and a half thousand new lives into the world; carrying out 570,000 visits to patients in their homes or communities and providing emergency care for more than 300,000 patients arriving in our busy Urgent and Emergency Departments.

LGT is a centre for the education and training of medical students enrolled with King's College London's GKT School of Medical Education. We are a training centre for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals. We are pioneering new roles that will support the changing needs of our patients and are one of the largest employers of physician associates in the country.

We are committed to working with our partners to deliver the best outcomes for our local communities. This means playing an active role in the South East London Integrated Care System (ICS), and in formal partnerships including the South East London Acute Provider Collaborative, provider partnerships with our local mental health trusts and borough-based boards of the ICS in Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham.

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen to lead the Quality Team at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust

As the Head of Patient Safety and Learning you will provide support to the Associate Director of Quality in leading the response to patient safety, embedding of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework and oversee the patient safety team at a strategic level, ensuring learning and improvements are shared across the organisation.

The successful candidate will lead on a broad range of patient safety and clinical governance activities, in liaison with other key professionals within the Trust. You will provide expert support to the organisation and system playing a key role in the development of a patient safety culture, safety systems and improvement activity ensuring that systems thinking, human factors understanding and "just culture" principles are embedded in all patient safety processes across the Trust.

This post will play a key role in supporting the Patient Safety Partners within the Trust to ensure that the patients voice is heard with regards to patient safety activities and championing of patient co-design.

We are looking for an authentic, senior leader to drive patient safety with enthusiasm. A proven background in patient safety and an improvement mindset is essential.

Main duties of the job

Key Focus

1. The Head of Patient Safety and Learning will provide compassionate and collaborative leadership and provides the Trust with expert knowledge and advice on all patient safety matters within the organisation including the development of a patient safety culture and safety systems based on relevant legislation, national and local agreements, and policies and procedures.

2. Provide patient safety expertise and leadership within the organisation; demonstrating compassionate leadership, visibility and supporting the continued development of the patient safety culture. Work with clinicians and Trust Managers in developing patient safety and learning strategies and interventions including local, national and international initiatives to address challenging areas for the organisation.

3. The Head of Patient Safety and Learning will oversee complex patient safety investigations where expert opinion is needed, and will lead on safety improvement/ initiatives, ensuring that systems thinking, human factors understanding and just culture principles are embedded in patient safety processes.

4. Day to day operational management of the patient safety team and the Ulysses systems team, directly managing the team, setting and monitoring objectives, carrying out appraisals and having an overview of all work being carried out, ensuring the organisational objectives are met.

Working for our organisation

Our people are our greatest asset. When we feel supported and happy at work, this positivity reaches those very people we are here for, the patients. Engaged employees perform at their best and our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiatives contribute to cultivate a culture of engagement. We have four staff networks, a corporate EDI Team and a suite of programmes and events which aim to insert the 5 aspirations:

1. Improving representation at senior levels of staff with disabilities, from black, Asian, and ethnic minorities background, identify as LGBTQ+ and women, through improved recruitment and leadership development
2. Widening access (anchor institution) and employability
3. Improving the experience of staff with disability
4. Improving the EDI literacy and confidence of trust staff through training and development
5. Making equalities mainstream

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For further information on the job description and responsibilities, please review the attached Job Description.

Person specification

Qualifications, Accreditations, Education

Essential criteria

• Educated to Masters level (in a relevant discipline) or equivalent level, or equivalent experience of working at a senior level
• Post-graduate management, leadership or specialist qualification or previous experience
• Training in safety investigations in line with the PSIRF
• Quality improvement qualification or previous experience

Desirable criteria

• Registered Health Professional
• Post-graduate patient safety qualification or previous experience

Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience of working in a patient safety-related role with an understanding of the principles that underpin approaches to improving patient safety in health systems
• A minimum of 5 years' experience in clinical practice with a minimum of 2 years working at a senior level.
• Experience and knowledge of the components of clinical governance, incident response, risk management and assurance function; current NHS national policies, standards, requirements and directions that relate to measuring and improving the quality and safety of patient care
• Experience of implementing national guidelines and policies with the ability to interpret national advice, guidance and requirements and advise their organisation on how these should be implemented
• Experience in project/change management in a healthcare environment and driving improvement for the safety of patients which can include techniques and tools such as Agile, Prince 2 or Managing Successful Projects
• Experience of working collaboratively with patients/service/ stakeholders to improve quality of service by co-design
• Experience of developing & delivering training programmes

Desirable criteria

• Experience of managing and prioritising a budget with solid working knowledge of financial processes and budget setting
• Experience of working in a strategic leadership role supporting Board Executives (includes voluntary experience)

Knowledge and Skills

Essential criteria

• Knowledge of the NHS patient safety strategy and how it can be implemented
• Knowledge and experience of developments in quality improvement science
• Knowledge of systems thinking, human factors understanding and just culture principles
• Knowledge and understanding of the Equalities Act 2010, including the importance of collecting and analysing data on key protected characteristics.
• Knowledge and understanding of the factors that contribute to healthcare inequalities and access to services
• Ability to interpret complex information (including patient safety incident data, administrative data, mortality data) that may conflict and where expert opinions may differ
• Ability to contribute to the patient safety debate
• Well-developed influencing and negotiating skills at an organisational level and externally with a range of stakeholders
• Sound political judgement and astuteness in understanding and working with complex policy, and the ability to interpret and relay this to a range of audiences
• Ability to develop and communicate a vision, and convert that into plans, objectives and deliverables working to tight and often changing deadlines.
• Ability to develop and maintain collaborative relationships and deal confidently with staff at all levels of an organisation
• High level analytical skills and the ability to draw qualitative and quantitative data from a wide range of sources draw appropriate conclusions and present in a clear concise manner
• Ability to horizon scan and research for the latest changes to the regulatory and governance environment

Personal Abilities

Essential criteria

• Adhere to the Trust values and behaviours
• Ability to use established networks and create new ones to share good practice and facilitate engagement with regional colleagues and the national patient safety team
• High level of self-motivation and organisational skills
• Able to negotiate and influence at an organisational level and externally with a range of stakeholders
• High quality presentation skills and ability to provide and effectively communicate highly complex, sensitive and contentious information to staff, patients and relatives/carers, particularly where a potentially antagonistic or highly emotive atmosphere may present significant barriers to acceptance
• High level critical thinking skills and attention to detail
• Show credibility and enthusiasm for patient safety
• Show enthusiasm and interest in ensuring others are trained and developed in patient safety, as appropriate.
• Self-awareness with effective coping strategies
• Ability to work to deadlines and produce a high caliber of work under pressure
• Ability to remain calm, controlled and polite in a busy and pressurised environment

We reserve the right to close the post before the stated closing date, please apply early. We do not contact applicants with the outcome of the shortlisting. If you have been shortlisted, you will receive an invite to an assessment day or interview.

As a local employer and anchor institution we work closely with our community to recruit locally and we welcome applications from the widest variety of people to ensure our workforce are reflective of the local communities which we serve. We encourage all suitable candidates to apply including if you are Black, Asian or other ethnic minorities, live with a disability (visible or not) or are LGBT+. We have a number of active staff networks including Disability, LGBT+, Multicultural Inclusion and Women's staff networks to bring staff together and celebrate diversity across our whole workforce.

Please note, not all roles will meet the criteria for a skilled worker visa.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Documents to download

• Head of Patient Safety, Systems and Learning (PDF, 891.3KB)
• Working at LGT (PDF, 4.2MB)
• Visa and Certificate of Sponsorship Information for Applicants (PDF, 3.8MB)
• Candidate Guidance on the use of AI (PDF, 3.8MB)