Associate Director of Clinical Governance Patient Safety & Complaints

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust; Manchester; On-site; GBP 88,000 - 102,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a forward-thinking NHS Trust as the Associate Director of Clinical Governance, where you will lead initiatives to enhance patient safety and improve complaint handling. This role offers the opportunity to shape a compassionate patient safety culture and work collaboratively across multiple stakeholders. You will leverage your extensive experience in leadership and management to deliver robust patient safety strategies and ensure compliance with national guidelines. As part of a major healthcare provider, you will contribute to innovative practices that positively impact the lives of patients and the community.

Benefits

Generous Annual Leave

Professional Development Opportunities

Pension Scheme

Flexible Working Options

Health and Wellbeing Programs

Qualifications

• Masters degree or equivalent training and experience required.
• Significant experience in leadership and management at a senior level.
• Evidence of continued professional development is essential.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of a patient safety culture and systems.
• Ensure effective complaints and PALs service is in place.
• Collaborate with external organizations to improve patient safety.

Skills

Leadership & Management

Patient Safety Expertise

Negotiation Skills

Data-Driven Decision Making

Interpersonal Communication

Education

Masters Degree or Equivalent

Coaching Qualification

QI Methodology Training

Tools

NHS Information Systems

Agile

Prince 2

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Associate Director of Clinical Governance Patient Safety & Complaints

NHS AfC: Band 8d

Main area Clinical Governance Grade NHS AfC: Band 8d Contract Permanent Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week Job ref 349-COR-7161834-RL4

Site Oxford Road Campus Town Manchester Salary £88,168 - £101,677 per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 14/05/2025 23:59 Interview date 13/06/2025

Job overview

The role provides compassionate and collaborative senior leadership, visibility and expert support to patient safety work across MFT

This role leads the development of a patient safety culture and safety systems and has a key role, with the Director of Clinical Governance, in supporting the Executive team to understand effective approaches to improving patient safety. The role is responsible for leading patient safety understanding, involvement and improvement activity and ensures that systems thinking and just culture principles are embedded in all patient safety processes.

The post holder is the Trust Patient Safety Specialist, and will work collaboratively, including with external organisations, to develop links and relationships with patient safety and other relevant leads in networks to develop/share good practice and act collaboratively to improve patient safety.

The role is responsible for ensuring MFT has an effective, compassionate and responsive complaints and PALs service which embeds the principles of the National Patient Safety Strategy, NHS contract and PHSO guidance within its operating model.

The post holder has line management responsibility for the central Patient Safety Service and the central Complaints and PALs Service .

Main duties of the job

To use highly specialist patient safety and improvement expertise to:

Provide patient safety expertise/leadership within the organisation; including expert knowledge in the use and application of systems-based responses to patient safety incidents and complaints; demonstrating compassionate leadership, visibility and supporting a compassionate patient safety culture

Be responsible for developing and delivering patient safety policy, promoting innovation and supporting operational excellence

Be the Trust's registered Patient Safety Specialist

Provide leadership to ensure that the Trust delivers a robust, compassionate and responsive regulatory complaints function in line with legislation, national guidance and best practice.

Work collaboratively with the Trust Lead for Complaints and PALS to ensure that the Trust’s approach to responding to complaints is embedded within, and in line with, the overall approach to responding to patient safety incidents

Take a lead in reviewing and assuring responses to complex or high profile complaints prior to sign off by the Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Executive Officer, ensuring that a robust and compassionate approach is embedded throughout

Working for our organisation

MFT is one of the largest NHS Trusts in England with a turnover of £2.8bn & is on a different scale than most other NHS Trusts. We’re creating an exceptional integrated health & social care system for the 1 million patients who rely on our services every year.

Bringing together 10 hospitals & community services from across Manchester, Trafford & beyond, we champion collaborative working & transformation, encouraging our 30,000 workforce to pursue their most ambitious goals. We set standards that other Trusts seek to emulate so you’ll benefit from a scale of opportunity that is nothing short of extraordinary.

We’ve also created a digitally enabled organisation to improve clinical quality, patient & staff experience, operational effectiveness & driving research, and innovation through the introduction of Hive; our Electronic Patient Record system which launched in September 2022.

We’re proud to be a major academic Research Centre & Education provider, providing you with a robust infrastructure to encourage and facilitate high-quality research programmes. What’s more, we’re excited to be embarking on our Green Plan which sets out how MFT continues to play its part in making healthcare more sustainable.

At MFT, we create and foster a culture of inclusion and belonging, provide equal opportunities for career development that are fair, open, and transparent, protecting your health and wellbeing and shaping the future of our organisation together.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To find out more about the key responsibilities and the specific skills and experience you’ll need, take a look at the Job Description & Person Specification attachments under the ‘Supporting Documents’ heading. So that you’re even more equipped to make an informed decision to apply to us, you’ll need to take time to read the ‘Candidate Essentials Guide’ that sits with the Job Description and Person Specification. This document provides you with details about the Trust, our benefits and outlines how ‘we care for you as you care for others’. Most importantly, it also contains critical information you’ll need to be aware of before you submit an application form.

Diversity Matters

MFT is committed to promoting equality of opportunity, celebrating, and valuing diversity and eliminating any form of unlawful discrimination across our workforce, ensuring our people are truly representative of the communities we serve. All individuals regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation are encouraged to apply for this post. As an inclusive employer, we are here to support you. If you have any special requirements to help you with your application, email our team at [e-mail].

We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

Person specification

Qualifications

• Educated to Masters degree level or equivalent training and experience
• Evidence of being fully trained in the national patient safety syllabus (levels 1-4) or have evidence of plans to complete training within a reasonable timeframe
• Evidence of other additional relevant specialist training to post graduate level
• Evidence of continued professional development
• Coaching qualification
• QI methodology training / qualification

Experience

• Significant experience of leadership & management at a very senior level
• Experience of working successfully with senior clinical professionals
• Significant knowledge and experience of a range of professional disciplines relating to senior management in the NHS including financial management, performance management, the use of NHS information systems and staff management
• 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
• 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 of delivering patient safety and governance systems
• 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 across multiple stakeholders (including patients) to drive patient safety improvements
• Experience in negotiation and influencing others
• Experience of using data to drive decision making and prioritisation and for assurance purposes

Skills, abilities and knowledge

• Extensive knowledge of the Health and Social Care environment
• Knowledge and experience of developments in quality improvement science
• Knowledge of the NHS patient safety strategy and how it can be implemented
• Knowledge of the regulatory environments within health and compliance required by provider organisations
• Knowledge and understand of health inequalities and the role of patient safety, quality governance and assurance in reducing these
• Knowledge and understanding of what makes effective assurance and how to implement this
• Advanced IT skills to interact with, manage and report on complex performance management information systems

Attributes

• Ability to set strategic vision and engage others
• Ability to role model compassionate engagement with staff and patients
• Ability to budget and plan in accordance with the Trusts business objectives
• Effective leadership, negotiation, and decision-making skills
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills written and oral
• Ability to build teams, influence, inspire & motivate people
• Ability to take responsibility & hold to account and deliver challenging targets
• Able to work collaboratively with partner organisations
• Ability to present complex data
• Ability to effectively manage conflict
• Ability to work independently with minimal direction
• Strategic thinker
• Business and quality focused
• Sensitive to clinical and political demands
• Innovative thinker with the ability to cut through barriers to change
• Positive team worker
• Ability to promote and market services

Employer certification / accreditation badges

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