Patient Safety Specialist

Sussex Partnership Nhs Foundation Trust; Worthing; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust seeks a senior Patient Safety Specialist to lead the NHS Patient Safety Strategy and PSIRF, embedding a culture of safety and ensuring learning from incidents translates into measurable improvements.

You will work with senior leaders, oversee incident response, and engage with NHS England and the Integrated Care Board to drive quality and safety across the trust.

Qualifications

• Experience leading patient safety strategies.
• Proven ability to translate learning from incidents into improvements.
• Strong communication and influencing skills across senior teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead the NHS Patient Safety Strategy and PSIRF across the Trust.
• Provide expert patient safety leadership to the Trust Board and partners.
• Oversee learning from incidents and compliance with duty of candour.
• Support development and delivery of the PSIRP and incident response.

Skills

Patient safety leadership

Clinical governance

PSIRF frameworks

Education

Master's degree or equivalent experience

Registered professional (NHS)

Job description

As the Trust's designated Patient Safety Specialist, you will lead the NHS Patient Safety Strategy and Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF), ensuring robust systems are in place for incident management, learning, improvement and assurance. You will support the Trust to deliver safe, high-quality care by embedding a positive patient safety culture and ensuring learning from incidents leads to measurable improvements. Working closely with senior clinical and operational leaders, you will provide expert advice on patient safety matters, oversee incident response and learning and act as a key contact with NHS England, the Integrated Care Board and other stakeholders, The Head of Patient Safety will provide Trust-wide leadership for patient safety and quality improvement, ensuring compliance with national patient safety policy and best practice. Responsibilities include:

• Leading the NHS Patient Safety Strategy and Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF)
• Providing expert patient safety leadership and advice to the Trust Board, Executive Team, clinical services and external partners
• Leading arrangements for learning from patient safety incidents and ensuring learning translates into measurable improvements in patient care
• Overseeing patient safety investigations, learning responses, Duty of Candour compliance and incident management processes
• Leading the development and delivery of the Trust's Patient Safety Incident Response Plan (PSIRP)
• Supporting analysis of patient safety data to identify trends, risks and opportunities
• Ensuring effective systems respond to National Patient Safety Alerts and meet reporting requirements, including Learn from Patient Safety Events (LFPSE)
• Promoting a culture of safety, openness, learning and continuous improvement
• Developing productive relationships with patients, carers, Patient Safety Partners and external organisations
• Providing leadership and support to Patient Safety Learning Response Leads and contributing to wider Clinical Governance and Quality Assurance objectives.
  
  We are looking for an experienced senior leader with expertise in patient safety, clinical governance, PSIRF methodologies, systems thinking and healthcare risk management. Candidates should be educated to Master's level or equivalent experience and hold a relevant professional registration. You will have excellent leadership, communication and influencing skills with experience of working across organisational boundaries to improve patient safety and quality., We are seeking a self-motivated professional to join our Clinical Governance Team to lead the Patient Safety agenda. You will be a registered clinician (Nurse, Occupational Therapist, Social Worker, Psychologist etc) with the experience and motivation to provide strategic leadership for patient safety across Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust., Educated to master's level or equivalent level or equivalent experience of working at a senior level.
• Professional registration such as Nurse, OT, psychologist.
• Desirable criteria
• Post-graduate patient safety qualification or previous experience., 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 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.
• Knowledge of the NHS patient safety strategy and how it can be implemented
• Knowledge of systems thinking, human factors understanding and just culture principles., Ability to interpret complex information (including patient safety incident data, administrative data, mortality data) that may conflict and where expert opinion may differ.
• Ability to communicate effectively with clinical, academic and all levels of staff.
• Ability to provide senior leadership and work with senior leaders.
• Ability to make decisions autonomously, when required, on difficult issues.
• Ability to manage time effectively and to prioritise.
• 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.
• Ability to travel across sites., Ability to operate in a value-driven style consistent with the values of the public services and specifically with the organisational values., Successful candidates are normally appointed to the bottom of the pay scale unless previous NHS experience in a similar role can be evidenced., You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
  
  At SPFT we put people first. We'll do everything possible to help you feel respected, valued and included. You'll have opportunities to learn, grow and gain new experiences to support your career, with access to lifelong learning and professional development.

We actively promote flexible working and understand how important work life balance is, especially in healthcare. Whether it's part time hours, hybrid working or flexible start and finish times, we'll explore what works for you and the role. We recognise that tools like AI are becoming part of everyday life and you may choose to use them when preparing your application. We welcome this, as long as what you submit reflects your own experience, skills and voice. AI can be helpful for structuring or refining your answers, but it should not replace your own examples or create content that isn't based on your real experience. Our recruitment process is designed to get to know you, and we'll explore your examples further at interview, so it's important your application genuinely represents what you bring. You can read more about using AI in applications and interviews on our recruitment process page. We're shaping a workplace where ideas are encouraged, technology supports you and everyone has a voice in how we improve. If that sounds like the kind of organisation you want to be part of, we'd love to hear from you.