Safe Staffing Lead | Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh NHS Foundation Trust; Wigan; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A regional healthcare trust in England seeks a dedicated Safe Staffing Lead to enhance patient care through effective staffing strategies. You will drive improvement programs, review staffing policies, and engage with various teams to ensure compliance with best practices. This crucial temporary role offers the chance to shape the future of staffing across the Trust. Ideal candidates will have substantial experience in safe staffing tools and a proven track record in leadership roles. Join us to make a significant impact on patient care.

Qualifications

• Understanding of best practice and national guidance for staffing.
• Ability to engage with clinical and operational teams.
• Experience in monitoring compliance and reporting outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Drive safer staffing improvement programmes across the Trust.
• Review and enhance establishment-setting policy.
• Monitor compliance with safe staffing outcomes and report findings.

Skills

Comprehensive knowledge of safe staffing tools, such as the Safer Nursing Care Tool

Experience of delivering safer staffing programmes at a senior level

Excellent communication and organisational skills

Job description

Join Us as Our Safe Staffing Lead - Make a Real Difference!

Are you passionate about delivering outstanding care through safe and effective staffing? We have an exciting opportunity for a motivated and exceptional Safe Staffing Lead to join our Corporate team and play a key role in shaping safer staffing across our Trust.

What will you be doing?

• Driving safer staffing improvement programmes across the Trust.
• Reviewing and enhancing our establishment-setting policy in line with best practice and national guidance.
• Leading benchmarking exercises to ensure our nursing establishments are efficient and comparable.
• Monitoring compliance and reporting outcomes to professional groups.
• Supporting the development of our long-term Workforce Strategy.
• Promoting lessons learned and embedding changes in practice to improve patient outcomes.

What are we looking for? You’ll bring:

• Comprehensive knowledge of safe staffing tools, such as the Safer Nursing Care Tool.
• Experience of delivering safer staffing programmes at a senior level.
• Excellent communication and organisational skills to engage with clinical, academic, and operational teams.

This is a fantastic opportunity to make a real impact on patient care and staff experience, while contributing to the strategic direction of our Trust. If you’re ready to lead change, share your expertise, and work in a supportive environment that values innovation and teamwork, we’d love to hear from you!

In this pivotal role, you’ll work closely with our Senior Leadership Team to provide clinical and strategic leadership for safe staffing. You’ll lead and coordinate our approach to nursing workforce planning in line with national and regulatory standards, ensuring we deliver the very best for our patients and our people.

The postholder will support with an overview and co‑ordinating function for leading and developing the Trust approach to workforce/safe staffing requiring the postholder to work closely with the Senior Leadership Team to provide senior clinical and strategic leadership for Safe staffing.

The postholder will be responsible for reviewing current establishment setting policy in line with best practice and National policy, implementing and embedding any changes to establishment setting process engaging with key stakeholders both clinical and non‑clinical. Reviewing and making recommendations on improvements to safe staffing processes, alongside conducting benchmarking exercises to ensure nursing establishments are comparable and efficient. Monitoring compliance with best practise and safe staffing outcomes and report to relevant professional groups and supporting the development of the long term Workforce Strategy. Contribute to the overall strategic development and direction of the Trust, helping to develop and implement programmes of work associated with improving the staff deployment to improve outcomes of patients.

Choose Well – Choose WWL

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust are the proud providers of acute hospital and community services to the people of the Wigan Borough and surrounding areas. At WWL, we value our staff believing that ‘happy staff, makes for happy patients’. We have a recognised track record in staff engagement and living our values.

• People at the Heart
• Listen and Involve
• Kind and Respectful
• ONE Team

WWL are committed to placing the patient at the heart of everything we do, and in the provision of safe, effective care that acknowledges and ensures dignity. We are seeking to recruit people who share our values and beliefs.

At WWL we value the benefits a rich and diverse workforce brings to our community and therefore welcome applications from all sections of society.

• Provide trust wide corporate leadership for areas of responsibility.
• Representing the Trust internally and externally.
• Contribute to nurse management business planning, reviewing and agreeing nursing workforce plans.
• Be visible and accessible as a clinical leader, undertaking clinical shifts, as appropriate, to maintain clinical credibility.
• Deputise for the Director of Nursing and Chief Nurse as requested.
• Represent Chief Nurse/Director of Nursing as safe staffing expert at divisional and corporate committees, enabling a process of communication that ensures key information is disseminated to the relevant people and ensuring that any resulting action plans are progressed.
• Share learning from best practice across the Trust, locally and regionally.
• Take an active / lead role in the co‑ordination and development of staffing research and audit programmes within the nursing arena and apply the outcomes to improve patient care and service delivery.
• Use clinical expertise, underpinned by theory, evidence, policy and experience to provide support to clinical teams in the arena of safe staffing.

Please Note: This role is PENDING AFC SALARY BANDING APPROVAL; therefore, salary cannot be fully confirmed until the Banding is approved.

This advert closes on Monday 22 Dec 2025