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Job summary

Main area
Patient Experience & Involvement Manager
Grade
Band 6
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
413-110827-FB-DA
Employer
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Quality and Standards - E00025
Town
Manchester
Salary
£39,959 - £48,117 Pro Rata, Per Annum
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
23/10/2026 23:59

Employer heading

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust logo

Patient Experience & Involvement Manager

Band 6

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join The Christie NHS Foundation Trust as a Band 6 Patient Experience and Involvement Manager within the Quality & Standards Directorate. This pivotal role will lead and coordinate patient and public involvement across the Trust, ensuring the voices and lived experiences of patients, carers and service users influence service design, quality improvement and strategic decision-making. We are looking for an enthusiastic, motivated and organised professional with experience of patient engagement, co-production, analysing feedback and building effective relationships with a wide range of stakeholders. You will bring strong communication, facilitation and influencing skills, together with a commitment to equality, inclusion and person-centred care. This is an opportunity to shape how the Trust listens, learns and works in partnership with its communities, translating patient insight into meaningful and measurable improvements for patients and families.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will lead the development, delivery and evaluation of the Trust’s Patient and Public Involvement Programme, coordinating patient partnership groups, panels and representative networks. They will recruit, induct, train and support patient representatives and volunteers, promote co-production, and help teams involve patients in service redesign and quality improvement. The role will manage patient experience programmes, including the Friends and Family Test, national surveys and local feedback initiatives, and will analyse intelligence from feedback, compliments, complaints themes and involvement activity. The post holder will identify emerging themes, produce reports, dashboards and presentations for governance forums, and support clinical and operational teams to translate insight into improvement. We are seeking someone who can facilitate workshops and engagement activities, manage competing priorities, handle sensitive issues appropriately and build effective relationships with patients, staff, Healthwatch, charities and voluntary-sector partners.

Working for our organisation

The Christie is one of Europe’s leading cancer centres, looking after more than 64,000 patients a year. We are based in Manchester and serve a population of 3.2 million across Greater Manchester & Cheshire, but as a national specialist around 25% patients are referred to us from other parts of the country.

We are the largest radiotherapy provider in the NHS with one in 20 treatments delivered at The Christie. We have up to 15 linear accelerators operating across our network of sites.  We operate the largest chemotherapy unit in the UK on our main site and treatments are also provided at 13 other networked sites, and in patients homes. And as a specialist tertiary surgical centre, we focus on rare cancers, complex procedures, and multidisciplinary approaches to cancer surgery, specialising in colorectal, peritoneal, gynaecological, urological and plastic surgery.

We are also an international leader in research, with world first breakthroughs for over 100 years. We have been named by the UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), as one of the best hospitals providing opportunities for patients to participate in clinical research studies, with more than 800 studies open at any time, caring for over 3,000 patients.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

1)    Patient and Public Involvement

Lead the development and delivery of the Trust's Patient and Public Involvement Programme. 
Develop and support Patient Partnership Groups, Patient Panels and Patient Representative Networks. 
Coordinate recruitment, induction, training and support for patient representatives and patient partners. 
Promote co-production methodologies across the Trust and support teams to involve patients in service redesign and quality improvement initiatives. 
Ensure patient involvement activities reflect the diverse communities served by the Trust and support equality of access and representation. 
Liaise directly with patients and/or their relatives to understand their experiences, respond to feedback and escalate at short notice and review how areas for development can contribute to service and Trust improvement.

2)    Patient Experience and Insight

Manage Trust-wide patient experience programmes including FFT, national surveys and local patient feedback initiatives. 
Analyse patient experience information from multiple sources including FFT, national surveys, local feedback, compliments, complaint’s themes and involvement activities. 
Produce patient experience reports, dashboards and presentations for Trust committees and governance forums. 
Identify emerging themes and opportunities for improvement and support services to develop improvement actions. 
Develop innovative methods for gathering patient experience and patient insight. 
Draft responses to complex or sensitive issues, where required.

3)    Service Improvement

Support clinical and operational teams to use patient feedback to drive measurable quality improvements. 
Facilitate experience-based co-design projects and patient-centred improvement initiatives. 
Work collaboratively with Quality Improvement, Patient Safety and Clinical Effectiveness teams to triangulate patient experience intelligence. 
Design and monitor and evaluate the impact of patient involvement and engagement activities.

4)    Leadership and Professional Responsibilities

Provide professional leadership for patient involvement activities across the Trust. 
Maintain knowledge of national policy, NHS guidance and best practice relating to patient experience and involvement. 
Develop and maintain effective relationships with Healthwatch, cancer charities, voluntary sector organisations and other stakeholders. 
Support development of Trust policies relating to patient experience and involvement. 
Represent the Trust at local, regional and national patient experience networks where required. 
Contribute to Patient Experience Committee and Quality governance reporting arrangements.
Lead and support the delivery of training and regular awareness to staff, volunteers and stakeholders to promote an understanding of patient experience, engagement and person-centred care principles. 
Support and recruit patient volunteers and provide the necessary induction, training and supervisory support. 
Manage competing priorities (concerns, engagement programmes, reporting and meetings). 

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • Degree level or equivalent experience
  • Post Graduate qualification or equivalent experience
Desirable criteria
  • Quality Improvement qualification
  • Facilitation or engagement qualification

Experience

Essential criteria
  • Developing and delivering patient engagement or involvement programmes
  • Facilitating focus groups, workshops or co-production events
  • Analysing patient feedback and producing reports
  • Supporting service improvement initiatives using patient insight
  • Building effective relationships with clinical and operational teams
Desirable criteria
  • Experience of working in NHS
  • Basic knowledge of patient and public involvement methods, including focus groups and discovery interviews
  • Experience of supervising staff
  • Experience of volunteer or stakeholder management

Skills

Essential criteria
  • Able to influence departmental practice to support Trust policy and service development
  • Use analytical and judgement skills, when reviewing information which can sometimes be conflicting
  • Ability to liaise with key stakeholders, internal and external (i.e., Health watch, CQC. ICB and key voluntary organisations)
  • Self-motivated and consistently looks to improve what they do, using successful tried and tested ways of working and using their own initiative
  • High level of planning and organisational skills
  • Good time management skills with the ability to re-prioritise work under pressure and demanding timescales
  • Ability to support patients to be involved in trust improvement activities
  • Good influencing and conflict management skills both verbally and face to face
  • Strong interpersonal skills and non-judgemental when required to support staff and managers involved in PALS processes
  • Good attention to detail and ability to analyse often highly complex information, which is sufficient to give advice and support, requiring periods of intense concentration
  • Ability to work on own initiative, problem solve and respond to sudden unexpected demands
  • Strong presentation, training and coaching skills, directed at a wider audience
Desirable criteria
  • Recognised patient and public involvement training/courses

Knowledge

Essential criteria
  • Demonstratable experience of compliance and adhering to national and local policies/procedures
  • Patient and Public Involvement methodologies
  • Experience of dealing with a wide range of sensitive and contentious issues and within an organisation under public scrutiny
  • Experience of liaising with senior managers
  • Experience of involving patients/customers in service improvements or similar
  • Sound knowledge of Microsoft office suite (word, excel, outlook, PowerPoint)
Desirable criteria
  • Patient partnership programmes
  • Knowledge of NHS patient and public involvement

Values

Essential criteria
  • Ability to demonstrate the organisational values and behaviours

Other

Essential criteria
  • Ability to work on own initiative without close supervision
  • Ability to work effectively within a team environment
  • Ability to manage time effectively/meet deadlines
  • Ability to work in a confidential and sensitive manner
  • Flexible / adaptable to the needs of the service
  • Motivated and enthusiastic desire to develop existing and new processes/systems
  • Highly motivated, enthusiastic, confident and assertive
  • Awareness of need for discretion, sensitivity and high levels of confidentiality and diplomacy
  • Actively develops themselves and supports others in what they do
  • Ability to work well with others when under pressure

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Veteran AwareApprenticeships logoNo smoking policyAge positiveMindful employer.  Being positive about mental health.Disability confident employer

Applicant requirements

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Eugene Collins
Job title
Quality Improvement & Audit Lead
Email address
[email protected]
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