Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder will:

• Lead on or participate as part of the patient safety review team on significant events which require review and make recommendations, as required, regarding improvements to support patient safety.
• As part of the patient safety team, monitor the shared learning relating to patient safety including those arising from themed reviews, significant events and address outstanding actions with the Divisional Teams as required. Lead or contribute to sharing lessons learnt from patient safety and triangulating this information with other divisional risk and governance teams.
• Explore opportunities that will lead to the safer provision of care to patients and manage these projects accordingly. Work with patient safety partners to enable making improvements with patients and clinicians in mind.
• Develop and deliver patient safety education and training. This includes, but is not limited to, delivering training in patient safety awareness, reporting, and managing adverse incidents, patient safety risk identification and management, incident investigations and an awareness of Duty of Candour.
• Be clinically current and able to review patient safety from a clinical perspective whilst also considering patient experience, outcomes, and effectiveness.
• Maintain clinical skills to ensure clinical credibility and to enable relevant information and modes of communication/methods of delivery are considered during the training process.
• Provide expert advice as a registered health or social care professional and act as support on matters relating to patient safety within Divisions/Sites and support local staff in identifying, articulating, and developing mitigations where clinical risks are identified and escalate these to the risk managers and governance teams for further consideration.
• Ensure that robust safety solutions generated through safety improvement projects are implemented, tracked and evaluated.
• Maintain an up-to-date and comprehensive knowledge of patient safety practices in accordance with the principles of continuing professional development and ensure that this knowledge is applied locally to improve patient safety.
• Responsible for ensuring that all significant events are reviewed to the appropriate standard, in line with the National framework, and monitoring recommendations to ensure they are acted upon in line with the Trust’s Policy for the Patient Safety Incident Response. Expert advisor on the grading of incidents, responsible for identifying compliance and escalating issues where necessary.
• Follow through on information obtained from staff reporting significant events and ensure that immediate actions are taken to minimise any risks to patients, staff or Trust property.
• Ensure there are robust systems of communication in place to engage the participation of all clinicians and associated health professionals in patient safety. This will include communicating with staff about the lessons learnt through the patient safety agenda.
• Expertly obtain, manage, and provide advice on issues of a highly sensitive, contentious or political nature and escalate cases of concern as appropriate.
• Support the development of robust learning mechanisms across the Trust and within Divisions.
• Contribute to the Divisional, Trust and Executive patient safety panel meetings as required and ensure that the meetings are effective in identifying risk to patient safety and continuously improving patient safety.
• Responsible for identifying themes that indicate an issue relating to patient safety and contributing to the development of audit tools for Trust-wide and or local clinical audit programmes to determine the current status against standards, as required.
• Develop a PSIRF training programme which support the methodologies of the organisation, aligned to the Patient Safety Incident Plan (PSIRP) Coordinate and deliver the PSIRF training, with the support of the patient safety team, with the aim of providing staff with the skills and knowledge to undertake Patient safety learning reviews into significant events, as identified through the local and national priorities, using the PSIRF review techniques and tools.
• Provide expert advice and mentoring to staff on safety improvement methodology and systems/PSIRF patient safety learning review methodology.
• Monitor the quality and timeliness of review of significant events reported by staff and take action to ensure improvements in performance, identifying and escalating as required.
• Lead of the quarterly audit of the quality of significant events data in the incident investigation system (harm fields, grading of incidents, staff feedback, uploading of associated documents, lessons learned, etc.). Support MIAA audits and ensure the implementation and adherence to recommendations and actions.
• Develop and present PSIRF reports for various committees in the organisation and external stakeholders including Executive and Quality Committee, ICB quality and contract requirements.
• Promote and support the inclusion of service users or providers and their representatives in patient safety.
• With the relevant Lead/Manager/ Director/ Head of Patient Safety, take the lead or support on specific patient safety improvement projects at Trust, Division and Department level and in accordance with project management methodology, including facilitating multi-disciplinary and multi-agency project teams and chairing project meetings.
• Support and encourage staff, clinicians and health care professionals throughout the change process including the need to consider staff opinions and situations to overcome potentially significant barriers to change.
• Ensure efficient use of resources and excellent management of multiple complex budgets as required. Contribute towards work required for various quality initiatives and Trust priorities on an ongoing basis and consider sustainability and efficiency.

GENERIC RESPONSIBILITIES FOR ALL STAFF

All post holders will agree to:

• Commit to the vision of supporting Mersey Care in becoming a leading organisation in the provision of community services, mental health care, addiction services and learning disability care, and in doing so fully utilise their skills and experience to support the objectives of the Trust.
• Role model the values of the Trust – Continuous Improvement, Accountability, Respectfulness, Enthusiasm and Support– in all activities and interactions with employees, service users and other stakeholders.
• Challenge the stigma associated with mental health and learning difficulties.
• Comply with the Duty of Candour, defined by Francis as: 'The volunteering of all relevant information to persons who have or may have been harmed by the provision of services, whether or not the information has been requested and whether or not a complaint or a report about that provision has been made.’
• Work across professional and organisational boundaries to improve services for all.
• Maintain their specific knowledge base and develop new skills.
• Value the contribution of the patient/ service user voice.
• Operate within any organisational codes of practice or those from a relevant professional body.
• Respect equality and diversity across all areas of working practice and communications with staff, service users and other stakeholders.
• Take responsibility for the accurate and timely collection and recording of data and ensuring all personally identifiable information is protected and used only for the purposes for which it was intended.
• Comply with all health and safety legislation and local policies and procedures.
• Adhere to all organisational policies.
• Have knowledge and understanding of technology in the workplace which is sufficient to maintain their efficiency and also how technology can empower service users in a digital environment.
• Comply with the NHS Constitution in relation to the staff responsibilities that it sets out for NHS employees.
• Attend a one day Just and Learning & Civility and Respect training workshop.
• Be an ambassador for Just & Learning and Civility & Respect following the training.
• Positively advocate the just and learning culture within your team.
• Be a confident supporter and implementer of the Trust CARES Values including Civility & Respect within your team.
• Support their team/ services to create a positive environment for Just and Learning Culture.
• Participate in Just and Learning Culture events.
• Bring Just and Learning Culture updates/ information to the attention of team members and other MCT colleagues they work with.
• Support and encourage the sharing of concerns about the safety and quality of care with senior leaders with the aim of improving safety and quality.
• Actively participate in creating an open culture within your team so that concerns and difficulties can be discussed safely and respectfully.
• Speaking up in the event that they are exposed to incivility between colleagues in the workplace #iwillspeakup.
• Listening and understanding others who have concerns and taking a collaborative approach to work towards a solution to improve civility and respect.

This job description is intended as an outline indicator of general areas of activity and will be reviewed in light of the changing needs of the Trust in consultation with the postholder.