Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Purpose of the Role

The purpose of this role is to provide strong clinical leadership within the nursing team. Supporting the team to provide safe, high-quality care for all patients while continuing to work as an expert clinician providing evidence-based treatment and senior nursing expertise. The Lead Nurse brings calm leadership, sound judgement and a steady focus on helping the nursing team deliver high-quality, evidence-based care

Experience Skills and Attributes

The Lead Nurse is a registered nurse who is reliable, mature and professional, and able to work well with others. Their compassionate clinical leadership helps colleagues build skills and confidence through supervision, support and clear communication. They are organised, work independently when needed, maintain accurate clinical records, communicate with clarity, and support quality improvement across the nursing service.

Key Responsibilities

Clinical Leadership

In addition to the core clinical role of the general practice nurse, the Lead Nurse, will have protected time allocated to provides strong clinical leadership to the nursing workforce. This will be a 70%/30% split between core clinical work and leadership role. The protected time will ensure the safe and effective delivery of essential general practice services. They offer day-to-day guidance to nurses and Healthcare Assistants, supporting colleagues to deliver evidence-based care across wound management, immunisations, chronic disease management and other core treatment room services. The Lead Nurse supports training needs, ensuring required protocols and resources are provided to meet clinical standards. By modelling high-quality practice and supporting adherence to national and local guidelines. The Lead Nurse helps maintain consistent, safe and efficient patient-led care across all nursing activities.

Team supervision and Workforce Development

The Lead Nurse provides day-to-day supervision, support and direction to the nursing team, acting as the first point of contact for routine nursing issues and informal concerns. They supervise, mentor and support nurses and HCAs, identifying training needs and appropriate development opportunities and escalating any identified training gaps to the Head of Nursing. They are responsible for performing annual appraisals for the nurses and HCA’s and support ongoing professional development through regular feedback and shared learning. They also participate in or coordinate team meetings to ensure consistent

communication across the nursing team and to maintain alignment with clinical priorities and practice needs, ensuring the team remains compliant with updates to national and local policies, including PGDs, PSDs, infection control standards and other regulatory requirements.

They will support with recruitment and induction of new nurses and HCA’s, and utilising competency frameworks where appropriate, will monitor and record progress, perform probationary reviews and provide updates to the Practice Manager and Head of Nursing

The Lead Nurse supports service redesign and transformation where changes are required to meet the evolving needs of the practice population, working with the wider leadership team to adjust clinics, improve services and respond to national guidance.

Clinical Duties

The core clinical duties focus on the safe and effective delivery of essential general practice nursing services. This includes chronic disease management such as asthma, COPD and diabetes; delivery of immunisation and vaccination programmes for adults and children; wound care; cervical screening; health promotion and prevention; and coordination of treatment room services. The Lead Nurse ensures these services are delivered in line with evidence-based national and local guidelines, supports adherence to protocols such as PGDs and PSDs, and maintains accurate, high-quality clinical records.

Quality, Governance and Safety

Ensure compliance with guidelines, PGDs, PSDs and infection control policies. Lead audits, significant event reviews and risk assessments. Support shared learning and maintain and monitor the quality and outcomes frameworks (QOF) and disease registers, contribute to quality improvement activity, including audits, significant event reviews, near-miss reviews and the ongoing evaluation of clinical practice.

They act as the initial point of contact for informal grievances or concerns within the nursing team, offering supportive problem-solving and escalating issues through appropriate organisational processes when needed.

Reporting

The Lead Nurse will provide a quarterly written report to the Head of Nursing. This report will summarise staffing concerns, performance issues and actions taken; updates on Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) work, including achievements, gaps and planned activity; quality indicators and any emerging risks; updates on clinical and operational policies including PGDs, PSDs and APC compliance; and progress on service development or transformation projects. The quarterly report will also highlight workforce matters such as training needs, supervision themes, informal grievances raised, and any risks identified requiring senior support or escalation.

Collaboration and Multi‑Disciplinary Working

Work with GPs and wider teams to deliver integrated care. Support public health, screening and population health management. Liaise with external and multi-disciplinary agencies to support vulnerable patients.