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Job summary

Main area
Safety Improvement Specialist
Grade
NHS AfC: Band 8b
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
278-SIS-0925-AS
Employer
South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Nexus House
Town
CRAWLEY
Salary
£64,455 - £74,896 not applicable
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
14/09/2025 23:59

Employer heading

South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust logo

Safety Improvement Specialist

NHS AfC: Band 8b

South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SECAmb) has a vision to ‘support our staff to provide a caring, high quality and efficient urgent and emergency care service to our communities’. We are rated ‘Good’ for care by the Care Quality Commission and while the other areas under their most recent report require improvement, our aim is to continually improve and to reach outstanding across all areas of the Trust.

Our 4,000+ workforce provide services to 4.9m people across Kent, Surrey, Sussex and North East Hampshire. We handle over 1 million calls to 999 and 1 million calls to NHS 111 every year. More information regarding our services and locations can be found on our website.

Job overview

The Safety Improvement Specialist will serve as a dedicated expert in Patient Safety and Clinical Human Factors (HF) and Ergonomics, providing specialist advice across the Trust. The post holder will apply evidence-based HF methods and tools to improve the reliability and safety of healthcare systems and processes.

The post holder will play a key role in embedding HF principles into the Trust’s operational processes, ensuring systems and strategies are designed with an understanding of human behaviour to reduce errors and promote a culture of continuous learning and a just culture. They will also support the development of HF awareness and capability across the Trust, driving improvement by exploring interactions between people, systems, and processes, and redesigning tasks, interfaces, and workflows to optimise safety and performance. The role prioritises a systems-based approach, focusing on enhancing system performance rather than assigning blame to individuals.

Main duties of the job

•    The post holder will provide specialist Human Factors and ergonomics advice on the strategic planning of Human Factors programmes and their implementation.

•    Deliver Human Factors and Ergonomics advice at an operational level across the Trust.
•    Work across directorates and divisions to deliver proactive strategies to reduce Human Factors and Ergonomics patient safety risks through provision of specialist advice. This will include working closely with teams and managers across the Trust to review work systems, processes and physical layouts, following up on incidents and near misses, examining trends in occurrence and making recommendations to managers at all levels to reduce risk.
•    Lead the safety improvement programme for the organisation.

Working for our organisation

  • Option to join NHS pension scheme
  • A minimum 27 days' holiday each year, increasing after 5 years’ service.
  • Personal and professional development and training opportunities.
  • Salary Sacrifice schemes for cars or push bikes.
  • Access to occupational health and counselling services.
  • Award winning wellbeing hub
  • Back up buddy App
  • Access to NHS discounts, offering NHS employees a range of money-saving deals.

Other than in exceptional circumstances, the starting salary for staff new to the NHS will be the bottom point of the band to which they have been appointed.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please refer to Job Description and Person Specification. For an informal discussion about this position please contact Jo Turner, Deputy Chief Nurse at: [email protected]

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • Undergraduate or Postgraduate level qualification in Ergonomics/Human Factors.
  • Qualification / Training in Patient Safety
Desirable criteria
  • Healthcare Professional with a relevant clinical qualification and registration
  • Postgraduate level qualification in a patient safety field
  • Technical membership / working towards Chartership with the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors or equivalent.

Knowledge

Essential criteria
  • In depth knowledge and understanding of the theories and causes of harm in healthcare, including reliability, patient safety and human factors.
  • Ability to identify contributary factors to adverse events and use this insight to inform improvement plans and learning at local and organisational level
Desirable criteria
  • Project Management

Experience

Essential criteria
  • Experience of working within a healthcare environment with patient safety and system-wide quality Teams.
  • Experience in implementing human factors and systems-thinking approaches to improve safety and reliability within complex healthcare environments
  • Proven ability to lead multidisciplinary teams in patient safety initiatives, fostering collaboration across diverse professional groups
  • Ability to apply advanced human factors methodologies and analytical techniques to identify system-level
Desirable criteria
  • Experience and understanding of working within and/or with ambulance services • Evidence of change management

Skills

Essential criteria
  • Able to provide and receive complex, sensitive or contentious information.
  • •Exceptional interpersonal and influencing skills, with the ability to engage and inspire staff at all levels, promoting a culture of learning and continuous improvement.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Veteran AwareAge positiveInvestors in People: GoldImproving working livesArmed Forces Covenant Gold AwardMindful employer.  Being positive about mental health.The Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion (enei) is the UK's leading employer network covering all aspects of equality and inclusion issues in the workplace.Care Quality Commission - Requires improvementStep into healthEmployers Network for Equality & InclusionArmed Forces CovenantCycle to Work

Applicant requirements

This post will require a submission for Disclosure to be made to check for any unspent criminal convictions.

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Jo Turner
Job title
Deputy Chief Nursing Officer
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
07341 049411
Additional information

Jane Spencer, Business Support Manager at: [email protected]

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