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Job summary

Main area
Patient Safety
Grade
Band 8a - subject to job evaluation
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
249-5923015-3
Employer
Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Great Western Hospital
Town
Swindon
Salary
£50,952 - £57,349 per annum pro rata
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
Today at 23:59

Employer heading

Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust logo

Patient Safety Incident Investigator

Band 8a - subject to job evaluation

Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is a unique organisation, serving as the sole integrated provider in the Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon, and Wiltshire system. Our scope extends beyond boundaries as we oversee adult community services in Swindon and provide acute care from the Great Western Hospital. 

Our 5,500 staff have 1.2m patient contacts a year, with 13,000 operations carried out in our Theatres, around 4,000 babies born, and our emergency attendances are now well over 100,000 per year. Those numbers only tell part of our story about what an exciting time it is to join Great Western Hospitals.

We are cultivating a culture that fosters our ambitions, prioritising equality, diversion, inclusion, wellbeing, and leadership. We aim to create an environment where every member of our team can truly thrive.

The Trust is a Disability Confident Employer; all applicants who have a disability can opt to be considered under the guaranteed interview scheme, which means that, providing they meet the minimum essential criteria for the post, they will be offered an interview. We are also proudly accredited as a Veteran Aware organisation and have signed The Armed Forces Covenant.

If we receive a high volume of applications, we may close adverts prior to the published closing date. Therefore, we advise you to complete and submit your application as soon as possible.

Job overview

A fantastic and exciting opportunity has arisen for a motivated, experienced and enthusiastic individual to work within the Insights and Learning team at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon as the Patient Safety Incident Investigator.

Would you like to be part of a dynamic and highly motivated team to improve patient care, whilst ensuring effective working relationships across the trust. The ideal candidate must have a flexible proactive attitude as they will work alongside clinical teams across organisational and professional boundaries to support the delivery of high-quality patient centered care.

You should have experience and understanding in all aspects of patient safety, human factors and incident investigation or review, with demonstrable organisational skills and be able to work autonomously and as part of a team. Previous experience of working within a health care setting would be essential. 

A flexible approach is needed to manage the changing picture of healthcare patient safety services in line with the National agenda. 

Main duties of the job

The Patient Safety Incident Investigator will support the Associate Director of Nursing - Insights and Learning to provide Trust-wide oversight, assuring quality and effectiveness of all types of patient safety investigations as part 
of the Trust’s annually agreed Patient Safety Incident Response Plan (PSIRP). This is required within the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) which has been implemented in response the NHS Patient Safety Strategy (2019). The Patient Safety Incident Investigator will undertake robust patient safety incident investigations by working with a range of internal and external stakeholders to investigate, analyse and use judgement through the collation of evidence and findings using the agreed methods within the Trust’s PSIRP. The post holder will also assist healthcare professionals across the Trust to deliver safer care through an understanding of the effects of teamwork, tasks, equipment, workspace, culture and organisation on human behaviour and identify contributory factors when incidents occur and make recommendations for systemic improvements. The outcome will be the identification of systems learning from a patient safety event/incident that will then guide sustainable risk reduction and service improvement, ensuring that a Just and Learning Culture and Human Factors principles are maintained.

Working for our organisation

GWH is in an excellent location, convenient for the M4, surrounded by the Wiltshire countryside and with good links to the Cotswolds, Bath, Oxford and Bristol.

Our STAR values are at the heart of everything we do. You can expect to see them in the way we act and the way we treat each other. Our values make us who we are.
Service - We will put our patients first
Teamwork - We will work together
Ambition - We will aspire to provide the best service
Respect - We will act with integrity

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The Patient Safety Incident Investigator will support the Associate Director of Nursing – Insights and Learning, provide senior leadership to the wider Insights and Learning team.

The post holder will provide strategic leadership and oversight for training and awareness raising that on patient safety, human factors, and just and learning culture.

The post holder will be a highly visible, accessible, influential figure on whom staff, patients, families, and carers can rely, to ensure the fundamentals of patient safety are adopted and care is delivered effectively and efficiently.

The post holder will be designated Trust Patient Safety Specialist, sharing the responsibility with the other designated Patient Safety Specialist.

• Work in collaboration with the Associate Director of Nursing - Insights and Learning to support with the implementation and sustainability of the NHS patient safety strategy within the organisation.
• Provide patient safety expertise/leadership within the organisation; demonstrating compassionate leadership, visibility and supporting the continued development of the patient safety culture.
• Work autonomously as an investigator and in conjunction with subject matter experts and clinical colleagues. Using recognised patient safety incident frameworks and tools encompassing principles of human factors and ergonomics, systems engineering, psychology and investigation best practice. 
• To support others to lead investigations, providing support and input as required, nurturing and supporting the development of investigation skills in others.
• To set the scope and terms of reference for patient safety investigations or support other lead investigators to do so.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • Educated to master’s level (in a relevant discipline) or equivalent level, or equivalent experience of working at a senior level.
  • Post-graduate management, leadership or specialist qualification or previous experience.
  • Qualification in Patient Safety and incident investigation, including level1 and level 2 National Patient or willingness to work towards safety training.
Desirable criteria
  • Qualification in NHS leadership.
  • Qualification In Human Factors.
  • Quality improvement qualification or previous experience.
  • Post-graduate patient safety or human factors qualification, or willingness to work towards or previous experience
  • Recognised management qualification at minimum of post graduate diploma level.

Experience

Essential criteria
  • Experience of investigating patient safety incidents within a large/complex organisation using systems learning approaches.
  • Broad understanding of the NHS governance agendas.
  • Experience in delivering improvement projects and change.
  • Highly developed knowledge of patient safety and investigation.
Desirable criteria
  • Experience and knowledge of the components of quality governance, incident response, risk management and assurance function; current NHS national policies, standards, requirements and directions that relate to measuring and improving the quality and safety of patient care.

Knowledge and Skills

Essential criteria
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
  • Able to communicate complex aspects of quality governance in a style that all staff can comprehend and implement.
  • Negotiating and influencing skills.
  • Ability to build and maintain effective working relationships with staff at all levels.
  • Able to analyze situations and information to inform decisions.
  • Project and change management skills.
  • Competent IT skills – producing reports, spread sheets, presentations.
  • Able to effectively network and build strong partnership locally, regionally and nationally.
  • Experience of multi-agency multi professional team working.
  • Excellent written / report writing skills and writing/ reviewing incident reports.
Desirable criteria
  • Proven track record or wide scale quality improvements and or change management.
  • Experience of working in different sectors
  • Knowledge of research and innovation

Employer certification / accreditation badges

NHS Pastoral Care Quality AwardVeteran AwareApprenticeships logoNo smoking policyPositive about disabled peopleAge positiveDisability confident leaderInvestors in People: Goldhttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/kickstart-scheme-employer-resources/kickstart-scheme-brand-guidelinesStonewall equality policy. Equality and justice for lesbians, gay men, bisexual and trans people.Step into healthArmed Forces Covenant

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

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
Candace Wood
Job title
Deputy Head of Insights and Learning
Email address
[email protected]
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