Deputy Chief Medical Officer in Safety and Clinical Governance

Job description

Barts Health is one of the largest NHS trusts in the country, and one of Britain's leading healthcare providers.

The Barts Health group of NHS hospitals is entering an exciting new era on our improvement journey to becoming an outstanding organisation with a world-class clinical reputation.

Our vision is to be a high-performing group of NHS hospitals, renowned for excellence and innovation, and providing safe and compassionate care to our patients in east London and beyond. That means being a provider of excellent patient safety, known for delivering consistently high standards of harm-free care and always caring for patients in the right place at the right time. It also means being an outstanding place to work, in which our WeCare values and behaviours are visible to all and guide us in how we work together.

Barts Health supports the Pregnancy Loss Pledge and commits to supporting their staff through the distress of miscarriage.

We are dedicated to being an outstanding place to work and will work with you to get the best experience. We know flexible working is not a one size fits all and will mean something different to everyone. We are inclusive, so if you are interested in flexible working, please speak to the recruiting manager.

Job overview

The Deputy Chief Medical Officer (DCMO) for Safety and Clinical Governance is a senior leadership role within the Chief Medical Officer's portfolio, providing strategic oversight, clinical leadership, and executive assurance across key patient safety, regulatory, and specialist clinical governance functions.

The post holder will lead and coordinate a defined set of safety-critical and statutory clinical governance workstreams, ensuring robust oversight, consistency of standards, and effective escalation to the CMO and relevant executive and Board committees. The role plays a core part in assuring the Trust Board that high-risk, high-impact areas of clinical practice are well governed, data-informed, and aligned to national expectations.

The portfolio encompasses a broad and interconnected set of safety-critical governance workstreams and quality and safety programmes, reflecting the breadth of oversight required to ensure safe, effective and compliant care, while providing flexibility for the Chief Medical Officer to shape and evolve priorities in response to emerging risks, regulatory expectations and organisational strategy. The portfolio will be pivotal in ensuring Barts Health is exemplar in clinical governance and safety, with a clear and consistent focus on patient safety, statutory assurance, and clinical quality signals.

Main duties of the job

Provide senior medical leadership and executive oversight for designated safety-critical and statutory clinical governance portfolios, holding clear accountability for the effective oversight of patient safety across all Trust sites and services.

Lead the development and delivery of a coherent, Trust-wide approach to safety and clinical governance, ensuring that risks are identified early, managed proactively, and escalated appropriately, with clear line of sight from ward to Board.

Provide medical leadership and oversight of a consistent and high-performing governance structures, with clearly defined accountabilities and robust escalation routes for high-risk clinical areas, enabling timely clinical decision-making and strong organisational assurance.

Provide strategic medical oversight of the Trust's Quality and Safety Strategy, ensuring full alignment with the Trust's Clinical Strategy, workforce strategy and assurance frameworks, and supporting Barts Health's ambition to be an exemplar organisation for safety, quality and governance.

Work in close partnership with the Chief Medical Officer, Chief Nurse, Director of Quality, Hospital Medical Directors and executive colleagues to deliver an integrated and effective clinical governance framework, recognising the interdependencies between safety, workforce capacity and operational delivery

Working for our organisation

The Barts Health group of NHS hospitals is entering an exciting new era on our improvement journey to becoming an outstanding organisation with a world-class clinical reputation. Having lifted ourselves out of special measures, we now have the impetus and breathing space to chart a fresh course in which we are continually striving to improve all our services for patients.

Our vision is to be a high-performing group of NHS hospitals, renowned for excellence and innovation, and providing safe and compassionate care to our patients in east London and beyond. That means being a provider of excellent patient safety, known for delivering consistently high standards of harm-free care and always caring for patients in the right place at the right time. It also means being an outstanding place to work, in which our WeCare values and behaviours are visible to all and guide us in how we work together.

We strive to live by our WeCare values and are committed to promoting inclusion, where every staff member has a sense of belonging. We value our differences and fully advocate, cultivate and support an inclusive working environment where staff treat one another with dignity and respect. We aim to create an equitable working environment where every individual can fulfil their potential.

Barts Health supports The Pregnancy Loss Pledge and commits to supporting their staff through the distress of miscarriage

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please refer to the job description and person specification for the main responsibilities of this role.

Person specification

Experience

Essential criteria

• Worked clinically at a senior level for at least 5 years
• Substantive senior doctor
• Significant experience in a senior leadership position in an NHS organisation
• Demonstrable experience of using quality, safety and performance intelligence to
• inform executive decision-making and governance assurance
• Significant experience of senior medical leadership in patient safety, clinical governance and assurance
• Demonstrable experience in leading meaningful collaborations with clinicians and multidisciplinary teams
• Demonstrable experience of leading significant programmes of work and change initiatives in partnership with a range of stakeholders.
• Demonstrable experience of overseeing the effective use of clinical data, registries or surveillance systems
• Exceptional influencing and negotiating skills, able to promote innovative approaches to transformational change.
• Expertise in systems-thinking, data-driven decision-making, quality improvement methodology, clinical informatics, and strategic transformation leadership
• Track record of innovation
• Track record of managing and developing staff
• Track record of addressing poor performance

Desirable criteria

• Establishing and sustaining effective strategic direction
• Quality Improvement qualification

Skills

Essential criteria

• Demonstrable leadership skills
• Able to think and act strategically and to articulate a clear vision and sense of direction
• Ability to define and implement policy development at directorate level
• Have well developed verbal communication, influencing, negotiating and regulating skills and the ability to respond positively to a rapidly changing and matrix environment
• Able to prioritise and manage competing demands
• Able to lead continuous change and improvement in services, encouraging the use of new clinical and service technologies with a multidisciplinary team.
• Evidence of high levels of original thought, innovation and problem solving skills
• Able to prioritise effectively and with a logical and analytical approach to problem solving

Desirable criteria

• Advanced computer skills including knowledge of databases, spreadsheets

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• A good understanding of the current context of health and social care, and of clinical learning and research
• A good understanding of the specific issues in East London
• A broad understanding of the systems for primary care, social care and commissioning
• Knowledge of the Trust priorities

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Registration with relevant professional body.
• Post graduate qualifications.
• Employed substantively in clinical practice
• Evidence of continuing professional development

Desirable criteria

• Management qualification

Other

Essential criteria

• Enthusiasm to meet the challenges of the post and motivation to succeed and flexibility in approach and attitude
• Understands and supports the vision and values of the Trust
• Acts as a role model for senior as well as more junior colleagues
• Team player, able to develop a culture that values colleagues and enables them to engage in problem solving and decision making
• Provides a role model for clinical leaders
• Proactive, resourceful and self-motivated
• Assertive and confident but professional & fair
• Strong sense of commitment to openness, honesty and integrity in undertaking the role

We strive to live by our WeCare values and are committed to promoting inclusion, where every staff member has a sense of belonging. We value our differences and fully advocate, cultivate and support an inclusive working environment where staff treat one another with dignity and respect. We aim to create an equitable working environment where every individual can fulfil their potential.

As an Equal Opportunities Employer we actively support applications from individuals' who apply under the Guaranteed Interview Scheme and will process your application as appropriate.

We reserve the right to expire vacancies prior to the advertised closing date once a sufficient number of applications has been received and we regret that we are unable to provide notification if your application is unsuccessful.

After applying via NHS Jobs, your submitted application will be imported into our preferred Third party recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs.

By applying for this post you are agreeing to Barts Health NHS Trust transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are offered a job, information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.

Barts Health is committed to safeguarding the welfare of children and to child protection. The Trust aims to ensure as far as is possible that anyone, paid or unpaid, who seeks to work in our organisation and who gains access to children, is safe to do so. As such, you may be required to undertake a Disclosure and Barring Check as part of the recruitment process if appointed to a post with direct access to children or vulnerable adults.

Barts Health promotes active travel as part of its goal to reach Net Zero. Each site is accessible by public transport and the Trust has a cycle to work scheme and some sites have Brompton Hire Pods.

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