Head of Midwifery - Quality Assurance, Governance and Compliance

Job description

Fulfil your potential in hospitals that make history:

Charing Cross, Hammersmith, St Mary's, Queen Charlotte's & Chelsea and Western Eye.

With five world-renowned hospitals, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is full of opportunity if you are looking to develop your healthcare career.

We are an NHS Trust of approximately 16,000 people, providing care for over a million and a half patients from north west London and beyond every year.

We have a rich heritage and an ambitious vision for the future of our patients and local communities.

With our partners, Imperial College London, and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, we form Imperial College Academic Health Science Centre, one of 6 academic health science centres in the UK, working to ensure the rapid translation of research for better patient care and excellence in education.

We are proud of our heritage in innovation and we are early adopters of new insights in technologies, techniques and treatments for improving health.

Job overview

We are seeking an exceptional Head of Midwifery - Quality Assurance, Governance and Compliance to join our maternity senior leadership team and help shape the next phase of safe, equitable and continuously improving care for women, birthing people, babies and families.

The opportunity

Working with delegated authority from the Director of Midwifery, you will provide strategic and operational leadership for maternity quality governance, patient safety, risk management, regulatory compliance and assurance. You will bring together intelligence from incidents, complaints, claims, inquests, audit, patient feedback, workforce indicators, training, clinical outcomes, inequalities data and external reviews to identify emerging risks, set improvement priorities and provide clear assurance from ward to Board.

You will lead the development of robust governance systems, evidence packs, dashboards and improvement plans; oversee preparedness for external scrutiny; and ensure national maternity standards and recommendations are translated into sustained improvements in practice. As a visible, compassionate and authoritative leader, you will provide expert advice and constructive challenge to senior clinical and operational colleagues, represent maternity services at Trust, regional and external forums, deputise for the Director of Midwifery as required and participate in the senior midwife on-call rota.

Main duties of the job

• Lead the design, implementation and continuous development of the maternity governance and assurance framework, ensuring clear accountability, escalation, reporting and evidence of improvement across all maternity services.
• Provide senior expert leadership for clinical governance, regulatory compliance, quality assurance, risk management, incident oversight, audit, effectiveness, patient experience, complaints learning, claims and inquest themes and external review preparedness.
• Deputise for the Director of Midwifery as required, including representing maternity services at directorate, divisional, level and external assurance forums.
• Provide authoritative professional advice, constructive challenge and senior decision-making support to the maternity triumvirate, heads of midwifery, matrons, governance leads and multidisciplinary teams on quality, safety, compliance and assurance matters.
• Ensure triangulation of complex intelligence from incidents, complaints, claims, inquests, audit, patient feedback, workforce indicators, training compliance, clinical outcomes, inequality data and external reviews to identify themes, risks and improvement priorities.
• Lead the development of high-quality assurance reports, dashboards, evidence packs and improvement plans for senior internal and external scrutiny, ensuring actions are clear, measurable, owned and delivered within agreed timescales

Working for our organisation

At Imperial College Healthcare you can achieve extraordinary things with extraordinary people, working with leading clinicians pushing boundaries in patient care.

Become part of a vibrant team living our values - expert, kind, collaborative and aspirational. You'll get an experience like no other and will fast forward your career. Benefits include career development, flexible working and wellbeing, staff recognition scheme. Make use of optional benefits including Cycle to Work, car lease schemes, season ticket loan or membership options for onsite leisure facilities.

We are committed to equal opportunities and improving the working lives of our staff and will consider applications to work flexibly, part time or job share. Please talk to us at interview.

Environmental sustainability
Climate change and poor air quality is a health emergency that harms people's health and wellbeing and widens health inequalities. The Trust is also committed to reducing its impact on the environment by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to Net Zero by 2045. All our employees have a role to play, and we have an active green network that supports staff to act in ways that ensures that our services are efficient, sustainable and reduce our impact on the environme