Associate Director of Quality (Patient Safety and Experience)

Associate Director of Quality (Patient Safety and Experience) Band 8d Main area Quality Grade Band 8d Contract Permanent Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week Job ref 387-CNO0622-NB

Site Group Post, therefore will be expected to work across NBT & UHBW sites Town Bristol Salary £91,342 - £105,337 pa pro rata Salary period Yearly Closing 30/03/:59

As an organisation we recognise the value of a healthy work-life balance. When applying, speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate flexible working, so your work life fits around your home life.

We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates as they are under-represented within the Trust.

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Job overview Are you ready to shape patient safety and experience across what will become one of England's largest Foundation Trusts?

University Hospitals Bristol & Weston NHS Foundation Trust and North Bristol NHS Trust are working together as the NHS Bristol Group, with the ambition to become a single Foundation Trust in Summer 2026. This transformation will enhance outcomes for patients, staff, and our wider communities.

We are seeking an Associate Director of Quality (Patient Safety & Experience) to provide strategic leadership across the Group. You will drive an integrated approach to human factors, patient safety, and patient experience-embedding safety science, improving experience, and generating insight that supports continuous improvement.

In this highly influential role, you will align people, policy, practice, and partnerships to strengthen how we work and the impact we make. You'll join forward thinking, ambitious organisations that value innovation, curiosity, and learning.

It's a dynamic environment with real opportunity to shape our future direction. Are you ready to make a meaningful difference?

Main duties of the job The Patient Safety Specialist will provide leadership, visibility, and expert support to strengthen patient safety culture, clinical risk management, and safety systems in line with NHS England PSIRF. The role depends on strong relationship building, influencing culture, and acting as a change agent across internal teams, system partners, and external agencies. Representing the Trust at strategic forums, the post holder will help align work with wider NHS and integrated care priorities.

A core responsibility is developing and overseeing systems that collect, analyse, and act on patient feedback, ensuring insights drive learning and improvement. The role will enhance safety mechanisms and work with divisional and corporate teams to embed best practice and compliance with governance and risk standards.

Working with the Associate Director of Quality (Insight, Clinical Effectiveness & Regulation) the post holder will use technology and data driven approaches to improve reporting, analysis, risk identification, and patient engagement, supporting the Trust's Quality Management System.

Given evolving NHS models and Group ambitions, the role requires adaptability, innovation, and awareness of emerging trends in safety science, digital safety, and patient and carer experience. The post holder will hold clinical registration and a safety related qualification, work autonomously, and deputise for the Group Director of Quality when needed.

Working for our organisation University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust (UHBW) is one of the largest acute Trusts in the country, bringing together a combined workforce of over 13,000 staff and over 100 different clinical services across 10 different sites, serving a core population of more than 500,000 people across South West England. UHBW has been rated by the CQC as 'Good' overall and our staff are proud to deliver excellent care to the people of Bristol, Weston and beyond. As a forward thinking multi award winning Trust and a digital exemplar committed to improving patient care, our world leading research and innovations are having a positive local and global impact. Our hospitals are spread across Bristol and Weston, join us and you can enjoy the very best of both worlds; city living within a stone's throw of the countryside or beside the seaside, both with easy access to all that the South West has to offer. UHBW is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. As an equal opportunities employer actively working towards a diverse workforce we aim to recruit and retain a workforce which represents the rich diversity of the local population at all levels and are committed to designing our services around the needs of individual patients and those around them. Anonymous information will be used from your application in order to ensure we're meeting our pledge.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities Please refer to the attached job description for full details of the main duties and responsibilities that the post holder is required to undertake.

Key Dimensions

• Staffing: Responsible for c. 42.0 WTE across the Group Quality patient safety and experience function.
• Budget: Direct budget responsibility for c. £2.5m, with wider influence over budgets linked to quality and governance programmes.
• Portfolio: Group-wide delivery leadership responsibility for Patient Safety investigation, learning response & action oversight, training and education, Human Factors strategic development and delivery, Complaints & PALS services, Patient & Carer Experience strategic planning & delivery, Sustaining and leading the development of patient and carer partners, supporting Digital safety practice - working collaboratively with CCIO, CNIO and digital safety leads
• Impact: Critical to achieving and sustaining "Good" and "Outstanding" CQC ratings, enabling corporate and clinical teams to gain quality insight for assurance and improvement to enhance care delivery.

Key Relationships

• Internal: Group Executive Team, Group Directors, Divisional Directors, Clinical Directors, senior nursing and medical leaders. Clinical and corporate functions: Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Pharmacy Teams, Tissue Viability services, estates, risk, digital, data and analytics teams, Emergency Preparedness, Resilience & Response (EPRR). Patient and staff networks.
• External: NHS England, Care Quality Commission, Integrated Care Board, academic partners, Health Education England, professional regulators (NMC, GMC, HCPC), Health Innovation network and other specialist networks, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), patient partners (including patient safety partners), voluntary/community organisations, patients, and carers.

Key Responsibilities 1 Strategic and Operational Leadership of Patient Safety and Experience

• Provide strategic leadership for the development and integration of Group-wide patient safety and experience strategic plans, policies and teams, ensuring alignment with organisational strategy (and national priorities).
• Working with the Associate Director of Quality: Insight, Effectiveness & Regulation, lead the management and continuous improvement of digital systems for patient safety and other types of incident management, PALS, complaints, patient feedback systems (including the Friends and Family Test) and contribute to the development and embedding of the Trust's approach to a Quality Management System.
• Working with the Quality Insights team, translate complex patient safety and experience data into meaningful narratives and insights that support clinical teams, inform executive decision making and provide assurance to the Board.
• Ensure that the Trust meets national best practice in its continued development of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) and implements a board approved Patient Safety Incident Response Plan (PSIRP).
• Lead the strategic development of Human Factors practice developing and embedding the principles, techniques and mindsets into quality improvement programmes.
• Lead the oversight and, where necessary, improvement of supplier performance.
• Provide strategic Leadership of Patient and Carer Experience Programmes to enhance patient and carer experience, ensuring alignment with national policy, NHS England frameworks, and trust-level priorities.
• Provide leadership and delivery oversight to ensure the collection, curation, and presentation of Patient Stories for use at the Board, in governance meetings, staff training, and quality improvement. Ensure stories are appropriately planned and delivered for impact, taking account of the trust's strategic direction, key areas of quality improvement and are gathered in line with trust policy.

2 Patient Safety Specialist role

• Lead, oversee and support patient safety improvement in the Trust and ensure that systems thinking, human factors understanding and just culture principles are embedded in all patient safety processes, working in line with NHS England PSIRF requirements.
• Support the fundamental principle that patient safety is everyone's responsibility and support the future requirement for patient safety to be a core element of all staff training.
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