Head of Legal

Site East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust Town Canterbury Salary Dependent on Experience Closing 15/05/:59

Job overview

As Head of Legal Services, the post holder will be responsible for leading and managing all aspects of EKHUFT's legal Services Department, ensuring that there is a high performing, effective legal service that delivers best practice Trust wide and when engaging with external organisations.

They will provide strategic leadership and direction for the team to maximise learning and quality improvement in line with the Trust's long-term strategy. They will have overarching responsibility and accountability for all work carried out in the Legal Services Department.

The post holder will ensure the provision of a dedicated legal service within the Trust, developing and expanding the service to meet the Trust's changing strategic needs.

This role is open to development opportunities for band's between 8a & 8d

Main duties of the job

Legal Advice

To provide expert legal and practical advice on contentious, complex and sensitive clinical issues that arises within the Trust including sharing the emergency on-call advisory service.

To provide legal and ethical advice to the Trust Ethics Committee as required.

Court Applications (High Court/Court of Protection)

To provide expert legal advice as to when an application to Court is required by the law.

T o advise, support and keep updated Trust clinicians involved in legal proceedings.

To provide expert legal advice on contentious inquests.

To identify potential issues for the Trust and obtain clinical witness statements.

To advise, prepare and support Trust clinicians required to attend inquests.

To maintain good working relationships with the Coroners and Coroners Officers.

To communicate to relevant staff the outcome of an Inquest and, where appropriate, to prepare any formal response to PFD Reports.

Clinical Negligence Claims

To provide expert legal advice on negligence claims made against the Trust

Working for our organisation

We are one of the largest hospital trusts in England, with five hospitals and community clinics serving a local population of around 800,000 people. Our vision is 'great healthcare from great people'. Everything we do is guided by our values: 'People feel cared for, safe, respected and confident that we are making a difference'. We have a new way of working at East Kent Hospitals, called 'We care'. It's about empowering frontline staff to lead improvements day-to-day. We're looking for compassionate people to be part of our improvement journey for the patients, families and carers we care for every day.

Please note that if you require a Certificate of Sponsorship to work in the UK you must declare this on your application form, even if you currently have a certificate of sponsorship or a work permit for another role and are already working in the country. Please note we are only able to sponsor candidates on a Skilled Worker Visa applying for roles Band 5 and above.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To have final professional and managerial responsibility for all advice given within the Legal Services Department.

To act as the legal expert for the Trust, managing all aspects of the Legal Services Department, providing legal advice across a broad range of areas including clinical negligence, Coroner's Inquests, Insurance, employer's and public liability, consent, Powers of Attorney, Wills and other healthcare law issues. To ensure that the legal service provided is effective and provides value for money for the Trust.

To monitor and scrutinise all legal activity and spend across the Trust to develop a clear understanding of the needs of the Trust and costs involved, making recommendations where necessary to rationalise services

To be responsible for the management of all claims and inquest within the Trust, receiving, monitoring and ensuring compliance with the reporting and handling of such matters; analysing complex and conflicting information and seeking clinical input into clinical negligence claims.

To liaise with external stakeholders on legal matters, including formal negotiations to secure the most advantageous outcome for the Trust

To represent the Trust at court and Coroner's Inquests, providing support and guidance to Trust staff that may be called to give evidence and analysing/interpreting evidence in order to make decisions on the management of the inquest.

To be accountable for ensuring that the Trust makes an application to the High Court and Court of Protection in cases where legal protection is required for the Trust and its staff to avoid civil and criminal liability

To ensure that the Legal Services Department acts with the appropriate level of urgency, sensitivity and responsibility, in preparation of High Court/Court of Protection applications. This will involve analysis and interpretation of highly complex legal principles and application of these to complex factual matrices and negotiating and advising (involving comparison of a range of outcome options) on the resolution of these highly contentious matters, bearing in mind the desired outcome for the Trust

To be accountable for briefing to the Director of Governance, other members of the Executive Team (where required) and Director of Communications on sensitive issues that are likely to have significant operational and financial implications and/or may attract public and media interest.

To work with the Patient Safety team to determine any key deficiencies in care and trends through the analysis and interpretation of the complex data contained within the legal portfolio and to contribute to the identification of learnings so that these can be effectively disseminated throughout the Trust to improve patient safety

• To develop, revise and implement relevant policies in relation to all areas covered by this post, providing training and information (newsletters, the intranet and formal training where necessary).

Person specification Previous experience as Head of Legal

• Legally Qualified

Previous experience of building a leagl team

Filmed in William Harvey and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother hospitals, the 'We are the NHS' campaign highlights the extraordinary work that staff across EKHUFT do every single day. As one of the largest hospital trusts in England, with five hospitals and community clinics serving a population of over one million people, EKHUFT was perfectly placed to demonstrate the care, cutting-edge treatments, research, innovations and life-saving operations that the campaign needed.

There are lots of great opportunities at East Kent Hospitals, where staff are caring and put patients first, innovation flourishes and you can develop your career. We're on an exciting journey of transformation. With a new Medical School at the centre of our community, a focus on research, clinical leadership and making our trust a rewarding and friendly place to work,
there's never been a better time to join us.To find out more about east Kent visit our website at. The Trust fully supports the SAS Doctors Charter and is committed to their development through its CPD Framework.

We'll close this job advert once we've received sufficient applications which may be before the closing date so please apply as soon as possible. We only accept online applications. If you have any difficulty with this please contact our Resourcing Team on who are happy to help.

We have a relocation policy for eligible candidates, parking available at Trust sites but we encourage other options, like car sharing or public transport.

The Trust is committed to supporting flexible working to fulfil our pledge as part of The Trust's People Strategy to help staff to achieve a healthy work/life balance. Please speak with your Recruiting Manager for further information on how this can be managed alongside department expectations and requirements.

The ability to converse easily and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for all customer facing roles.

Most positions require a Disclosure and Barring check and will be exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. Posts working regularly or unsupervised with children or vulnerable adults require an enhanced check.

Applicants for eligible roles requiring Tier 2 sponsorship must meet UK Visas and Immigration eligibility criteria.

We operate a no-smoking policy on all our sites and grounds.

You can search for and apply for roles directly on our website.

If you are applying via NHS Jobs your application will be sent to our recruitment system TRAC. All subsequent information will be generated from TRAC so you won't be able to see the progress of your application or receive messages through NHS Jobs and we won't be able to respond to e-mails sent to us via the NHS Jobs website. By applying for this post you are agreeing to us transferring your application and details to our system. If you are offered a job information will also be transferred into the NHS Electronic Staff Records. Good luck with your application, we'll contact you via email so please check your junk/spam folders.

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