Pathway Co-Ordinator

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen within the Patient Safety Team at King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust for a passionate and highly motivated Patient Safety Lead.

This role is key to supporting the Trust's understanding of systematic patient safety challenges, supporting the engagement and support of people affected by patient safety issues and the delivering of patient safety improvement interventions.

Main duties of the job

· To implement the strategic aims of the NHS Patient Safety Strategy across King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the wider system to continuously improve patient safety, namely;

o improving understanding of safety by drawing intelligence from multiple sources of patient safety information ( Insight )

o equipping patients, staff and partners with the skills and opportunities to improve patient safety throughout the whole system ( Involvement )

o designing and supporting programmes that deliver effective and sustainable change in the most important areas ( Improvement ).

· To deliver Trust-wide patient safety improvement activity and ensure that systems thinking, human factors understanding and just culture principles are embedded in all patient safety processes.

· To promote patient safety thinking beyond why things go wrong in healthcare (Safety I), to examining why things routinely go right and how that can be maximised (Safety II).

· To be a leader and subject matter expert for the organisation in regards to patient safety and safety culture.

Working for our organisation

The Trust provides a full range of local and specialist services across its five sites. The trust-wide strategy of Strong Roots, Global Reach is our Vision to be BOLD, Brilliant people, Outstanding care, Leaders in Research, Innovation and Education, Diversity, Equality and Inclusion at the heart of everything we do. By being person-centred, digitally-enabled, and focused on sustainability, we aim to take Team King’s to another level.

We are at a pivotal point in our history and we require individuals who are ready to join a highly professional team and make a real, lasting difference to our patients and our people.

King’s is committed to delivering Sustainable Healthcare for All via our Green Plan. In line with national Greener NHS ambitions, we have set net zero carbon targets of 2040 for our NHS Carbon Footprint and 2045 for our NHS Carbon Footprint Plus. Everyone’s contribution is required in order to meet the goals set out in our Green Plan and we encourage all staff to work responsibly, minimising their contributions to the Trust’s carbon emissions, waste and pollution wherever possible.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

1. Insight

1.1. To identify and triangulate insight from a variety of internal and external sources to identify emerging or developing patient safety risks or potential opportunities to improve or learn. This would include, but is not limited to;

- internal sources including quality information (e.g. Complaints, Legal, Freedom to Speak Up and Mortality/Medical Examiner) and operational and performance data.

- external sources including regional/national sharing of insight, National Patient Safety Alerts, Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) national investigations, Care Quality Commission inspections and guidance, Staff Survey results, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence publications and academic research.

1.2. To utilise and promote a proactive risk management approach to patient safety to identify and escalate potential risks to patient safety and where required to support or lead on mitigation work.

1.3. To gather insight regarding patient safety culture. This will include measuring and supporting the development and improvement of a patient safety culture across the organisation.

1.4. To support the development, introduction and ongoing use of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) and to have an in depth working knowledge of PSIRF.

1.4.1. To support the development and implementation of the Trust’s Patient Safety Incident Response Policy (PSIRP) and Plan .

1.4.2. To support the development, and promote the use of, systems and services which can support the compassionate engagement of people affected by patient safety incidents.

1.4.3. To promote, demonstrate and coach the principles of just culture, system thinking, human factors and transparency across the organisation.

1.4.4. To promote a continuous increase in effective patient safety event reporting and working to remove barriers, including the development of the incident management system and Learn from patient safety events (LFPSE) service .

1.4.5.To measure the appropriateness and effectiveness of responses to patient safety incidents, including measuring whether people affected were appropriately supported and involved in the response using prospective and retrospective approaches to prepare, test, review and improve the organisations processes and practices to respond to incidents.

1.4.6.To support staff to consider and carry out responses to patient safety incidents with the purpose of supporting system learning and continuous improvement in patient safety. This includes supporting Care Groups to develop effective PSIRF panels and developing and participating in Trust level panels.

1.4.7.To iteratively develop processes, systems and methodologies which support proportionate and effective responses to patient safety incidents.

1.4.8.To act as a learning response lead, leading on complex patient safety incident responses, including patient safety system investigations.

1.4.9.To support the translation of findings from incident responses into effective and sustainable local and Trustwide safety actions and improvement plans.

1.5. To promote the appropriate use of patient safety insight (including patient safety incident and incident response data) all levels of the organisation and to challenge the use of inappropriate measures.

1.6. To be actively involved in activities related to a safety II approach (understanding both work as done in the system and why things routinely go right in healthcare) and to develop insight and improvement programmes linked to safety II.

2. Improvement

2.1. To lead on priority Trust-wide Patient Safety Improvement Groups . This will include;

2.1.1.utilising system thinking and human factors principles in the design and delivery of improvement activities;

2.1.2.evaluating the effectiveness of improvement activities implemented

2.1.3.communicating improvement activities across the organisation

2.1.4.supporting adoption and spread of successful improvement interventions across the wider organisation and region where applicable.

2.1.5.ensuring groups have a robust systems based understanding of contributory factors to their theme(s) though;

- undertaking insight activities (e.g. thematic reviews and horizon scanning).

- proactively review system findings, areas for improvement and recommendations identified in patient safety incident responses related to the theme.

- review of patient safety incident data, including ensuring accuracy of data quality.

2.2. To promote and facilitate collaborative improvement activities across organisational boundaries, particularly with partner organisations across the South East London Integrated Care System.

2.3. To promote the development of Care Group and Divisional level improvement plans , supporting key priority improvement activities

2.4. To support Trust involvement, where relevant, with the National Patient Safety Improvement Programmes.

2.5. To identify emerging patient safety issues and recommend where relevant local or Trustwide improvement activities.

2.6. To lead on projects related to the measurement and improvement of patient safety culture , compassionate engagement of people affected by patient safety incidents and health inequalities .

3. Involvement

3.1. To collaborate with patient representatives and stakeholder groups, particularly Patient Safety Partners , to improve patient safety; promoting the use of the NHS Framework for involving patients in patient safety.

3.2. To promote the NHS Patient Safety Syllabus and encourage and support all staff to complete modules relevant to their role.

3.3. To design and deliver in house patient safety training programmes related to patient safety such as system approaches to safety, human factors, just culture, quality improvement, responding to patient safety incidents and compassionate engagement of people affected by patient safety incidents.

3.4. To deliver coaching to staff within the organisation regarding the practical application of patient safety principles and methodologies.

3.5. To work with and escalate to the organisation’s Patient Safety Specialist(s) to develop and embed a patient safety culture and safety systems.

3.6. To consider health inequalities and other equality, diversity & inclusion principles in all aspects of patient safety.

3.7. To promote the involvement of all staff and patients in safety, including the identification of system risks, response to patient safety incidents and improvement activities – with the principle that patient safety is everyone’s responsibility.

3.8. To network across the organisation, and wider region where required to promote patient safety principles. This may include attending ad hoc Trust-wide Safety Committees and involvement in organisational processes (e.g. estates, procurement) and Quality, Governance and Education processes as a subject matter expert in patient safety.

4. General

4.1. To role model best practice in relation to the patient safety principles, to act as a subject matter expert in patient safety within the organisation (and more widely where required).

4.2. To be a visible leader across the organisation.

4.3. To actively engage in continuing professional development in relation to patient safety (and other related skills described such as change and project management). To maintain up to date with patient safety principles and developments.

4.4. To be clinically credible based on experience and understanding of healthcare and patient safety.

4.5. To actively engage, and lead where requested, in departmental system and process improvements.

4.6. To utilise skills and experience to advance patient safety insight, improvement and involvement activities.

Person specification

Education and Qualification

Essential criteria

• Have completed Levels 1 and 2 of the patient safety syllabus and to be working towards, or willing to work towards, higher levels applicable to the role.
• Degree level of education and/or at least two years of relevant experience.

Desirable criteria

• Healthcare professional with a relevant clinical qualification and registration
• Training in patient safety system investigation methodologies.

Knowledge and experience

Essential criteria

• An understanding of the patient safety principles such as systems thinking, human factors, just and restorative practice, transparency and improvement.
• Knowledge and experience of leading patient safety improvement projects.
• Understanding of the NHS Patient Safety Strategy including the NHS Patient Safety Incident Response Framework.
• Clinically credible based on experience within a healthcare environment.

Desirable criteria

• Previous experience of working in a patient safety role.
• Experience of developing and delivering training programmes.
• Experience of leading systems based responses to Patient Safety Incidents (e.g. after action review, observational studies and systems investigations)

Skills and Competencies

Essential criteria

• Passion for improving patient safety.
• Ability to utilise quality improvement and project/programme management methodologies to implement effective, sustainable change.

IMPORTANT

• Check your email account regularly as this is how we will communicate with you
• If you delete the job from any of your accounts, you may be prevented from accessing further communications
• To enquire about your application or inform us of any changes in your circumstances, please contact the named person on this advert
• Please provide email addresses for referees where possible
• Please review the documentation on our recruitment microsite, particularly the Trust’s criminal records checking policy
• All staff have a responsibility for safeguarding children and vulnerable adults and for ensuring they are aware of the specific duties relating to their role.
• Please note that the closing date is given as a guide. On occasion, we might close a vacancy early due to a high number of applications being received. You are advised to submit your application as early as possible to avoid disappointment.

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King's College Hospital is part of King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC), a pioneering collaboration between King's College London, and Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts.