Head of Midwifery – Quality Assurance, Governance and Compliance

• 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

Essential

• NMC registered midwife
• Masters level education or equivalent experience
• Post registration qualification with relevant Master's degree or equivalent and or working towards that includes leadership in the areas of Quality Assurance, Governance, Audit and Quality Improvement
• Trained in Root Cause Analysis with ability to analyse aggregated management systems. A sound understanding of principles of safety, quality assurance and governance framework pertinent to maternity services
• Ability to analyse information to extract key messages from complex national standards and develop an action plan within a specified timeline.

Desirable

• Recognised qualification in the field of quality assurance, compliance and governance
• Professional coach within the scope of Governance and Quality Improvement
• Recognised Leadership/management qualification
• Specialist knowledge in clinical governance and risk management
• Evidence of clinical research

Essential

• Leading and developing a large team
• Budget management
• Quality assurance
• Change management
• Complaints handling
• Experience of supporting a transparent and open culture
• Minimum of three years' experience at a senior midwifery leadership role

Desirable

• Involvement in committees external to the Trust
• Understanding of Medico-legal processes relating to maternity claims and inquests
• Spoken at national conferences

Essential

• Ability to build excellent relationships to support a culture of safety, compassion and equity
• Detailed knowledge of national maternity safety reports and frameworks
• Capable of working strategically
• Budget management
• Supporting development and growth of workforce
• National midwifery agenda

Desirable

• Involvement in committees external to the Trust
• Understanding of Medico-legal processes relating to maternity claims and inquests
• Spoken at national conferences