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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 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 amplify our impact. 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?
Key Dimensions
* Staffing: Responsible for approximately 42.0 WTE across the Group Quality patient safety and experience function.
* Budget: Direct budget responsibility for approximately £2.5 million, 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.
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.
* Work with the Associate Director of Quality: Insight, Effectiveness & Regulation to lead the management and continuous improvement of digital systems for patient safety and other incident types, PALS, complaints, patient feedback systems (including the Friends and Family Test) and contribute to embedding the Trust’s Quality Management System.
* 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 the Trust meets national best practice in developing the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) and implements a board‑approved Incident Response Plan (PSIRP).
* Lead the strategic development of Human Factors practice, embedding principles, techniques and mindsets into quality improvement programmes.
* Oversee and, where necessary, improve supplier performance.
* Provide strategic leadership of Patient and Carer Experience programmes to enhance experience, aligning with national policy, NHS England frameworks and trust-level priorities.
* Provide oversight to ensure the collection, curation and presentation of Patient Stories for use at the Board, governance meetings, staff training and quality improvement.
2 Patient Safety Specialist Role
* Lead, oversee and support patient safety improvement in the Trust, embedding systems thinking, human factors and just culture principles in all safety processes, in line with PSIRF requirements.
* Support the principle that patient safety is everyone’s responsibility and future core element of all staff training.
* Act as a key component of a safe system within the Trust, influencing and accessing the executive team to address risks or issues promptly.
* Provide overview and influence over all patient safety processes, shaping executive team support for effective change management.
* Work with wider teams to ensure patient safety is prioritised and considered across the organisation.
* Build and sustain key relationships with medication safety officers, medication device safety officers, patient safety specialists in other organisations, committee chairs, divisional managers, governance leads, information governance leads, Freedom to Speak Up guardian, Infection Prevention and Control director, equality lead, patient support and complaints team, safeguarding leads and national patient safety and NHS Improvement teams.
* Develop and lead patient safety partner engagement (patient and public representatives in safety).
* Analyse information from national strategy, trust incident activity and staff skill mix to inform and operationalise local trust strategy, staffing structures and continuous learning.
* Act independently in determining policy and systems relating to patient safety across the trust, managing the corporate patient safety department and interpreting national frameworks for implementation.
3 Engaging with Commissioners & Regulators
* Participate in contract discussions with commissioners and other providers to develop and agree quality schedules in contracts on behalf of the Chief Nurse and Medical Director.
* Represent the Chief Nurse and Chief Medical Officer in contract quality assurance meetings.
* Provide robust and timely assurance information to commissioners that evidences the quality of services.
* Represent the Trust at national patient safety forums (e.g. NHSE) as required.
* Act as the Trust’s representative on the West of England Patient Safety Collaborative Board.
* Provide assurance of compliance with statutory Duty of Candour and regulatory compliance with CQC Outcome 12 “Safe Care and Treatment.”
* Work proactively with executive, operational and divisional leads to ensure readiness for CQC inspections concerning patient safety and experience.
4 Governance, Assurance & Compliance
* Ensure robust governance systems provide board-level assurance on patient safety & experience quality performance, statutory and regulatory compliance and clinical risk management.
* Lead mandatory reporting requirements (e.g. LfPSE, Complaints KO41) and ensure data accuracy, analysis and insight inform improvement actions.
* Maintain corporate oversight of risk registers for patient safety and experience, escalating concerns appropriately in line with the Trust’s Risk Management Strategy & policy.
* Produce high-quality reports for the Board, Quality & Outcomes Committee, Trust Clinical Quality Groups and regulators (CQC, UKHSA), evidencing compliance and improvement.
* Ensure learning from patient safety events, complaints/PALS and patient and carer feedback provides meaningful insight to drive sustainable quality improvement.
* Lead the contribution of patient safety and experience content for the Trust’s annual Quality Account, ensuring statutory requirements are met.
5 Leadership, Culture and Improvement
* Act as a senior role model for quality, safety and continuous improvement, promoting a just, learning and compassionate culture.
* Lead change aligned with Bristol NHS Group ambitions, supporting clinical and corporate teams through legacy approach transitions.
* Provide leadership, development and performance management for teams within the portfolio.
* Influence and support senior clinical and operational leaders to embed quality control and assurance into everyday practice.
* Manage budgets associated with the patient safety & experience portfolio, ensuring effective resource deployment for quality impact.
* Represent the Group at system, regional and national forums as required.
Person Specification
Qualifications
* Educated to master’s degree level in a relevant subject, or hold an equivalent level professional qualification or equivalent senior level experience.
* Registered healthcare professional (NMC/HCPC).
* Evidence of strong and recent commitment to relevant ongoing professional development.
* Completion of national patient safety specialist training (levels 3 and 4).
Knowledge & Experience
* Experience in a senior NHS management post with direct responsibility for strategic and operational leadership.
* Knowledge and experience of driving improvement in the quality and safety of patients.
* Experience of working in a patient safety related role for at least two years, understanding concepts underpinning safety improvement.
* Experience of patient feedback systems and leading effective review, learning and support for continuous improvement within clinical and corporate teams.
* Expertise in aspects of patient safety science such as human factors, systems thinking, investigation, quality improvement, change management, risk analysis and management, error theory and just culture.
Skills & Behaviours
* Ability to develop and communicate a long-term vision for patient safety, converting that into plans, objectives and deliverables.
* Highly skilled in managing stakeholder relations, establishing and using networks, and developing and maintaining strong relationships across an organisation.
* Resilient, adaptable and able to manage complexity and ambiguity.
* Ability to analyse and resolve complex issues, interpreting and evaluating multifaceted information to reach sound judgments and advise on implementation.
* Ability to develop, maintain and monitor information systems to support improvement initiatives.
If you apply for this vacancy and have not received a communication from North Bristol NHS Trust within three weeks of the closing date, please assume that on this occasion your application has been unsuccessful.
Please note that North Bristol NHS Trust does not reimburse travel expenses relating to interview attendance.
If you feel you meet the requirements of the Disability Act / Two‑Ticks scheme and require further support or advice, please contact us on tel 0117 414 1151.
North Bristol NHS Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
The successful applicant(s) will normally commence at the minimum of the scale unless they have previous NHS service at the same band. Progression through the scale is by annual increments.
At North Bristol Trust (NBT), we know diverse and inclusive environments lead to happier and healthier teams and improved patient care and outcomes. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong. We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are currently under‑represented in NBT’s workforce at Band 8a and above. These include people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, disabled people and LGBTQIA+ people.
Please note that stringent pre‑employment checks are undertaken on all successful applicants prior to commencement in post.
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