Divisional governance manager

Divisional Governance Manager

The closing date is 25 June 2026

The Divisional Governance Manager is a senior leadership role within the Governance team, providing expert compliance and assurance across all aspects of clinical governance, quality, and patient safety.

The post holder will act as a key adviser to the Divisional Triumvirate, ensuring that robust governance frameworks are embedded into operational practice and that the division consistently meets statutory, regulatory, and organisational requirements.

The role requires advanced analytical capability, strong leadership presence, and the ability to influence senior clinical and managerial colleagues. The post holder will work across both Northampton General Hospital and Kettering General Hospital sites to ensure a consistent and effective governance approach across the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire NHS Group.

Main duties of the job

• Provide strategic leadership and expert advice on all aspects of divisional clinical governance, quality improvement, and patient safety.
• Support and report into Divisional Governance meetings, ensuring effective oversight, risk escalation, and assurance.
• Lead the production and presentation of high‑quality governance and assurance reports for senior leaders, Trust committees, and external bodies.
• Analyse complex governance, quality, and safety data to identify emerging risks, trends, and improvement opportunities.
• Oversee divisional compliance with CQC and other regulatory requirements, including monitoring and assurance of improvement plans.
• Coordinate PSIRF learning responses and support safety actions.
• Support services to maintain effective risk registers and embed risk management within operational practice.
• Undertake horizon scanning of local, national, and regulatory intelligence to inform governance priorities.
• Lead and support preparation for and external assurance visits, inspections and reviews.
• Line‑manage governance facilitators and support their development.
• Deputise for the Head of Clinical Effectiveness as required and provide cross‑cover where needed.

Job responsibilities

The Divisional Governance Manager is responsible for the design, implementation and continuous improvement of governance frameworks that support high‑quality, safe patient care across the division.

The post holder will support Divisional Governance meetings to be effective, well‑documented and focused on improving quality and safety, with clear escalation of risks and issues through Trust governance structures. They will oversee the production of governance reports, providing assurance to senior leadership and the Trust Board on quality, safety and compliance.

Using advanced analytical skills, the role involves interpreting highly complex and sensitive information from multiple sources, including incident data, audits, patient safety reviews, regulatory reports and performance metrics. The post holder will support the identification of emerging risks and trends, benchmark performance and translate insights into practical improvement actions.

The role includes coordinating learning responses from patient safety incidents in line with PSIRF, supporting reviews for moderate and above incidents, and ensuring learning and safety actions are delivered and evidenced within agreed timescales. The post holder will work closely with services to embed and sustain learning.

The Divisional Governance Manager will coordinate horizon scanning activities to identify national, regional and regulatory developments that may impact quality or safety.

The post holder will play a central role in supporting regulatory compliance, including monitoring CQC improvement plans, producing regular assurance reports (including monthly reports to external review groups) and coordinating evidence for external inspections and assurance visits.

Line management responsibility includes providing leadership and development support to governance facilitators.

Person Specification

Education

• Educated to Masters level or equivalent level of education, training or experience.
• Professional Clinical Qualification.
• Risk management / Governance qualification or evidence of professional development in this specialty.

Knowledge and experience

• Strong understanding of governance, compliance and assurance.
• Strong understanding of patient safety concepts and quality improvement methodologies including PSIRF or similar frameworks.
• Experience of robust writing of reports or briefing papers.
• Ability to manage a diverse workload and meet set deadlines.
• Experience of NHS information.
• Experience supporting investigations, root cause analysis, thematic reviews and compliance audits in a healthcare setting.

Skills

• Proactive, creative and flexible approach, able to work on own initiative and take responsibility for delegated areas of responsibility.
• Ability to analyse data, draw conclusions and provide recommendations.
• Good analytical report writing and presentation skills, able to manipulate data from a variety of sources and present in the most appropriate format (map, chart, table, graph etc.).
• Ability to work co‑operatively with both clinical and non‑clinical staff, including other management teams within the Trust, and to develop effective working relationships.
• Strong negotiation and influencing skills with the ability to motivate and engage individuals and teams.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Address

Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust