Job Summary
We are seeking a dynamic and experienced Lead Midwife for Risk, Safety & Quality to join our senior maternity leadership team. This pivotal Band 8a role offers an exciting opportunity to lead and shape high-quality, evidence-based care.
Key Responsibilities
* Provide visible, compassionate leadership to midwifery and obstetric teams within the maternity & neonatal service
* Drive continuous quality improvement and ensure services meet national standards and local performance metrics.
* Collaborate across the multidisciplinary teams to learn from local, regional & national maternity & neonatal safety events.
* Lead on patient safety, incident management, and learning, with a focus on reducing inequalities and improving outcomes.
* Support innovation in digital pathways and contribute to research, audit, and policy development.
* Foster a positive, inclusive, and supportive working culture that promotes staff wellbeing and development.
What We're Looking For
* NMC registered Midwife with significant post‑registration clinical experience in maternity care.
* Demonstrable patient safety experience in a senior midwifery or relevant role.
* Sound knowledge of national drivers for maternity & neonatal safety
* Proven ability to lead and inspire teams, influence change, and deliver high standards of care.
* Excellent interpersonal, communication, and strategic thinking skills.
Main duties of the job
The Lead Midwife for Quality, Risk and Patient Safety Lead for Maternity/SCBU will be integral to the Senior midwifery/Nursing team within the Maternity and SCBU service and link directly with the Patient Safety teams working in the Division of Surgery, Women's Health and Children, and wider Trust.
The key purpose of the role is to support the National and local implementation of the Maternity Safety and Quality improvement agenda to create an operational and organisational patient safety culture that focuses on high quality care standards, preventing avoidable harm and avoidable death by using evidence‑based best practice, lessons learned and data to identify incident themes, and areas for improvement.
The post holder will work closely within the divisional structure for Maternity and SCBU particularly supporting the Maternity Safety Champions, clinical leads and Associate Director of Midwifery to deliver clinical quality assurance leading to improvement by providing leadership, specialist advice and information to the specialty and group forums.
About us
Based in the North East of England we provide a range of hospital and community health services from our leading facilities, including the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Blaydon urgent care centre and Bensham Hospital, all within Gateshead.
Established in 2005, we were one of the first foundation trusts in the country and since then have consistently achieved the highest levels of care for patients.
We now employ around 4,800 staff and currently provide 444 hospital beds across the Gateshead region.
Our values should be the 'golden thread' which runs through everything we do - they are the core of who we are. Our five values can easily be remembered by the simple acronym ICORE; Innovation, Care, Openness, Respect, Engagement.
We have a number of staff networks including the Global Ethnic Majority (GEM) network, D‑Ability network, LGBTQ+ Network and the Women’s Network, to challenge us and help us to constantly improve. Our Armed Forces network is one of our emerging networks.
The health and wellbeing of our staff is one of our highest priorities, and we offer a range of support and initiatives as part of our ‘Balance’ programme balancegateshead.com to cater for our diverse workforce, so that your individual needs can be supported, allowing you a happy and healthy working experience with us.
Job description
Job responsibilities
The post holder will take the lead for designated projects or programmes of work in relation to governance, safety and patient experience and promote awareness and understanding of the collective responsibility of all staff to improve patient experience and safety. You will ensure that Maternity/SCBU are cognisant of national standards and regulation in relation to maternity and neonatal care to ensure that it is proactively engaging staff to seek and act on feedback and deliver the safest, best possible experience for the women and their families.
* Assess, monitor and review performance to ensure compliance with external stakeholders such as the Care Quality Commissions (CQC), Maternity Incentive Scheme, LMNS and the CQC Maternity Patient Survey.
You will lead and drive the preparation for inspection or assessments by ensuring best practice is the norm and safety measures are live and responsive at all times.
Support and liaise with the designated medical Lead for Safecare to ensure the business unit functions effectively, according to an annual plan and in response to any relevant action plans.
Proactively lead the Maternity team to ensure the incident reporting system is effective and learning cycle is fed back and embedded with staff in clinical areas.
Be responsible for direct line management of specialist midwives.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
* Registered midwife
Desirable
* Leadership or teaching qualification
Experience
Essential
* Senior midwifery experience
Desirable
* Patient safety experience
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.
Certificate of Sponsorship
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab) .
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab) .
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Employer details
Employer name
Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust
Address
Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Sheriff Hill
Gateshead
NE9 6SX
Employer’s website
https://www.qegateshead.nhs.uk (Opens in a new tab)
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