Position: Head of Audit and Regulation
Location: National role, with regular travel
Contract type: Full time, 40 hours per week
Rate: £87,000 per annum + £3,000 car allowance
Are you an experienced regulatory professional driven to make a real impact?
This is an amazing opportunity for an ambitious and determined senior leader, who wants to shape quality and compliance at national scale.
Reporting to the Clinical Director, this role carries significant professional autonomy, influence and responsibility. It is designed for a leader who is confident operating at the highest level, respected for their regulatory judgement and motivated by building assurance systems that anticipate risk, drive improvement and ensure safety.
As Head of Audit and Regulation, you’ll lead the continued evolution of our quality assurance approach from inspection preparation to a continuous, intelligence‑led model.
Main duties of the job
About the role
As Head of Audit and Regulation at Exemplar Health Care, you’ll lead a team delivering regulatory style inspections, audits and deep‑dive reviews, ensuring assurance activity is proportionate, outcome focused and improvement driven.
You’ll provide authoritative advice on regulatory risk, inspection preparation and enforcement activity, and deliver intelligence that informs executive decision‑making and improves clinical practice.
No two days will ever be the same, but your day‑to‑day responsibilities will include:
Working collaboratively across clinical, quality and operational teams.
Ensuring learning from regulatory intelligence shapes training, policy development and service improvement.
Representing Exemplar Health Care with confidence and authority in external regulatory and quality forums.
Download the job description for a full list of responsibilities.
About us
Exemplar Health Care is one of the country’s leading nursing care providers for adults living with complex needs. We have 60 care homes across England that support adults living with complex mental health needs, dementia, neuro‑disabilities and physical disabilities.
As well as stable and secure employment opportunities, we offer great benefits and perks, and plenty of opportunities to learn, develop and progress.
Key responsibilities
Head of Audit and Regulation
Regulatory assurance and compliance leadership
Provide expert leadership on regulatory compliance across all external frameworks relevant to Exemplar Health Care, including CQC and associated statutory requirements.
Act as the subject‑matter expert in health and social care regulation, maintaining deep and current knowledge of regulatory expectations, inspection methodology and emerging regulatory risk.
Lead the development and delivery of a robust, intelligence‑driven regulatory assurance framework that provides continuous insight into compliance, quality and risk at home, regional and national level.
Ensure Exemplar Health Care is consistently inspection‑ready, with clear evidence of compliance, learning and improvement embedded in everyday practice.
Provide expert advice and guidance to the Regional Director of Operations and senior leaders on regulatory risk, inspection preparation, enforcement activity and regulatory correspondence.
Deputise for the Clinical Director as required, representing the organisation with credibility and authority.
Quality assurance framework and intelligence
Own and continuously refine our quality assurance framework to be outstanding, ensuring it is aligned to regulatory expectations, clinical governance priorities and strategy.
Ensure assurance activity is purposeful, proportionate and outcome‑focused, moving beyond checklist compliance to meaningful evaluation of quality, safety and lived experience.
Develop and oversee a national quality intelligence approach, triangulating audit findings, inspection outcomes, incidents, complaints, safeguarding, workforce indicators and service‑user feedback.
Identify emerging themes, systemic risk and unwarranted variation, and translate these into clear organisational priorities and targeted improvement actions.
Provide high‑quality written and verbal regulatory intelligence to the Clinical Director, supporting confident decision‑making and prioritisation.
Inspection, audit and review activity
Lead and oversee regulatory style inspections, audits and deep‑dive reviews, ensuring they are well planned, evidence‑based and consistently applied.
Ensure inspection activity drives learning and improvement, with clear ownership of actions, follow‑up and assurance of completion.
Support and challenge operational teams where quality concerns are identified, ensuring improvement plans are robust, realistic and delivered.
Ensure root‑cause analysis and learning from regulatory failure, enforcement action or serious concerns is timely, rigorous and translated into system‑level improvement.
Organisational learning and improvement
Work collaboratively with quality, clinical and operational colleagues to ensure learning from regulatory intelligence informs training, policy development, pathway design and practice improvement.
Contribute to the development and review of policies, procedures, quality tools and guidance, ensuring they remain current, usable and aligned to regulatory expectations.
Support the introduction of new initiatives that improve service‑user quality of life, safety and experience, ensuring regulatory implications are understood and managed.
Maintain a strong understanding of national quality challenges, sector trends and stakeholder expectations to ensure Exemplar remains ahead of regulatory and quality developments.
External relationships and stakeholder engagement
Liaise confidently and constructively with regulators, safeguarding partners, local authorities, commissioners, Healthwatch and other stakeholders as required.
Support the organisation’s response to regulatory engagement, inspection outcomes and follow‑up activity, ensuring responses are accurate, transparent and credible.
Represent Exemplar Health Care professionally in regulatory and quality forums where appropriate.
Leadership
Lead, coach and develop colleagues within the regulatory assurance function, setting clear expectations and building capability, confidence and consistency.
Promote a culture of curiosity, professionalism and accountability within assurance activity.
Work collaboratively across the organisation to strengthen shared ownership of quality and compliance.
Person specification
Qualifications
Senior leader with a Master’s degree or equivalent experience.
Substantial experience inspecting, regulating or improving health or social care services, and a proven track record of leading quality improvement across complex, multi‑site environments.
Registration as a healthcare professional is desirable but not essential.
From the moment you join us, you’ll be given the right support and continue to learn on the job during your career with us.
Induction: our welcome induction covers everything, from mandatory and statutory training to the things you need to know about the home/team you'll be part of.
Ongoing learning: you’ll have training in key areas such as moving and handling, safeguarding, person‑centred care, and infection prevention and control.
Regular supervisions and performance development reviews with your manager.
We ask that you:
Attend and complete your induction.
Take part in all planned training we offer, both e‑Learning and face‑to‑face.
Continue to learn on the job, especially during your first few months with us.
Go to your supervisions and performance development reviews when your manager invites you.
Commit to learning and keep your skills and knowledge up to date.
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.
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