Job Overview
At Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust, we are proud to be recognised as one of the safest and highest‑performing maternity and neonatal services in the country. Supporting over 10,500 births each year, we provide care that is compassionate, clinically excellent, and centred on women and families. We are now seeking a Deputy Director of Midwifery, Women's and Neonatal Services to bring inspirational and transformational leadership to our team. This is a pivotal role shaping strategy, culture and clinical excellence across maternity, gynaecology and neonatal services—keeping the life journey of the woman central to all decisions.
The post holder will have operational accountability for workforce, service delivery, clinical quality and safety, financial control, and delivery of the Trust's strategy and corporate objectives. They will define objectives aligned to corporate goals, ensuring quality standards in Maternity, Gynaecology and Neonates are met, and addressing performance where required.
The Deputy Director of Midwifery and Nursing (DDoMN) is accountable for the delivery and performance of Midwifery, Gynaecology, and Neonatal nursing care within the division, ensuring compliance with care standards and regulatory requirements, including those set by the Care Quality Commission.
Working closely with the Divisional Director of Midwifery and Nursing, the DDoMN has lead responsibility for governance across Maternity, Gynaecology and Neonates. This includes oversight of infection control, health and safety, risk management, and managing serious incidents and complaints, ensuring actions are implemented and learning is embedded.
The post holder will ensure effective workforce planning, using national tools and policies, and advise the Trust Board on safe midwifery and nursing staffing levels. They will also lead on clinical standards, benchmarking, governance, and audit to ensure high‑quality care across sites.
The DDoMN will deputise for the Divisional Director at Trust‑wide committees and LMNS pillar meetings. Please note: Some roles may require weekend shifts at multiple sites.
* Provide expert advice on issues related to midwifery and nursing and strategic leadership and guidance for gynaecology and neonates.
* Demonstrate expert knowledge by being visible, accessible and using clinical skills within the workplace as appropriate.
* Work with the Divisional Director of Midwifery and Nursing, General Manager, and lead the Consultant Midwives, and Senior Clinical Lecturer in evidence based midwifery and Lead Nurses to ensure a consistent and high quality approach reflective of local regional and national recommendations to midwifery and nursing across the services, through collaborative working and the development of shared procedures and guidelines, supervising the auditing of practice and development of action plans.
* Lead the setting of standards for both clinical and non‑clinical performance in collaboration with the Consultant midwives and Midwifery and Nursing Matrons.
* Lead the continuous quality improvement programmes in place working collaboratively with the Divisional Director of Midwifery and Nursing in the delivery of the Care Quality Commission standards.
* Keep informed of national and Trust policies, especially those affecting service delivery and patient care, disseminating the information as appropriate.
* Responsible for ensuring the team implement a robust escalation policy to ensure service users are safe and have a positive experience across all pathways of care.
Professional and Leadership
* Support the implementation of a culture of civility and cultural safety for the entire workforce and service users, including issues related to anti‑racism, homophobia, transphobia, disability rights, sexism and other areas of discrimination engendering a positive safety culture across the division and wider Trust.
* Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of national, regional and local professional issues.
* To work in accordance with the NMC Code of Professional Conduct: standards for conduct, performance and ethics.
* Provide line management and development to the Consultant Midwives, Senior Clinical Lecturer for Evidence Based Midwifery, Lead Nurses and Matrons on the site whilst providing cross cover to the other site when required.
* Provide overall leadership for the midwives, gynaecology teams and neonatal teams.
* Provide professional leadership and development to the Lead Midwife/Nurse for the Kensington Wing.
* Provide professional and managerial leadership, by being a highly visible and authoritative presence ensuring the provision of high quality, responsive maternity services with the needs of the woman and her family placed at the centre of care.
* Support and facilitate the development of midwifery research.
* Lead on the formulation of establishments, underpinned by national workforce planning tools.
* Develop and implement annual workforce plan which integrates with the local delivery plan.
* Act as a senior member of the Divisional Management Team ensuring midwifery and Nursing input into strategic and operational decisions.
* Keep up to date with current developments in midwifery and nursing, ensure evidence based practice, and lead the implementation of the midwifery and nursing recommendations.
* Keep abreast of national recommendations and guidance with regards to maternity, neonates and gynaecology.
* Act as a catalyst for change, leading the development of policy, practice and staff in the delivery of all aspects of nursing and midwifery care.
* Develop systems to learn from and implement changes to practice arising from complaints, clinical risks, litigation and medication errors.
* Lead the Consultant midwives, Senior Clinical Lecturer, Lead Nurse for Gynaecology and Neonates and Midwifery Matrons, Lead nurses for Gynaecology and Neonates and the Infection Control team to proactively reduce hospital acquired infection.
* Engender a culture of respectful relationships at all levels and with all members of the MDT.
* Ensure registered practitioners are aware of, and comply with, the Nursing and Midwifery Code of Professional Conduct.
* Develop new skills and knowledge pertaining to midwifery and nursing as required.
* Take responsibility for self‑development through the appraisal system and work towards completing agreed personal development plan.
* Lead on the delivery of the Trust's Nursing and Midwifery Strategy.
* Lead innovation in midwifery and nursing practice using an evidence based approach to meet the needs of all staff and patients.
* Be an effective role model and able to represent the division organisationally and professionally.
* Provide strong leadership to the areas with respect to the management of professional issues.
* Ensure that appropriate action is taken to address issues of staff discipline, grievance, poor performance and sickness, up to and including dismissal.
* As a Trust Senior leader to carry out investigations of staff management issues in other areas of the Trust as requested.
Quality and Governance
* To be jointly accountable, with the Divisional Director of Midwifery and Nursing, for patient safety, clinical effectiveness, patient experience and risk management within midwifery, gynaecology and neonatal nursing.
* Leading and manage the resolution of maternity, gynaecology and neonatal complaints, conflicts and issues from patients, staff, suppliers, other internal and external service providers and partner organisations in a timely and appropriate manner in line with Trust policy, procedures and service delivery values and priorities.
* Lead investigations (or delegate) and the response to clinical and serious incidents, ensuring robust systems are developed and implemented to inform and improve practice.
* Lead on Divisional learning from incidents, complaints and patient feedback in maternity, Gynaecology and Neonates from lead nurses, matrons and ward staff to identify and agree completion of action plans.
* To identify Divisional risks to place on the risk register and monitor and update until agreed outcomes are met.
* Ensure there is effective reporting and assurance mechanisms via the Divisional governance board to Trust sub‑committees.
* Provide and deliver reports to Committees and Boards both internally and externally to the Trust.
* Ensure compliance with CQC and other regulatory standards and manage inspections and the actions from these across maternity, gynaecology and neonates.
* To lead and advise staff in how they gather, analyse, interpret and present relevant data and information.
* Lead on the Divisional Quality priorities and improvement to ensure these are implemented, embedded and audited.
* To lead and use research enquiry to plan, implement and evaluate concepts and strategies leading to improvement.
* To ensure the appropriate contribution of nursing to the Electronic Patient Record and other relevant data systems.
Performance Management and Service Development
* To lead, in collaboration with the Divisional senior leaders, in establishing financial controls and monitoring systems in relation to midwifery and nursing budgets, in particular, for temporary staffing use and expenditure (bank and agency), and recruitment and retention among professionals including nurses/midwives and therapists.
* Be accountable for identifying and delivering the CIP plan in your services on an annual basis.
* Ensure robust systems are in place to ensure the booking of bank and agency staff is appropriate and that the reliance on temporary staff is reduced.
* Responsible for staffing strategies in order to:
o Reduce vacancies
o Increase retention
o Decrease sickness and absence
o Decrease staff turnover
o Promote career development
* Ensure Human Resources Policies and Procedures are followed.
* Respond appropriately to major incidents, internal disasters and other significant events impacting on the care of women, birthing people and patients.
* Ensure that nursing and midwifery practices comply with Trust guidelines, policy and procedures.
* Communicate effectively at all times and maintain a harmonious working environment.
* Supervise the provision of adequate staff cover by monitoring duty rosters and re‑deploy staff as required to provide safe and effective care to all patients.
* Lead the effective management of performance of staff.
* Lead and advise on the recruitment, selection and appointment of new staff as required to maintain midwifery and nursing establishments.
* Recognise and assess risks making recommendations and leading change to reduce these risks.
* Lead and participate in investigations into complaints, clinical incidents and medication and blood transfusion incidents as they occur, lead improvements to practice as a result of these investigations.
* Work proactively with management staff to minimise risk and ensure compliance with Health and Safety legislation.
* Liaise with the Patient Advisory and Liaison Service and identify areas for patient and public involvement.
* Lead the patient involvement strategy for the services, ensuring opportunities to learn about service user experience are sought and opportunities to improve the experience of service users are taken through co‑produced pieces of work with service user groups such as the maternity and neonatal voices partnership.
* Ensure that appropriate systems are in place to collect data for quality analysis.
* Take the lead on staffing retention issues and the development of innovative strategies across the services.
* Supervise the quality of midwifery and nursing documentation and safe keeping of patient records in compliance with the Data Protection Act.
* Deputise for the Divisional Director of Midwifery and Nursing in their absence as required.
Please see attached job description and person specification to this advert for further details.
Recruitment Process
* Please check your emails regularly as this is how we will communicate with you throughout the recruitment process.
* If you have not heard from us within 3 weeks after the closing date, we regret that this usually means your application was not successful.
* In submitting an application, you authorise the Trust to confirm any previous NHS service details via the Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process, should you be appointed to the post.
* During the recruitment process your identity documentation (ie passport, driving licence, visa etc) will be scanned using a device which recognises UV, infrared and machine-readable zone security features of the documents provided.
* Employment at the Trust is offered subject to successful completion of a six month probationary period.
#J-18808-Ljbffr