Governance Lead - Serious Incidents

Site Tolworth Hospital Town Surbiton Salary £51,883 - £58,544 per annum inclusive of Outer London HCAs Salary period Yearly Closing 23/02/:59

South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We provide a full range of local mental health services to the Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth London boroughs, as well as specialist forensic mental health services, including specialised services such as national deaf adults and CAMHS inpatients and OCD.

We are committed to providing high quality integrated health and social care for local people with mental health problems in South West London and more specialist mental health services for people throughout the UK. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as 'good' however we aim to be 'outstanding'.

Our Values

We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values; being consistent, compassionate, collaborative, respectful and open is at the heart of everything we do. Our mission is "making life better together".

When you join us, you'll be part of something special - an innovative and rapidly growing organisation that is helping to redefine the Mental Health, education and social care landscape in the UK.

As a Trust, we are happy to talk flexible working.

Job overview An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Quality Governance Lead to join the Trust with a focus on Patient Safety whilst supporting the complaints team as required. We are keen to invite interest from applicants from within the Trust, as well as externally.

The Quality Governance Lead will work as part of the Quality Governance Team and will be responsible for coordinating and overseeing quality processes, providing patient safety and patient experience expertise, demonstrating compassionate leadership, visibility and the continued development of the patient safety culture within the Trust. Promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion in all aspects of service delivery.

Main duties of the job We are looking for an enthusiastic person, who is highly organised, has excellent written and oral communication skills. You will be required to undertake relevant training to undertake patient safety/complaints investigations and reviews. You will also need the ability to present your findings of the investigations to a range of audiences. Liaising with staff and families will be essential to ensuring an open and supportive approach to all contributors to the reviews/investigations. We are looking for excellent time management and problem-solving skills, as well as an enquiring mind. The post holder will also be involved in other trust wide workstreams, such as involvement in Mortality & Suicide Prevention. The post holder will also need to have the ability to work collaboratively with peers within the team and the service lines.

Having experience of successfully investigating and learning from patient safety incidents, complaints and concerns is desirable.

The postholder will support the Head of Quality Governance with the implementation of the Patients Safety Incident Response Frameworks and the NHS Complaints Standards, ensuring an infrastructure is developed and maintained, to support patient safety and patient experience and ensure a comprehensive framework to continuously monitor and improve the quality of care provided to our patients.

Working for our organisation We are Proud to Belong at South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust.

We have expert services, a rich history and a clear commitment to providing the best quality care for those with mental ill-health. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as 'good' - we aspire to be 'outstanding'.

This is a great time to join us. We are transforming the way we care for our communities to support our mission of Making Life Better Together. We have built two brand new mental health facilities at Springfield University Hospital, which are amongst the best in the world. More developments are planned across our sites and services.

We are inclusive and diverse and strive to be actively anti racist. We want to attract people from all backgrounds and experiences to enrich the work we do together. We are proud to co-produce and involve our local communities in all that we do.

We offer flexible working, career development and a variety of benefits to enable a positive, welcoming environment in which our people and their careers can thrive.

Tolworth Hospital, Surbiton

To create the very best environment to care for our patients, this site's layout will be transformed in 2026 to add a number of wards to the existing three. Tolworth has a canteen and is near shops, the A3, Tolworth station, and is a bus ride from Surbiton station, with fast connections to Clapham Junction and London Waterloo.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities JOB SUMMARY:

1. To be responsible for the cogent investigations and reviews of patient safety incidents and complaints.
2. Undertake a key role in the handling and resolution of feedback that is received via patient experience feedback systems and the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS).
3. To support the Head of Quality governance with the implementation of the NHS patient Safety Strategy and Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) to support patient safety, patient experience, clinical effectiveness and improve the quality of care provided to our patients.
4. To support the development of appropriate improvement or learning in response to patient safety incidents in line with the PSIRF.
5. To be responsible for the identification of potential audit themes, trends, risk and learning opportunities arising from investigations and ensuring it is reported through governance systems and structures.
6. To be responsible for ensuring that there are effective and efficient systems to identify themes and learning from patient safety incidents, complaints and patient experience.
7. Liaise with functions across the Trust as appropriate and contribute to the learning within each Service Line.
8. Lead with establishing and running learning events, such as After Action Reviews.
9. To support development of key performance indicators and other performance management mechanisms related to patient safety incidents, complaints and patient experience data.
10. To provide advice, guidance and training to all staff relating to the PSIRF learning and improvement responses, requirements and outcomes and to identify learning and improvement needs.
11. To be responsible for contributing to the improvement of service user and carer experience through effective performance management of patient safety incidents and complaints key performance indicators.
12. To supervise and manage staff as required and manage matters under the Trust's Human Resources Policies and Procedures in accordance with those procedures.
13. To be a member of the Learning Group and take responsibility for the quarterly reports and join other working groups as required.
14. To be responsible for drafting Trust Board or Sub Committee reports.
15. To provide Patient Safety and Experience expertise demonstrating compassionate leadership. Visibility and the continued development of a learning and improvement culture within the Trust. Promoting Equality Diversity and Inclusion in all aspects of service delivery.
16. To support the PALS function and attend surgeries as required and ensure that feedback is recorded and managed appropriately.
17. To escalate complaints to Quality Matters when there are concerns over patient safety and attend to present the case. To provide direct line management of administrative staff within the governance team.
18. To lead on delivering the Patient Story to board as part of an annual rota.
19. To be a member of the Complaints Review Group (CRG) and complete associated tasks arising from this. This includes regular audits of complaint responses to review quality and compassion. Alongside other members of the CRG, to deliver training to Trust staff on compassionate complaints handling.

Person specification Experience

• Experience of managing teams in a mental health or performance management environment
• Experience of the use of data and performance management to successfully identify, plan, implement and evaluate risk, learning and a range of service needs of people with mental health problems
• Experience of service development/service review and leading on successful implementation of change
• Ability to manage time and working successfully in a high pressure environment
• Experience of successfully reporting, investigating and learning from serious incidents
• Experience of handling or managing risk management systems
• Experience of resolving and deescalating issues and analysing complex dynamics and risks
• Experience of giving evidence at Coroner Court
• Lived experience of mental health problems or difficulties
• Experience of audit
• Experience of working in a MDT clinical team
• Experience of monitoring budgets and business planning processes

Training & Qualifications

• Educated to degree level in relevant subject or equivalent level qualification or significant experience of working at a similar level in specialist area
• Post-graduate degree in Management Studies or equivalent
• Mental Health Clinical Professional Qualification or background
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