About KSS PSC

Kent Surrey Sussex (KSS) Patient Safety Collaborative (PSC) is part of Kent Surrey Sussex Academic Health Science Network (KSS AHSN) supporting the delivery of NHSEI Safety Improvement Programmes.  These safety improvement programmes of work include Maternity & Neonatal, Care Homes, Safe Medicines, Systems Safety and Mental Health. If you are appointed as part of the team, you will lead on either Maternity & Neonatal or System Safety workstreams, working with individuals, teams, organisations and networks, assisting staff to improve patient safety, using Quality Improvement (QI), Scale Up, Project Management and Networking tools and expertise. We are excited to be able to offer an opportunity to advocate for these NHSEI programmes.

Our ambition is to develop QI capability, champion the development of a safe and ‘just culture’, encourage patient, family and carer involvement and the spread and adoption of positively evaluated initiatives.

About you and the roles

We are currently recruiting for two Programme Managers to join our dynamic Patient Safety Collaborative team.

These roles are offered on a full-time (37.5 hrs per week, basis). Initially, the appointments will be made on a Fixed Term Contract, for a period of 18 months, on KSS AHSN Terms. We will, however, consider applications for AfC secondments, at Band 8a. To be clear, KSS AHSN is not an AfC employer.

The successful candidates will predominantly work remotely, but cover the whole Kent, Surrey, Sussex and geography. KSS AHSN works upon a hybrid basis and the role holders will be expected to periodically travel to meetings and conduct site visits, within the KSS patch.

One Programme Manager is required specifically to work within our Maternity & Neonatal workstreams. The other Programme Manager is required to work specifically within our Systems Safety workstreams. Both posts will support each other and the wider team in enabling collective QI capacity & capability building across the KSS region.

Essential elements for either of these roles are quality improvement and project management experience.  You will have experience in delivering QI within an organisation and will perhaps be looking to expand your experience in working across a regional footpath.

You will work towards achieving aspects of the NHS Improvement Specification contract and network implementation plan (NIP), which is currently commissioned to March 2023 and you will be focused upon leading programmes as indicated above within that commission.

Here's a taste of what you'll do, in either role:

• Be responsible for supporting the delivery of a national programme; planning and delivering specific QI and spread projects and must be comfortable using a range of improvement, scale-up and project management techniques to deliver and monitor milestones and outcomes of work. 

• Your work will include undertaking diagnostics, supporting small tests of change (for example with PDSA cycles) and facilitating teams to use the measurement for improvement.

• To deliver regular virtual (and eventual face to face) events supporting our programmes through their improvement cycles e.g. 'Breakthrough Series' .

• Create great working relationships with teams in organisations participating in Patient Safety Collaborative programmes.

• Building expertise, trust and commitment to the goals of the projects and programmes within the Collaborative.

• Create and exploit links between clinical teams, industry and academia wherever it aides the delivery of the project and programme goals.

• Build strong relationships with other PSCs and contribute to the success of the national PSC Network.

• Make a contribution to the sales pipeline through projects and programmes to generate income for KSS AHSN to ensure long-term sustainability. 

• Ensure that any risks relating to the delivery of programmes (including risks to the programme delivering within budget) are managed wherever possible and/or proactively alerted to the Senior Programme Manager (s) / PSC Portfolio Lead and Service Delivery Director.

• Identify examples of best practices and solutions that can be shared and networked.

** It is strongly advised that you review the associated job descriptions of the Maternity & Neonatal and System Safety roles (both appearing at Appendix A), before making your application.**

Your skills and expertise

You'll be the right person for this job if:

• You have a background of clinical experience or will have had significant interaction with clinicians and health & social care systems.

• You're passionate about solving problems, no matter if they're big or small; and have a strong mindset of getting things done.

• You actively identify opportunities, deliver improvements, and proactively implement and follow QI project/programme management methodologies and processes.

• You are great at managing expectations, as well as influencing and facilitating to ensure delivery of the highest quality service. This includes soliciting and acting upon stakeholder feedback.

• You have great communication skills (verbal and written), especially when it comes to communicating and documenting programme statuses and recommendations to stakeholders and team members.

Key terms and benefits

You'll benefit from:

• A competitive salary, with full-time hours of work at 37.5 hrs per week, excluding lunch breaks.

• A starting rate of 33 days annual leave (pro-rata), rising to 35 days after five years.

• We offer flexible working and flexible working hours.

• The company currently offers a tax-efficient salary sacrifice scheme with any registered pension scheme, as specified by the employee.

• A workplace pension scheme is also offered to AHSN staff and if you meet the criteria, you will be automatically enrolled into the AHSN pension scheme when you join the organisation at month 1. 

• KSS AHSN values the health and wellbeing of its staff.   We pride ourselves in maintaining this organisational value and encourage a healthy work/life balance for our entire workforce. 

Further details can be found in our key terms of employment.

Next steps

All you need to do is start the process by clicking on the blue button on the top right.

You’ll answer some questions that are related to your day-to-day job. After the job closes, your answers will go through our sift process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers.

If you are shortlisted, we’ll invite you to the next step, which will be a formal interview, conducted remotely, via Teams.

We love giving feedback, so at the end of the application process we will share how well you performed.

The closing date of this recruitment is Easter Monday 18th April at 23:59 hrs.

We expect to be inviting successfully shortlisted applicants to first stage (remote) interviews in early May.

Values and behaviours

Our values and behaviours are important to us.  We have developed a clear vision for the direction of the company.  In conjunction with our staff, we have developed a values and behaviours framework, in order to underpin our vision, applicants and employees will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to these values and behaviours, which will be assessed through the recruitment, selection and appraisal processes.

Diversity and Equal Opportunities

We are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.

Along with all 15 AHSN’s in the AHSN Network, we are signed up to a series of pledges to further underpin our diversity and innovation agenda.

** STRICTLY NO AGENCIES.  THANK YOU **

For further information on how we treat your personal data, we strongly urge you to review our General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Privacy notice for job applicants which can also be found at the KSS AHSN website.