Lead Clinical Safety Officer

NHS Band 8A Salary: £57,528 - £64,750 per annum

Hours Per Week: Full time, 37.5 hrs

Contract Type: Temporary for 12 months

Location Base: Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust Corporate Hub, Block 4000, Lakeside North Harbour, Western Road, Cosham, Portsmouth, PO6 3EN OR St Mary's Hospital, Parkhurst Road, Newport, Isle of Wight, PO30 5TG

The Lead Clinical Safety Officer provides expert, independent clinical safety leadership across Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust and Isle of Wight NHS Trust. The role ensures all digital clinical systems are safe to design, deploy, use and decommission, with full compliance to DCB0129 and DCB0160.

You will lead the clinical risk management process for Health IT systems, owning Clinical Safety Cases, Hazard Logs and all associated safety documentation. You'll identify and manage clinical risks, review digital related incidents, support root cause analysis and make clear recommendations on whether systems are safe to go live or require further mitigation.

Job description

Working independently of programme teams, you'll give objective assurance to senior digital leaders and communicate complex safety issues in a way clinicians and non-clinicians can act on. You'll provide clinical safety leadership across major digital programmes including EPR, diagnostics, interoperability and communications, ensuring safety is built into governance, testing and go live readiness.

The role also supports cross boundary digital safety with the ICB, primary care and partner organisations, ensuring safe information flow across the wider system.

This post is central to reducing patient harm, strengthening digital assurance and making sure clinical systems across both Trusts are safe, effective and fit for purpose.

This role requires a highly experienced clinician with strong clinical governance, patient safety and digital transformation expertise. The Lead Clinical Safety Officer must bring deep knowledge of Health IT systems, clinical workflows and human factors, with proven experience applying DCB0129 and DCB0160 in practice. The post holder will be confident analysing complex safety documentation, developing Clinical Safety Cases and Hazard Logs, and making clear, evidence-based safety judgements.

Strong communication skills are essential, with the ability to translate complex digital safety risks for clinical and nonclinical audiences. The role demands critical thinking, problem solving, and the ability to work independently while managing conflicting priorities across two organisations. Experience working with clinicians, managers, suppliers and multidisciplinary teams is key, alongside the ability to lead investigations, support root cause analysis and embed learning.

The CSO will provide clinical safety leadership across major digital programmes including EPR, diagnostics, interoperability and communications, ensuring safety is built into governance, testing and go live readiness. The role also supports cross boundary digital safety with ICB, primary care and partner organisations, ensuring safe information flow across the wider system.

This post is central to reducing patient harm, strengthening digital assurance and ensuring clinical systems across both Trusts are safe, effective and compliant with national standards.

For full job details and person specification, please refer to enclosed job description.

Person specification

Skills and Knowledge

Essential

• In depth knowledge of Health IT Systems, human factors and their contribution and control in the context of patient harm
• Meet the key competencies specified in Section 2.3 of DCB0160
• Knowledge and understanding of all legal and statutory matters in relation to the maintenance of clinical safety in the manufacture and adoption of IT health systems including the DCB0129 and DCB 0160 standards and requirements. Also, Data Protection Impact Assessments and Medical Devices regulation requirements
• Knowledgeable in risk management and its application to clinical domains
• In-depth understanding of the ways in which healthcare professionals use information in support of patient care

IT user-level skills experience in the use of digital systems in a clinical context

A thorough understanding of why and how errors occur in the development, deployment and subsequent use of Health IT Systems and how these can result in patient harm

Knowledge of measures that can be effectively applied to reduce associated clinical risk through the procurement, development and deployment of Health IT Systems.

Desirable

• Knowledge of project & programme management methodologies (e.g. PRINCE2, MSP, Agile).

Qualifications

Essential

• Current professional registration with a regulatory body within Health or Social Care (e.g. Medical, Nursing, Allied Health Professional or Social Care)
• Formal training in Clinical Risk Management and certification (DCB0129/DCB0160)
• Degree or equivalent knowledge and skills gained through any combination of alternative study or employment.

Desirable

• Risk Management Training.
• Quality Improvement training.

Experience

Essential

• Significant experience in clinical governance, patient safety, or digital transformation.
• Clinical Safety experience
• Risk Management experience
• Relevant clinical experience. (In depth knowledge of the practice of related healthcare, clinical workflow and supporting business processes).
• Experience of working with clinicians, managers and other stakeholders.
• Experience as a Clinical Safety Officer
• Experience of involvement in the specification, development, or implementation of information systems.

Extensive experience of managing conflicting demands from the various points of view and assessing the requirement of patient safety.

Desirable

• Experience of involvement in the specification, development, or implementation of information systems.

About the employer

Working as a partnership, both Isle of Wight NHS Trust and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust have a shared vision for excellence in care for our patients and communities; with a set of strategic aims underpinning how we will achieve this.

The single corporate service is delivered across both organisations. You may be based at either IWT or PHU and individuals may be required to undertake business travel between sites. For leaders managing staff across multi-site locations, you will need to be visible and provide in person leadership. The arrangements and frequency will be agreed locally.

The health and wellbeing of our staff is at the forefront of everything we do. We are proud to be able to offer our staff some fantastic benefits including our on-site Nursery, access to our free Beach Hut for those long summer days, our on-site Wellness Centre including a gym and a swimming pool, access to our fantastic staff networks including LGBTQ, Race Equality and DisAbility, and awards ceremonies to recognise your achievements. We believe we can offer support to all of our staff when they need it the most.

We welcome the unique contributions that you can bring in terms of your education, opinions, culture, ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity and expression, nation of origin, age, languages spoken, veterans' status, colour, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and beliefs.