Patient Safety Lead Reviewer

Job summary
37.5 hours per week.

Ready to use your clinical expertise to improve patient safety on a wider scale?

This is an exceptional opportunity for an experienced healthcare professional to step beyond direct clinical practice and into a strategic leadership role where your influence can improve care for patients across our organisation.

As a Patient Safety Lead Reviewer, you'll join our Quality and Safety Team, working at the heart of organisational learning, improvement, and patient safety. This is a role for someone who is passionate about understanding why things go wrong, identifying opportunities for improvement, and creating safer systems for patients, families, and staff.

You will have the opportunity to shape safer care across whole services and pathways, ensuring that every patient safety incident becomes a catalyst for meaningful learning and improvement.

Why this role?

• Bring your clinical knowledge, professional judgement, and compassionate approach into a corporate leadership setting.
• Influence Patient Safety strategy and quality improvement across the organisation.
• Work closely with clinical teams, senior leaders, patients, families and partner organisations.
• Lead complex patient safety investigations using system-based approaches and human factor principles.
• This role may not be eligible for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker route.
• Please note that Livewell may close the job advertisement earlier than the specified deadline.

Main duties of the job
Reporting to the Patient Safety Specialist, you will lead high-quality patient safety investigations and reviews, ensuring they are compassionate, evidence-based, and focused on learning rather than blame.

Playing a key role in improving patient safety and quality of care, working closely with patients, families, carers, and staff to ensure learning is captured and meaningful change is delivered. Collaborating with a range of stakeholders, you will identify opportunities for improvement. You will also contribute to wider quality and safety initiatives.

We're looking for someone who is passionate about QI and creating safer systems of care. You will have excellent investigative, analytical, and report-writing skills and can build trusted relationships with patients, families, and professionals. You will be confident communicating sensitive findings with professionalism and compassion, valuing collaboration, curiosity, and continuous learning.

What you'll gain

• Unique opportunity to influence patient safety across an entire organisation.
• Hybrid/flexible working arrangements.
• Opportunity to work with passionate colleagues committed to learning and improvement.
• A role that combines leadership, investigation, improvement, and strategy.
• Make a real difference to patients, families, and staff.

All staff are expected to be able and willing to work across a 7 day service.

About us
Livewell Southwest is an independent, award-winning social enterprise delivering integrated health and social care services across Plymouth, South Hams, and West Devon, with specialist services in parts of Devon and Cornwall. Our teams work in community hospitals, GP practices, sports centres, and health hubs.

As an organisation with a strong social conscience we are guided by our values, kindness, respect, inclusivity, ambition, responsibility, and collaboration. We focus on transforming services to ensure sustainability, while empowering staff and those we serve.

We involve the people we care for, along with their families and carers, in shaping the care they receive, striving to deliver the right care at the right time and place. Centering our work on individual needs helps people lead healthy, independent lives.

We prioritise employees' development, offering protected CPD time, training pathways, leadership programs, and funding for qualifications like the Care Certificate and Nurse Training Scholarships. Our induction and preceptorship programs ensure a smooth transition into our organisation.

Livewell Southwest values diversity and encourages applications from all sections of the community, including those with armed forces experience, lived experience of mental health, neuro-diverse conditions and learning disabilities. If you need assistance or reasonable adjustments during the application process, contact the Recruiting Manager listed in the job advert.

Job responsibilities

• Lead complex patient safety incident investigations in accordance with PSIRF.
• Identify systems learning and support quality improvement initiatives.
• Engage patients, families, carers and staff in compassionate investigations.
• Provide expert advice on patient safety, human factors and Just Culture principles.
• Support organisational learning, governance and regulatory assurance.
• Deliver training and mentorship to develop investigation capability across the organisation.
• Contribute to coronial processes, customer services, NICE compliance and CQC preparedness.
• Provide leadership and quality assurance within the Patient Safety and Quality Team.

Person Specification
Knowledge
Essential

• Ability to challenge and manage contentious opinions or conflict in a calm, compassionate and Just way - maintaining the objectivity and integrity of reviews and learning activities.
• Able to recognise when there is a potential conflict of interest or bias emerging and seek senior supervision and guidance to address this as soon as possible.
• Ability to listen and hear the distress of others in a measured and supportive way, signposting or supporting access to increased support where needed.
• Competence in using IT systems (e.g. Outlook, Word, clinical or other record systems) relevant to the role.
• Ability to deliver accurate and high-quality work within the agreed timescales

Experience
Essential

• Experience of working within patient safety and/or clinical risk field at a senior level (Band 7 equivalent or above).
• Experience of completing detailed and robust investigations into patient safety/clinical/risk incidents within a healthcare setting.
• Minimum of 2 years experience of working at a senior level in patient safety/clinical risk area
• Experience of engaging with patients, families, staff and external agencies in a positive and compassionate way
• Experience of presenting sensitive but evidenced findings from incidents to a diverse audience to promote learning and engagement
• Experience of working in partnership with patients, families and staff to inform improvements, share learning and explore solutions to patient safety concerns
• Experience of supervising and mentoring junior staff and students.

Desirable

• Experience of leading or supporting implementation of improvement using QI or continuous improvement methodology

Specific Skills
Essential

• Ability to prioritise and manage own workload
• Able to identify learning opportunities
• Able to organise own learning and development
• Ability to manage change Able to develop others within the team
• Excellent verbal and non-verbal communication skills
• Ability to develop effective interpersonal relationships with colleagues across health and social care settings
• Able to present information to professional groups and committees.

Qualifications
Essential

• Masters degree relevant to health or significant relevant equivalent knowledge and skills demonstrably gained through a combination of training and relevant significant experience.
• Professional Registration Recognised qualification or formal training in systems-based investigation including clinical human factors and ergonomics.
• Evidence or qualification in high level report writing skills.

Desirable

• Relevant MSc or equivalent level of academic study.
• Coach or mentor qualification Recognised qualification or formal training in PSII oversight.
• Recognised or formal training in Clinical Human Factors Teaching qualification

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Livewell Southwest is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all sections of the community.