Deputy Chief Nurse

Main duties of the role include:

• Deputising for the Chief Nurse and Executive Director of Allied Professionals across the full breadth of the portfolio, including representation at Trust Board, executive, system, regional and national meetings.
• Working with a high degree of autonomy, leading the nursing and allied professionals change programme to deliver the trust and nursing strategic objectives.
• Providing visible, compassionate and professional leadership across Moorfields, role modelling integrity, kindness, equity, excellence and psychological safety.
• Leading agreed corporate nursing portfolio areas, including safeguarding, infection prevention and control, patient experience and engagement.
• Providing strategic and operational leadership to strengthen clinical standards, professional practice, quality governance, risk management, assurance and continuous improvement.
• Working with divisional, corporate and system partners to ensure safe staffing, effective workforce planning, role development, education, digital transformation and professional development across nursing and allied professional groups.
• Ensuring that patient, family, carer, community and staff voices inform service design, quality improvement, strategic priorities and Board-level assurance.
• Supporting the Trust's regulatory, quality and safety agendas, including preparation for and response to internal and external reviews, inspections and assurance processes.
• Writing clear, high-quality Board-level assurance reports, drawing together data, risks, themes, controls, gaps in assurance and improvement actions to support effective executive and Board decision-making.
• Leading quality assurance meetings for agreed portfolio areas, ensuring that risks, performance, patient experience, safeguarding, IPC and improvement themes are reviewed, escalated and translated into clear actions.
• Participating in the senior management on-call rota and providing senior leadership in response to operational, professional or patient safety issues.

Strategic and professional leadership includes:

• Providing senior professional nursing leadership across the Trust, supporting the delivery of Moorfields organisational strategy, nursing strategy and quality priorities.
• Acting as a strong voice for nursing, raising the profile and impact of nursing within the organisation and across the wider system.
• Leading the development and delivery of agreed areas of the corporate nursing and AP portfolio, ensuring clear objectives, robust governance and measurable outcomes.
• Supporting the Chief Nurse in developing and implementing nursing and allied professional strategies, professional standards, education priorities and workforce transformation plans.
• Promoting a culture of compassionate leadership, equity, kindness, professionalism, openness, learning and continuous improvement.

Portfolio leadership includes:

• Providing executive-level professional leadership for safeguarding adults, children and young people, ensuring statutory responsibilities, governance, escalation, training, supervision, assurance and learning arrangements are effective and embedded.
• Line management of the Leads for Safeguarding, IPC, Patient Experience and Engagement, Lead for Major projects and Medication Safety.
• Working with named and designated safeguarding professionals, divisional teams, local safeguarding partnerships and system colleagues to strengthen safeguarding practice and ensure safeguarding is understood as everyone's responsibility.
• Providing senior nursing leadership for infection prevention and control, working with the Director of Infection Prevention and Control (DIPC), IPC team, estates, facilities and clinical divisions to maintain safe environments and high standards of IPC practice.
• On behalf of the Chief Nurse, convening and chairing performance review meetings following incidents related to infection prevention and control and safeguarding, ensuring clear discussion of contributing factors, learning, accountability, improvement actions and assurance requirements.
• Ensuring effective IPC governance, audit, surveillance, outbreak management, decontamination standards, education and assurance reporting are in place and aligned with national guidance and local policy.
• Leading patient experience and engagement programmes so that the voices of patients, families, carers and communities inform service design, quality improvement, strategy and Board-level assurance.
• Championing inclusive engagement and co-production, ensuring feedback is actively sought from diverse and underserved communities and translated into meaningful improvement.
• Ensuring learning from complaints, concerns, compliments, incidents, safeguarding reviews, IPC incidents and patient feedback is triangulated and used to improve care and reduce risk.

Quality, safety and governance responsibilities include:

• Providing assurance to the Chief Nurse that effective controls are in place for the post holder's portfolio areas and that gaps in assurance are identified, escalated and addressed.
• Working with the Director of Quality and Safety, Chief Medical Officer, Associate Chief Nurses and divisional teams to strengthen quality governance, patient safety, clinical effectiveness and regulatory compliance.
• Ensuring that portfolio risks are identified, assessed and reflected on appropriate risk registers, with clear mitigations, owners and review mechanisms.
• Supporting implementation of recommendations from serious incidents, patient safety reviews, complaints, safeguarding reviews, audits and external inspections.
• Using data, audit, patient feedback, workforce intelligence and quality indicators to inform improvement, assurance and decision-making.

Workforce, education, research and digital transformation responsibilities include:

• Working closely with the Director for Workforce to support nursing and allied professional workforce transformation, including role redesign, career pathways, succession planning, leadership development, recruitment and retention.
• Working with education, research and divisional colleagues to support access to pre-registration and post-registration learning, professional development and research opportunities.
• Supporting the development of nursing research, innovation, quality improvement and evidence-based practice across the Trust.
• Contributing to the digital transformation agenda, including EPR implementation and adoption, ensuring clinical workflows, professional practice and patient safety are central to digital change.
• Providing professional leadership and support to clinical informatics roles and maintaining effective links with digital clinical safety and digital medicine colleagues.

System leadership and partnership working includes:

• Representing Moorfields and the non-medical professions across North Central London, regional and national networks as agreed with the Chief Nurse.
• Building effective partnerships with integrated care system colleagues, higher education institutions, professional bodies, safeguarding partnerships, local authorities and voluntary sector organisations.
• Supporting work to reduce health inequalities, widen access, improve population health and enhance engagement with communities served by Moorfields.
• Influencing system-wide workforce, quality, safeguarding, IPC, patient experience and digital transformation agendas.

Management, finance and accountability responsibilities include:

• Line managing corporate nursing teams and specialist leads as agreed with the Chief Nurse, ensuring clear objectives, effective appraisal, professional development and compassionate performance management.
• Being accountable for delegated budgets and supporting the Chief Nurse in managing resources effectively within agreed financial constraints.
• Leading and supporting complex professional, clinical management, conduct, capability and investigation processes where senior nursing input is required.
• Participating in the senior management on-call rota and providing leadership during periods of operational pressure, escalation or incident response.

Professional Leadership includes:

• Leading the delivery of excellence in professional practice supporting the Pathway to Excellence accreditation and the shared decision-making councils programme.
• On behalf of the Chief Nurse, developing the revised nursing strategy/framework.
• Promoting the national nursing agenda with colleagues influencing change and advising on professional nursing matters.
• Being a visible professional leader within the organisation as a whole, modelling the leadership qualities of integrity, compassion (kindness), equity, clear leadership direction and excellence.
• Leading on complex disciplinary and other types of investigations and clinical management issues which require nursing input and supporting the Chief Nurse in the management of professional performance including disciplinary panel.