Quality & Compliance Lead

Location: North-East Essex, Ipswich & Norwich (travel required)

Reporting to: Managing Director

About Harley House Supported Living

At Harley House Supported Living, our mission is to make a positive difference to people and their families by delivering personalised health and social care that helps people achieve the things they want out of life. Our values are at the heart of everything we do:

• SAFE – Putting people first and protecting their rights.
• SOUND – Delivering high-quality, evidence-based care.
• SUPPORTIVE – Empowering people to achieve independence, choice and control.

About The Role

The Quality & Compliance Lead will be responsible for leading and coordinating the day-to-day Quality & Compliance function across Harley House Supported Living, supporting the organisation to maintain safe, effective, person-centred and regulatory-compliant services. The postholder will provide a visible and proactive quality presence across services, coordinating quality assurance activity, audits, compliance monitoring, action planning, data analysis and quality improvement. Working collaboratively with Registered Managers, the Operations Manager and other organisational leads, the Quality & Compliance Lead will identify areas of good practice, emerging risks and areas requiring improvement, ensuring these are appropriately reported, acted upon, monitored and escalated. The postholder will maintain appropriate professional independence from operational service delivery, providing constructive challenge where required while supporting managers to achieve and sustain improvements. The Quality & Compliance Lead will work closely with Harley House's Strategic Quality & Governance Consultant, providing evidence and quality intelligence to support organisational assurance and the Quality & Governance Committee.

Key Responsibilities

• Quality Assurance: Plan and undertake scheduled and responsive quality visits across services, triangulating evidence through observation, records, staff and manager discussions, and the experiences of people supported.
• Compliance & Regulatory Oversight: Monitor compliance with CQC standards, legislation, local authority requirements, organisational policies and internal quality frameworks, identifying and escalating significant risks.
• Audit Programme: Coordinate the organisational audit programme, undertake independent audits and deep dives, validate service-level audit findings, and identify recurring themes, systemic concerns and good practice.
• Quality Improvement: Work with Registered Managers and the Operations Manager to develop, monitor and challenge quality improvement plans, ensuring actions are completed effectively and improvements are sustained.
• Safeguarding Oversight: Provide quality assurance of safeguarding activity, monitoring reporting, outcomes, timeliness, notifications, themes, learning and improvement actions, while ensuring the voice of the person supported remains central.
• CQC & Inspection Readiness: Coordinate day-to-day CQC readiness, monitor regulatory evidence, identify gaps, support mock inspections and preparation for external assurance activity, and track resulting actions.
• Policy & Practice Compliance: Undertake spot checks to ensure staff practice reflects current policies, procedures and expected standards, challenging and escalating areas of concern.
• Quality Intelligence & Reporting: Maintain the quality dashboard, analyse quality data and KPIs, identify trends and emerging risks, and produce regular evidence-based reports and recommendations for the Quality & Governance Committee.
• Quality Indicators: Monitor key quality indicators including audit completion, non-compliance, overdue actions, incidents, medication, safeguarding, complaints, CQC readiness, outcomes, restrictive practices, staff competency, lessons learned and sustained improvement.
• Governance & Reporting: Prepare and present quality information to the Quality & Governance Committee, highlighting emerging risks, audit findings, action plan progress and areas requiring strategic challenge.
• Regulatory Liaison: Support the preparation and submission of information requested by CQC, local authorities, commissioners and other regulatory bodies.
• Professional Challenge & Escalation: Provide constructive challenge where standards, practice or evidence indicate potential risk and escalating significant or unresolved concerns through the appropriate governance arrangements.
• Document & Policy Review: Review policies, service documentation and relevant organisational materials to ensure they remain accurate, current, fit for purpose and aligned with regulatory and commissioning requirements.
• Record Keeping: Maintain accurate, organised and up-to-date records of quality, compliance, audit and improvement activity.
• Data Protection: Ensure personal and sensitive information is handled securely and in accordance with GDPR and organisational data protection requirements.

About You

• Passionate about delivering high-quality, person-centred care.
• Organised, analytical and confident working with data.
• Comfortable carrying out audits and producing reports.
• Confident communicating with staff, managers, families and the people we support.
• Able to challenge poor practice professionally and support positive change.
• A strong team player with excellent attention to detail.

Required Experience

• Level 4 or above in Health & Social Care, Leadership, Quality Management or a relevant discipline or demonstrable equivalent experience.
• Previous experience in a relevant adult social care environment.
• Good understanding of CQC regulations and regulatory expectations.
• Experience of Quality Assurance/audit.
• Confidence constructively challenging managers.
• Proficiency in the use of Microsoft programmes specifically Excel.
• Experience in data collection and analysis.
• Sound understanding of regulatory guidance for health and social care services.
• Full UK driving license with willingness to travel as part of the role.

Why Join Harley House?

You'll become part of a supportive organisation that values quality, continuous improvement and putting people first. You'll work closely with experienced leaders, develop your knowledge of quality and compliance, and play an important role in improving outcomes for the people we support. If you’re passionate about quality, compliance and making a real difference, we’d love to hear from you.