Senior Quality Governance Lead in Bradford

Closing date: 1st September 2026

Shortlisting to take place: Commencing 8th September 2026

Interviews to commence: W/C 14th September 2026 (May Change)

Are you a dynamic leader with a wealth of experience in Clinical Governance, looking for an opportunity to work with a fantastic team? An exciting opportunity has arisen to lead and manage our Quality Governance Team at a pivotal time in our organisational journey. We are seeking an experienced and forward-thinking individual to drive performance excellence in clinical quality, patient safety, and risk management across the Trust.

Working closely with the Associate Director of Quality you will play a key leadership role in embedding the Trust's strategies for quality, patient safety, governance, and assurance. You will ensure that delivering high-quality, safe care is recognised as the responsibility of every member of staff, supporting our ambition to become an outstanding provider of healthcare.

This role is focused on achieving measurable improvement outcomes through strong leadership, data-driven insights, and continuous learning. You will lead the Trust's approach to quality governance, ensuring robust, effective arrangements that meet the requirements of regulatory bodies and commissioners, while driving a culture that goes beyond compliance to continuous improvement.

Main duties of the job

• Support and further develop a culture that empowers staff to continuously improve care and outcomes;
• Build on existing structures to enhance and sustain high-quality care across the organisation;
• Align quality governance systems with corporate governance to ensure consistency, efficiency, and impact;
• Provide visible, credible leadership across the Trust on quality, risk, and patient safety;
• Translate learning from patient safety incidents, clinical negligence claims, and other sources into meaningful and sustainable improvements.

As part of the Quality Team, you will provide expert governance leadership within an acute hospital setting and contribute to the Trust-wide on-call rota. You will act as a trusted advisor and subject matter expert, championing a proactive, high-performing culture where innovation and accountability thrive.

The role involves overseeing the Trust's governance and patient safety systems, leading incident response processes, and ensuring learning from incidents, claims, and inquests is embedded across services. The post holder works closely with clinical teams and senior stakeholders to improve quality, manage risks, and drive compliance with national standards. They also lead the Quality Governance Team, deliver reporting to the Board, and support staff development through training, engagement, and improvement programmes.

About us

Do you have excellent communication skills, strong experience in governance and assurance, and a track record of leading teams and driving improvement? Are you adept at identifying and embedding learning from patient safety insights?

This is an exciting time to join the Quality Team as we continue to evolve our approach to continuous improvement and organisational learning--offering you the opportunity to make a real and lasting impact on patient care.

Our People Charter outlines the behaviours we can expect from one another and what you can expect from Bradford Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust:

• We value people
• We are one team
• We care

We're keen to meet people who share these values and are passionate about delivering the highest quality of care to our patients.

Job responsibilities

The Senior Quality Governance Lead provides expert leadership on risk, patient safety, and governance. The role ensures the effective delivery of the Trust's Risk Management Strategy and Patient Safety Incident Response Framework, embedding systems thinking, human factors, and a being fair approach. The post holder supports the development of safe systems of care, promotes continuous learning, and provides assurance to the Trust Board regarding quality and compliance.

Key responsibilities include:

• Lead the development and implementation of clinical governance, patient safety, and quality assurance strategies.
• Support the Associate Director of Quality in delivering organisational objectives and maintaining regulatory compliance.
• Provide leadership to the Quality Governance Team and oversee incident response systems.
• Embed a Trust-wide culture where quality and safety are prioritised by all staff.

Patient Safety and Risk Management:

• Oversee patient safety incident investigations, ensuring fairness, consistency, and learning.
• Lead the implementation of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework.
• Conduct thematic analysis of incidents, claims, and inquests to identify risks and improvement actions.
• Ensure effective risk escalation, governance processes, and safety assurance mechanisms.

Governance and Compliance:

• Maintain systems and processes to support CQC registration and regulatory compliance.
• Develop and monitor governance frameworks and assurance systems across the Trust.
• Support production of Quality Accounts, Board reports, and quality dashboards.
• Ensure policies align with national patient safety strategies and frameworks.

Stakeholder Engagement and Communication:

• Work collaboratively with internal teams, regulators, and external partners including NHS bodies and local authorities.
• Engage clinical and non-clinical staff to drive governance improvements.
• Produce high-quality reports, data analysis, and recommendations for senior leadership.
• Foster a culture of open communication and psychological safety.

Quality Improvement:

• Lead and support Trust-wide patient safety improvement programmes.
• Promote continuous improvement through training, learning, and development initiatives.
• Use data and intelligence to inform decision-making and service redesign.

Operational Management:

• Oversee staffing, budgets, and resources within the Quality Governance function.
• Ensure effective performance management and delivery of team objectives.
• Manage reporting systems, data accuracy, and governance processes.

N.B this is not exhaustive.

Person Specification

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working in a senior governance or safety/risk related role.
• Demonstrable evidence of developing and leading change management processes for the benefit of patients and service users.
• Success in working collaboratively across multi-disciplinary teams and services.
• Experience of leading / working in a patient safety role (Governance in an acute NHS Trust).
• Significant demonstrable experience in senior management in healthcare (to include acute care).
• Proven ability to develop and communicate a long-term vision for patient safety and convert that into plans, objectives and deliverables for the organisation.
• Have previous experience / responsibility for clinical governance systems (NHS governance).
• Lead and manage multiple teams.

Desirable

• Significant demonstrable experience in senior management in healthcare (to include acute care).
• Significant experience of working in a clinical operational role in the NHS.

Skills

Essential

• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Ability to effectively organise workload.
• Ability to work collaboratively with staff at all levels across the Trust and with external stakeholders and committed to teamwork.
• Reliable, Punctual, Self-motivated.
• Able to work effectively as a member of a small team or on own initiative.
• Be able to take a flexible approach.
• Ability to consistently meet tight deadlines.
• Committed to work openly with others.
• Competent in use of Microsoft Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook.
• Ability to deal with changing priorities, work under pressure, and work to tight deadlines and flexible.
• Ability to motivate, empower and facilitate teams from different professional disciplines to be proactive.

Knowledge and training

Essential

• Demonstrable understanding of NHS governance and risk frameworks and requirements.
• Demonstrable understanding of the NHS regulatory and Assurance frameworks under which NHS Foundation Trusts operate.
• Working knowledge of national policy and ability to research good practice solutions to its implementation.
• Understanding of Information Governance and Confidentiality.
• Understanding of equality and diversity issues and how this affects patients, visitors and staff.
• Understanding of what the NHS Constitution means to you, and your responsibilities to the public, patients and colleagues.
• Development of committees & groups involving multi-professional relationships.

Desirable

• Organisation of Risk Management and corporate governance in a large acute trust setting.
• A sound knowledge of the Health Service and the way in which the Clinical and non-clinical professions interact.

Qualifications

Essential

• Current Professional Registration e.g. RN, RMN etc.
• Health related Degree.
• Educated to Masters Level in a related subject or equivalent experience working at a senior level.
• Evidence of continuous professional and personal development.
• Flexible, adaptable, resourceful.
• Enthusiastic, committed.
• Willing to take leadership role.
• Ability to manage own and others time to prioritise and achieve key objectives and organisational demand.
• Satisfactory attendance and timekeeping record.

Desirable

• Business/Project Management qualification, or/and significant demonstrable experience in an acute care environment.

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.

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website.