Director of Clinical Governance in Woking

This is a senior, strategic role at the heart of our organisation, providing expert leadership to ensure the highest standards of clinical quality, safety and professional practice across a diverse and evolving portfolio of services. Working as part of the Executive Team, you will lead our approach to clinical governance, patient safety, safeguarding, and workforce competency, ensuring robust systems are in place that support safe, effective and compassionate care. You will play a key role in strengthening our culture of learning, continuous improvement and openness. This role is open to experienced clinicians from all professional backgrounds who bring credibility, leadership and a passion for improving patient care. You will work closely with the Medical Director and senior leaders, influencing practice at both organisational and system level.

Main duties of the job:

• You will provide senior clinical leadership for governance, patient safety and professional practice across the Federation, ensuring systems are robust, effective and continuously improving.
• The role focuses on setting and embedding high standards of care, supporting clinical teams to deliver safe and effective services, and ensuring that learning from incidents, feedback and audit leads to meaningful change.
• You will oversee safeguarding, clinical supervision, and workforce competency frameworks, ensuring staff are supported, developed and working within safe scopes of practice.
• Working closely with the Medical Director and senior leaders, you will provide expert advice on clinical risk and quality, contribute to strategic decision‑making, and support service development.
• You will also play a key role in regulatory assurance, including CQC readiness, and represent the organisation within wider system and partnership forums.

This is a highly collaborative role requiring strong leadership, influencing skills and the ability to work across professional and organisational boundaries to improve patient outcomes.

About us:

North West Surrey Integrated Care Services (NICS) is a GP Federation bringing together 37 member practices to deliver high‑quality, patient‑centred primary care services at scale across North West Surrey. Together, we serve a population of approximately 370,000 patients, working collaboratively to meet growing demand and improve access to care. NICS plays a key role in supporting general practice and the wider health and care system. We design and deliver innovative, GP‑led services that complement traditional primary care, including enhanced access, urgent treatment services, home visiting and multidisciplinary community‑based care. Our purpose is to provide high‑quality, responsive and compassionate healthcare while supporting our member practices to remain sustainable in an increasingly complex healthcare environment. By working at scale, we are able to improve integration between services, enhance patient experience and ensure consistent standards of care across our network. NICS contributes to system‑wide priorities including improving population health, reducing inequalities and delivering more joined‑up, out‑of‑hospital care. We are committed to a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement and clinical excellence. Our values centre on working together for patients, delivering high‑quality care, and ensuring that every individual patient and staff member is respected and supported.

Job responsibilities:

• Provide senior clinical leadership and assurance across all NICS services.
• Act as NICS’s professional clinical lead for safe practice and quality standards.
• Ensure clinical governance arrangements are underpinned by strong clinical accountability.
• Provide expert advice to the Medical Director, CEO and CFOO on clinical risk and quality.
• Promote a culture of psychological safety, openness and speaking up, ensuring concerns are addressed appropriately.
• Lead the development and implementation of NICS clinical competency frameworks.
• Provide governance oversight of non‑medical prescribing practice including nurse prescribers, pharmacists and allied health professionals.
• Ensure safe prescribing frameworks, competency sign‑off and ongoing supervision.
• Work with the Medical Director to ensure safe medicines management across the Federation.
• Ensure robust processes for competency sign‑off, delegation and scope of practice.
• Maintain oversight of professional practice standards across nursing and clinical teams.
• Ensure clinical roles are working within evidence‑based guidelines and regulatory requirements.
• Ensure high standards of clinical record keeping and documentation in line with regulatory and medico‑legal requirements.
• Ensure risks relating to scope of practice, delegation, and advanced roles are identified, mitigated and escalated appropriately.
• Establish and embed effective clinical supervision structures across services.
• Ensure appropriate models of supervision for nurses, ACPs, paramedics and wider MDT roles.
• Promote reflective practice, learning culture and professional development.
• Provide leadership in addressing clinical capability and practice concerns.
• Provide strategic oversight of clinical education and training delivery across NICS.
• Ensure robust clinical induction programmes for new starters.
• Oversee mandatory and service‑specific clinical training compliance.
• Work with HR and service managers to identify training needs linked to governance, safety and performance.
• Work with the Medical Director to provide clinical leadership to audit, service evaluation and quality improvement activity.
• Use outcomes, patient feedback and safety intelligence to drive improvements in care.
• Support clinical teams to implement best practice and learning from audits/incidents.
• Lead development, approval and review of policies.
• Ensure compliance with legal, regulatory and best practice standards.
• Embed policies into practice through engagement and clear communication.
• Monitor effectiveness and compliance through audit and reporting.
• Demonstrate safeguarding competencies aligned to Level 4 (or above) in line with intercollegiate guidance, including strategic leadership, expert advice and organisational assurance.
• Develop and lead safeguarding frameworks.
• Ensure compliance with safeguarding legislation and best practice.
• Lead management of safeguarding concerns and external referrals.
• Embed a strong safeguarding culture through training and awareness.
• Ensure compliance with IPC policies and national guidance.
• Provide oversight of infection surveillance, audits and improvement actions.
• Develop, implement and review IPC policies and procedures.
• Lead surveillance, audit and response to infection risks and incidents.
• Provide senior clinical oversight of patient safety systems including incident and complaint reviews and learning.
• Ensure duty of candour, safeguarding, infection prevention and medicines safety standards are upheld.
• Support the governance team in translating safety findings into clinical practice improvement.
• Work closely with HR to support professional practice governance.
• Provide clinical input into appraisal frameworks, competency frameworks, capability processes and workforce policies.
• Provide professional clinical judgement in capability, disciplinary and fitness‑to‑practice processes.
• Ensure clinical training and supervision align with recruitment, retention and staff wellbeing.
• Act as the CQC Nominated Individual for the Federation, holding ultimate accountability for regulatory compliance under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.
• Provide Board assurance that services meet CQC fundamental standards.
• Lead preparation for CQC inspections and oversee action plans following inspections.
• Act as senior clinical lead for CQC preparedness and commissioner quality assurance.
• Represent NICS at system‑level quality and professional practice forums.
• Ensure NICS services meet NHS contractual, regulatory and professional standards.

Professional responsibilities:

• Maintain professional registration and revalidation.
• Uphold Federation values, equality, safeguarding and patient‑centred care.
• Champion a culture of openness, learning and continuous improvement.

Person Specification:

• Evidence of ongoing CPD and senior clinical practice.
• Qualification in clinical education, leadership, governance or patient safety.
• Significant senior clinical experience within primary care, community services or GP federation environments.
• Demonstrable leadership in clinical governance, quality and professional practice.
• Experience developing competency frameworks, supervision and training structures.
• Experience working across multidisciplinary clinical teams.
• Experience supporting CQC inspection readiness.
• Experience in a senior safeguarding role within a regulated environment or completed Level 4 Safeguarding training.
• Expert knowledge of clinical governance and patient safety principles, including PSIRF.
• Strong understanding of professional accountability, scope of practice and competence assurance.
• Ability to lead clinical supervision and education frameworks.
• Strong communication and ability to influence at executive level.
• Ability to interpret quality/safety data and drive improvement.
• In‑depth knowledge of safeguarding legislation, frameworks and statutory guidance.

Personal Attributes:

• Credible senior clinician with professional authority.
• Collaborative leader able to work with HR, governance and operational teams.
• Values‑driven, improvement‑focused and supportive leadership style.
• Resilient and confident managing clinical complexity and risk.
• Experience working within PCNs, federations or ICs collaborative models.
• Experience in advanced practice development or education governance.

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.