Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust
Have you been a patient in hospital or in the community? Or do you have a friend or relative who has been in hospital? Are you keen to use your experience to help other patients have the best and safest experience they can?
If the answer to any of these is yes, then why not apply to volunteer and join us at Alder Hey as a Patient Safety Partner?
What is a Patient Safety Partner?
We call them PSPs for short. It's an exciting new role to help improve patient safety at Alder Hey. You will be working closely with our children, young people, families, and staff, so you will be going out to see them and talk to them on the wards and departments.
Then, you will act as the voice for the patients and families and feedback on what they told you is important to them on their behalf at different projects and meetings. You'll help develop and design projects and programmes aimed at making a patient's experience and safety at Alder Hey better, ensuring that patient safety is at the heart of everything we do.
As this is a new role, you'll be involved in developing your day-to-day tasks, co-producing the role, and sharing ideas and experiences from the role. You will be working with other PSPs, including our Young PSPs who volunteer or are members of our Children and Young People's Forums.
Main Duties of the Job
Experience isn't essential; however, you need a genuine desire to support patient safety improvement, so being able to listen to and talk to our patients and families is very important.
We would like two young people aged about 16 to 18 who are current or former patients or have had a friend/relative need hospital care, or who are studying some form of health, social care, or child development at sixth form or college.
We're also looking for two adults who may have had a child/relative in hospital, been patients themselves, or other laypeople, including NHS and social care staff from other organisations.
We're open to PSPs having different areas of interest and doing different parts of the role. We understand that not everyone wants to read reports or join meetings, so we'll make sure you get involved with work and projects you're interested in and happy to be involved in.
We would like you to help us two days a month, ideally, but the days and times that you'll work can be flexible. We'll make sure that we fit around you. We'll provide the training you need to do this role successfully, and you'll have a buddy who will help and support you and help build plans for your day-to-day work.
So what are you waiting for? Don't delay, apply today! Alder Hey needs you!
About Us
Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust is a provider of specialist health care and has a presence in community outreach sites. In collaboration with other providers, our clinicians help deliver care closer to patients' homes by holding local clinics at locations from Cumbria to Shropshire, in Wales and the Isle of Man. The Trust also provides inpatient care for children with complex mental health needs at our Sunflower House building, newly relocated and opened on the hospital site.
We currently have more than 4,000 staff working across our community and hospital sites. We're also a teaching and training hospital providing education and training to around 540 medical and over 500 nursing and allied health professional students each year.
As black and minority ethnic (BME) employees are currently under-represented in this area, we particularly welcome applications from members of our BME communities. All appointments will be made on merit.
You can expect a warm welcome at Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust; our staff are friendly and welcoming. We listen to each other and work together to embed our Trust's values and behaviours.
Job Responsibilities
The way the NHS understands and learns from patient safety incidents is changing. The Patient Safety Partner or PSP, as we commonly refer to the role, is a new and exciting role developed by NHS England to help improve patient safety across healthcare in the UK. The PSP will work alongside children, young people, families, and staff to influence and improve safety within our services.
A PSP is actively involved in contributing to the design of safer healthcare at all levels in the Trust. The PSP will work closely with the staff in the Trust whose job is to keep patients safe. They will act as the voice for the children, young people, and families who use our services by engaging and working with them, and feeding back on their behalf as the patient voice at meetings with senior leaders. The PSP will also help to develop projects and programmes aimed at making a patient's experience and safety at Alder Hey better, ensuring that patient safety is at the forefront of all that we do.
As this is a completely new role, and due to the Trust's commitment to safety and continuous improvement, it is likely that the role will evolve over time. The PSPs will be at the heart of working together with the Trust to develop what the day-to-day tasks look like, co-producing the role as we go forward together and sharing ideas and experiences of the role.
Some examples of what the work might look like might include:
* Talking and engaging with children, young people, and families about safety and what matters to them.
* Advocating for children, young people, and families to ensure that their opinions, experiences, perspectives, and considerations are heard, considered, and prioritized.
* Actively listening to patients. The NHS is working to get better at really hearing patients' concerns.
* Talking and engaging with staff about safety and what matters to them.
* Providing a different perspective and insight on patient safety using any lived experience to help develop safety programmes in the Trust.
* Supporting the delivery of some of the patient safety training for staff.
* Being part of patient safety projects working to improve safe care and our systems.
* Helping the Trust to understand what we do well and how we can do this more of the time.
* Helping the Trust to develop patient safety information resources, like guides and checklists.
In the future, as the role evolves and the PSP gains more experience, the role may involve:
* Contributing to patient safety investigations and learning from incidents. The NHS are changing how we investigate incidents as we recognize that when something goes wrong, it is very rarely an individual person who is responsible. We will be using new ways to review incidents, finding out what really happened and supporting everyone involved; this is called the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework.
* Contributing to safety governance by being part of relevant safety and quality committees and providing challenge to ensure learning and change.
* Joining meetings with the executive team and senior managers to check and challenge.
* Joining interview panels for staff patient safety roles.
* Inputting into any relevant Trust strategies and policies relating to patient safety.
The Trust is open to each PSP having a different area of interest and undertaking different parts of the role as we understand that not everyone wants to read reports or join meetings, for example. We will be flexible in how our team of 4 dedicated PSPs cover these key areas of responsibility and make sure you are comfortable with the roles you are involved in.
The Trust will be flexible around the days and times that the PSP works to ensure this fits in with personal and educational requirements such as school/college term times.
The PSP will need to comply with Trust policies and maintain strict confidentiality in respect to discussions and information when required.
Key Working Relationships
Internal:
* Patient Safety Team
* Patient Experience Team
* Brilliant Basics Quality Improvement Team
* Governance Team Divisions
External:
* Over time, network and share learning with other PSPs in the region, nationally, and in paediatric practice.
Person Specification
Experience
* Experience is not essential; however, a genuine desire to support patient safety improvement is very important. PSPs may be a previous patient from any health care setting, a parent or carer, a family member, or other laypeople including NHS and social care staff from other organisations - PSPs will not be current paid staff members of the Trust.
* The following personal qualities are needed:
* Able to communicate well with children, young people, and family members, effectively listening to and gaining their views and then acting as their voice and a champion representing their perspective, needs, and interests.
* Confidence to work collaboratively with staff on patient safety projects, always acting as an advocate for patient safety and always respecting the views of others.
* Act with integrity and commitment to openness, transparency, equality, inclusiveness, and working to high standards.
* Able to provide and apply your own lived experience.
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.
Employer Name
Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust
#J-18808-Ljbffr