Care Director

Job description

Job responsibilities

Job purpose

To provide visionary, inspirational and strategic leadership across all areas of responsibility, driving the Care Services development in line with organisational, local and national policy objectives to ensure St Michaels delivers high quality care.

Responsibility Areas

Strategy

• Develop, execute and oversee the long-term Care Strategy to achieve sustainable and affordable patient focused services in line with local needs and national legislation.
• Lead substantial programmes of work, identifying resources and restraints, overseeing timely implementation of project objectives and adjusting plans accordingly to ensure quality improvement is embedded into the organisation.
• Lead the establishment and management of a framework for planning, budgeting, KPIs and target setting, monitoring of progress, and financial control of all activities to evaluate performance, identify areas for development and improvement while maximising effectiveness and exceeding targets.
• Lead and participate in service reviews; support the modernisation of roles and the redesign of services to meet the commissioning needs for Specialist Palliative Care within the charity's area of operation.
• Lead and foster collaborative relationships with other health and social care services.
• Contribute, as a member of the Strategic Management Team, to the overall direction and development of the Hospice and its activities.
• Contribute to the organisations community engagement agenda.

Leadership

• Provide dynamic, inspirational and visible leadership for Care Services ensuring the needs of patients and their families are at the heart of everything that we do.
• Empower and encourage staff and volunteers to develop as individual practitioners and team members within a supportive and progressive culture by developing innovative opportunities for their professional development.
• Facilitate a common and shared understanding of the Organisational Vision throughout the Hospice.
• Shape the care culture within the organisation, promoting harmonious and effective working relationships and communication with colleagues at all levels throughout the Hospice and externally.
• Act as a point of expert care reference and leadership for the Board of Trustees, the Strategic Management Team and other departments across the organisation.
• Support the Registered Managers to ensure ongoing preparations and readiness for CQC inspections.
• Represent St Michaels Hospice externally as a senior leader and clinician, ensuring the reputation of the Hospice is maintained and enhanced by using high levels of influencing and negotiating skills. Ensure St Michaels Care Services are represented and heard at the highest levels within end of life and palliative care agenda.
• Attend St Michaels Hospice events in supporting or promotional roles as required acting as an ambassador for the hospice always.
• Risk, quality, and compliance management
• To be continuously cognisant of the risk associated with the work of the Directorate and be proactive in demonstrating and implementing positive risk management strategies.
• To be responsible for implementing, monitoring and reviewing systems and processes that ensure St Michaels complies with professional codes of Practice and meets the requirements of the Care Quality Commission and Commissioners.
• Overall responsibility for effective operation of the EMIS Patient Database in line with GDPR and relevant Data Sharing Agreements, including reviewing the content on a regular basis, risk assessment of issues relating to use of data and resourcing decisions in relation to the production of information from it.

To undertake specific duties:

Caldicott Guardian Duties:

• Act as Caldicott Guardian for the Hospice, to ensure that systems are in place to safeguard the confidentiality of patient information in accordance with current legislation. Also, to be responsible for the quality and content of all information provided for patients and relatives.

Accountable Officer for Controlled Drugs:

• Be responsible for implementing, monitoring and reviewing systems and processes that ensure St Michaels complies with the latest Controlled Drugs laws and regulations.
• Undertake the role of Controlled Drug Accountable Officer (CDAO) and submit Occurrence Reports to the NHS Controlled Drug Accountable Officer as required.

Clinical Governance:

• Be responsible for ensuring Care Managers develop, implement and review appropriate policies, systems and procedures in accordance with best practice and regulatory requirements (Clinical governance, NICE, H&S, etc.) and that care staff and volunteers adhere to them.
• Support and enable the capture of meaningful user feedback and involvement of users in organisational decisions and service development.
• Provide information, statistics, reports, audits and evaluations for the SMT, Board of Trustees or sub committees and other partners such as clinical commissioning groups.
• Ensure care staff engage with clinical audit and continuous improvement.
• Encourage and ensure the full participation of the department in agreed research.
• Provide visibility within the clinical areas and be accessible to patients, families, staff and volunteers.
• Commissioning/Statutory Income/Financial Management
• Set and monitor department budgets ensuring expenditure stays within agreed levels.
• Actively participate in general income generation with SMT but take responsibility for procuring statutory and contractual income (NHS, local authority, etc) using high-quality clinical evidence to support these activities.
• Oversee and review external contracts, grants and service level agreements in line with Hospice policy.

Person Specification

Communication

Essential

• This post relies on working closely with a wide variety of staff, stakeholders and volunteers, in particular:
• Chief Executive
• The Hospice Board of Trustees and co-opted members
• Strategic Management Team
• Integrated Care Board (ICB) Palliative and End of Life Care Leads
• Contemporaries within other Hospices across ICS
• Staff and volunteers at all levels across the organisation
• External stakeholders including senior staff within Wye Valley Trust (WVT) NHS Trust, Herefordshire Council, Voluntary Sector Interface Organisations (Hospices UK, etc.)
• Scrutinising Bodies such as Care Quality Commission, Health and Safety Executive (HSE)

Skills and Behaviours

Essential

• Caring: Commitment and drive for high-quality, compassionate care.
• Leading and inspiring others: Takes responsibility for actions, projects and people and provides others with a clear direction; motivates and empowers others to reach organisational goals; sets appropriate standards of behaviour; builds team spirit and reconciles conflict.
• Strategic planning: Works strategically to realise organisational goals; takes account of a wide range of issues across, and related to, the organisation. Understands national policy, legislative change and consultations that may impact on the Hospice, its work or reputation. Sets clearly defined objectives; plans activities and projects well in advance and takes account of possible changing circumstances.
• Building Effective Relationships/Collaborations: Influences and establishes key relationships with senior people externally and encourages and enables partnership working; builds wide and effective networks of contacts. Influences, convinces or impresses others in a way that results in acceptance, agreement or behaviour change. Projects credibility and integrity.
• Problem Solving and Analysis: Analyses issues and breaks them down into their component parts. Makes systematic and rational judgements based on relevant information. Demonstrates a readiness to make decisions, takes initiative and originate action. Understands and applies commercial and financial principles. Views issues in terms of costs, markets and added value.
• Resilience: Maintains a positive outlook at work; works productively in a pressurised environment; keeps emotions under control during difficult situations; balances the demands of a work life and a personal life. Shows enthusiasm and career commitment.

Qualifications

Essential

• Specialist knowledge and experience:
• Senior management role with significant responsibility and autonomy for complex decision-making, leadership and strategic business planning within a care environment or transferable situation which has included:
• 1. leading and implementing a patient safety and quality agenda and improving services as well as the patient experience through user engagement
• 2. holding a position of responsibility or authority for registration of a service or legal purpose such as Registered Manager role for CQC registration or evidence of an excellent understanding of such
• 3. applying expert knowledge to clinical and corporate governance situations
• 4. strategic business planning for clinical care and wider organisational service delivery
• 5. commissioning for health and social care
• 6. setting and managing budgets, and contributing to financial processes and strategy
• 7. implementing and managing significant changes and improvement initiatives
• 8. A relevant professional qualification in health care is required with extensive experience in professional practice.

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

St Michael’s Hospice

Address

St. Michaels Hospice

Bartestree

Hereford

HR1 4HA

Employer's website

https://www.st-michaels-hospice.org.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)