Job summary
The Family Liaison Officer will be required to provide support, advice and signposting to families, carers and or significant others following a patient safety incident that affects any person who is in receipt of care or treatment by Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust or was recently in receipt of care and treatment.
The Family Liaison Officer will be a passionate and motivated professional who has a strong desire to make a difference for families who have experienced a patient safety incident.
You will need to be compassionate and empathic, responsive, and understanding with a willingness to help grow and shape the Trust vision for supporting families and be able to empower people with lived experience to contribute to the development of standards that will make a difference.
You will need a high level of self-awareness and an ability to prioritise your own self-care alongside balancing the needs of others and the demands of the role.
Main duties of the job
o Be responsible for providing support to individuals, some of whom will be deeply distressed. The post holder will need to be self-aware, compassionate, and actively seek to address self-care.o Be the lead for supporting care groups and staff who have bereavement link roles to ensure that bereaved families and carers are engaged and supported advising staff on due process regards raising questions and sharing any concerns they may have in relation to the quality of care received by their family member.o Be the lead in supporting care groups in ensuring families and carers are referred for and guided to receive a high standard of bereavement support or other individualised support which respects confidentiality, values, culture, and beliefs. This includes the promotion of and close working across the region with specialist bereavement services and other specialist services.o Be responsible for linking Trust investigations or legal services and families together where a learning response is being undertaken or when a serious complaint has been made following the death or harm of a patient. The Patient and Family Liaison Officer will provide clear and accurate information about the Trust learning response process.
About us
NHFT is an integrated primary care and mental health Trust, providing physical, mental health and specialty services in both hospital settings and out in the community. Because we put the person at the centre of all we do, we focus on delivering care that is as easy to access as possible. This means many of our services can be provided at home, work or in schools.We also provide health services to various prisons and detention centres in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.
NHFT promotes a culture of learning to improve the care and safety of our patients and staff, which focuses on people who enable our Trust to be 'outstanding' by supporting opportunity, innovation, development and growth.
Job description
Job responsibilities
This is a busy role where the main duties will include (but not limited to): Ensuring that families, carers, and significant others are supported and guided through the process of incident investigations, ensuring timely contact and information sharing including signposting to sources of help and support following a bereavement/incident where indicated. Leading on the development of team standards for post-incident support, empowering individuals with lived experience of loss, harm or bereavement following a patient safety incident. Using positive family engagement within the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) and transform the experience of patients and families who experience harm because of a patient safety incident within NHS care. Supporting the incident review process and wider functions of the Patient Safety Team as/when required.
For further information on the advertised role, please refer to the job description located under the Supporting Documents heading. The full person specification can be accessed under the About You Section of the document.
Job description
Job responsibilities
This is a busy role where the main duties will include (but not limited to): Ensuring that families, carers, and significant others are supported and guided through the process of incident investigations, ensuring timely contact and information sharing including signposting to sources of help and support following a bereavement/incident where indicated. Leading on the development of team standards for post-incident support, empowering individuals with lived experience of loss, harm or bereavement following a patient safety incident. Using positive family engagement within the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) and transform the experience of patients and families who experience harm because of a patient safety incident within NHS care. Supporting the incident review process and wider functions of the Patient Safety Team as/when required.
For further information on the advertised role, please refer to the job description located under the Supporting Documents heading. The full person specification can be accessed under the About You Section of the document.
Person Specification
Education, Training & Qualifications
Essential
- Educated to Degree level or equivalent level of education, training, or experience.
- Master's level qualification in a relevant subject or equivalent experience
Desirable
- Family Liaison Officer training
- Investigations training
Knowledge, Skills & Experience
Essential
- Proven ability to work independently and manage their own caseload
- Experience of working with the public in a public facing service such as health care, volunteer sector support, police service, coroners service, retail, counselling, customer services
- Ability to work collaboratively and inclusively with a wide range of staff, teams, managers, people, and partner agencies
- An understanding of some of the models of bereavement
- An attitude that places the family needs at the centre of thinking
- Excellent communication skills with a key focus on listening skills
- Compassionate with the ability to deal with distressed and highly emotive patients/carers/relatives
- Ability to prioritise and manage a number of conflicting requirements in a professional manner and deal with a number of complex issues at the same time
- Excellent documentation skills
- Excellent diary management to ensure that all families and loved ones are allocated the necessary level of support
- Excellent IT skills (MS Excel, MS Word, MS Forms, MS Teams)
- Excellent or developing report writing skills
- Ability to present a subject to a professional group
Desirable
- Knowledge and understanding of NHS incident learning responses methods
- Knowledge and understanding of NHS complaints management arrangements and the role of the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman
- Understanding of Care Quality Commission Regulation 20
Key Competencies/ Personal Qualities & Attributes
Essential
- Approachable
- Culturally mature
- Calm and considerate
- Willingness to grow and develop
- A desire to make a difference for the parents/carers/relatives of service users in the organisation following a patient safety incident
- A desire to share knowledge and develop knowledge
- Ability to deal appropriately with potentially stressful and difficult situations.
- Resilience and strong awareness on the need for self-care and self-compassion
- Able to use own initiative
- Able to meet deadlines, and work under pressure
- Able to secure co-operation of colleagues at all levels.
- Organised/able to organise others
- Self-awareness regarding personal impact
- Ability to undertake the duties and demands of the post
- Ability to travel routinely across the Trust catchment area and to travel beyond as required
Person Specification
Education, Training & Qualifications
Essential
- Educated to Degree level or equivalent level of education, training, or experience.
- Master's level qualification in a relevant subject or equivalent experience
Desirable
- Family Liaison Officer training
- Investigations training
Knowledge, Skills & Experience
Essential
- Proven ability to work independently and manage their own caseload
- Experience of working with the public in a public facing service such as health care, volunteer sector support, police service, coroners service, retail, counselling, customer services
- Ability to work collaboratively and inclusively with a wide range of staff, teams, managers, people, and partner agencies
- An understanding of some of the models of bereavement
- An attitude that places the family needs at the centre of thinking
- Excellent communication skills with a key focus on listening skills
- Compassionate with the ability to deal with distressed and highly emotive patients/carers/relatives
- Ability to prioritise and manage a number of conflicting requirements in a professional manner and deal with a number of complex issues at the same time
- Excellent documentation skills
- Excellent diary management to ensure that all families and loved ones are allocated the necessary level of support
- Excellent IT skills (MS Excel, MS Word, MS Forms, MS Teams)
- Excellent or developing report writing skills
- Ability to present a subject to a professional group
Desirable
- Knowledge and understanding of NHS incident learning responses methods
- Knowledge and understanding of NHS complaints management arrangements and the role of the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman
- Understanding of Care Quality Commission Regulation 20
Key Competencies/ Personal Qualities & Attributes
Essential
- Approachable
- Culturally mature
- Calm and considerate
- Willingness to grow and develop
- A desire to make a difference for the parents/carers/relatives of service users in the organisation following a patient safety incident
- A desire to share knowledge and develop knowledge
- Ability to deal appropriately with potentially stressful and difficult situations.
- Resilience and strong awareness on the need for self-care and self-compassion
- Able to use own initiative
- Able to meet deadlines, and work under pressure
- Able to secure co-operation of colleagues at all levels.
- Organised/able to organise others
- Self-awareness regarding personal impact
- Ability to undertake the duties and demands of the post
- Ability to travel routinely across the Trust catchment area and to travel beyond as required
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 details
Employer name
Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust
Address
Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
St Mary's Hospital, 77 London Road
KETTERING
NN15 7PW
Employer's website
https://www.nhft.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)
