Clinical Director – Dental Services

Job responsibilities

The Clinical Director, alongside colleagues within the Division, will input into the Trusts Strategic Plans and their implementation for all services, driving forward a culture of transformational change and high quality care.

The Clinical Director will work with colleagues contributing to the strategic direction of the Dental Service and be a key member in regional and national clinical networks.Leadership and clinical duty split will be discussed in proportion.

The Clinical Director will provide Clinical Leadership to all Community Dental Services, across the Trust. The post holder will work closely with Clinical Director colleagues within the Community Health Division to align strategy and standardise the delivery of services

The Clinical Director will work closely with senior operational colleagues and be jointly accountable for dental performance and its impact upon the operational delivery of dental services. Where there may be reputational or practical impact in the accomplishment of divisional, site-specific or Trust wide goals, decisions should be made collaboratively with the appropriate respective level of oversight.

The Clinical Director will have direct responsibility for the line management of dentists and dental clinicians within the dental service. They will have clinical line management and supervision responsibilities for senior dentists, dentists, dental therapists, group and trainees as appropriate.

The Clinical Director will work alongside senior multidisciplinary colleagues across the Trust to ensure the appropriate stewardship of resources and the appropriate implementation of audit and quality standards e.g. NICE Guidelines.

The Clinical Director will be supported centrally by senior medical leaders, holding responsibility for workforce planning, medicines management, education, research and innovation, and risk management.

The Clinical Director will have devolved joint budgetary responsibility with senior operational colleagues.

The Clinical Director will be expected to:

Be a role model for Trust values and behaviours and be highly visible to the multi-professional team

Promote a professional culture of continuous quality improvement and work collaboratively with colleagues from across the Trust and partner organisations to establish clinically effective care pathways

Collaborate with nursing and operational counterparts to deliver timely, quality and compassionate care to patients

Work with the Quality and Governance Team to ensure that action plans and quality improvement activities are undertaken and completed in time to address risk identified through safety incidents, complaints, or adverse audit outcomes identified through divisional review.

To ensure clinical audit and clinical governance procedures in the Dental Servicerespond to national and local requirements.

Ensure that any risks to quality are identified, and that appropriate actions are taken to reduce, maintain or mitigate the risk within the Mersey Care governance framework.

Ensure that community dental services maintain the essential and fundamental standards of care and safety as specified by the Care Quality Commission, and to support the Trusts work towards achieving an outstanding rating across all categories.

Identify and develop excellent relationships with key stakeholders and work across the health community to further shape the Trust strategy for community dental services and lead local, regional and national projects as required.

Take strategic responsibility for developing, promoting, supporting and holding to account the dental teams within community services.

Seek and support opportunities for quality improvement, innovation, research and development.

Lead community dental services through ongoing transformation, redesigning services as part of a wider shift towards greater integration with other providers e.g. local authorities, integrated care teams, primary care networks.

Develop and maintain excellent relationships with the dental university to ensure continued provision of training environment for dental students.

Ensure that patients and carers are involved as partners in the development of services and encouraged to participate and co-produce where appropriate.

Recruit, motivate, and develop staff, and help maintain high levels of staff morale through inspirational leadership.

Work alongside the Patient Safety Team to ensure learning follows from investigations.

Analyse, interpret and present data to highlight issues, risk and support decision making.Attend divisional / Trust operational meetings where appropriate and if required to attend sub-committees of the Board to present service line report(s).

Undertake an active role in clinical supervision, mentoring and be proactive in the provision of education to other members of the dental team and dental postgraduate trainees.

Lead in developing the education and training capacity of the service.

Support the development of other professional groups to increase the skill mix of the service.

Contribute positively towards the delivery of a cost efficient service, working with colleagues to ensure skill mix meets service demand and keeps within agreed budget.

Contribute to the service requirement to identify cost improvement initiatives and actively participate in realising those.

Experience

Essential

• Current experience of working within the Community Dental Service in a senior post
• The post holder must have a level of clinical experience and confidence that enables them to deliver a broad range of dental care to all categories of patients within the remit of the Community Dental Service
• Significant experience of delivering care to patients with additional support needs at a senior clinical level including treatment provision under GA.
• Registered for at least 5 years with GDC
• Management experience
• Commitment to continuing professional education that meets registration requirements but also demonstrates relevance to the Community Dental Service

Desirable

• Additional experience in a specialised area, or higher training in a clinical subject.
• Previous budgetary management experience.
• Experience in providing mentoring or training
• Experience in design of CPD and audit projects
• Experience of working with National Groups
• Experience of Sedation both inhalation and intravenous
• Experience of policy development and implementation.
• Experience of monitoring and evaluation of clinical services.

Qualifications and Training

Essential

• Hold a recognised dental qualification BDS or equivalent
• Have full registration with the General Dental Council and must not be subject to any restrictions on their practicing
• Higher dental degree e.g. MFDS or postgraduate qualification relevant to role in the Community Dental Service e.g. MPH, Postgraduate certificate in dental sedation and pain management, etc
• Postgraduate qualification in management and leadership e.g. MBA, etc or equivalent experience of management
• Full compliance with Core CPD and clinical audit requirements

Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Extensive knowledge of current clinical practice
• Broad based knowledge and skills in diagnosis and clinical management
• Good knowledge and skills with IT - Word-processing, PowerPoint presentations, working with spreadsheets
• Excellent communication skills
• Good organisation skills
• Ability to provide a second clinical opinion for peer colleagues in the public dental service

Desirable

• Knowledge and experience of NHS organisational structures
• Knowledge and experience of working with dental services within Primary Care Department, GDS, Dental Public Health
• Delivered presentations/talks at local or national meetings relevant to dental practice
• Skills in clinical governance, patient safety and quality improvement.

Disposition e.g. Personal (transferable) skills

Essential

• Good interpersonal skills, including the ability to work with clinicians and patients in difficult and stressful situations
• Chair meetings/groups effectively
• Listen and respond to others in an effective manner
• Ability to influence the behaviour of others and achieve preferred outcomes
• Operate effectively both as a team member and as a team leader
• Deal with, and where possible, negotiate and resolve conflict situations to the satisfaction of the affected parties
• Committed to quality patient care
• Responsive to change and innovation, promoting a culture for organisational change
• A flexible approach to duties, which satisfies the needs of the role in a changing environment
• Friendly and approachable
• Ability to demonstrate reflective practise with evidence of a Personal Development Plan relating to CPD and Personal Development
• Ability to work effectively as part of a team
• High professional values

Desirable

• Management / leadership qualification.

Leadership

Essential

• Demonstrates the principles of team leadership and effective people management
• Commitment to the values of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Desirable

• Evidence of a role as a leader within groups

Managerial

Essential

• Knowledge of dental service provision at a national and local level
• Involvement in NHS-related meetings
• Awareness of the principles and core practices involved in service management, project management and effective meetings
• Experience of management within Community Dental Services

Desirable

• Involvement in service re-design
• Involvement in project delivery

Other

Essential

• Ability to work flexibly according to the needs of the service, and contribute to team and skills development.
• Ability to articulate MCFT vision and values
• Evidence to support work in line with principles of a Restorative Just and Learning Culture

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 (Opens in a new tab).

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 (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

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