Patient Safety Partners

Would you like to shape the future of patient safety at Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Trust (LGT)?

We are looking for two Patient Safety Partners to sit on our patient safety groups & committees and ensure decisions are considered from a patient/service user perspective. The ideal person will have a passion for Patient Safety and a willingness to consider issues from various perspectives that may be different to their own perspective. They will also have a willingness to represent the voice of a wide range of service users including children & Young people, their parents, People with Learning disabilities & Autism, to mention but a few.

This is a great opportunity to shape the patient safety strategy at LGT by bringing the patient voice to what we do.

Some examples of what you might be involved in include;
- Being part of our monthly Patient Safety Group & our Quality, Safety & Patient Experience Committee membership
- Talking with staff & patients about patient safety and giving us feedback
- Playing a key role in various patient safety improvement projects/strategies
- Supporting the development & delivery of relevant patient safety training

In turn we will reimburse your expenses, provide relevant training and offer one to one support.

To be part of key projects delivered by the Patient Safety Team. Using lived experience as a patient or a member of the local community, to support and advice the Patient Safety Group & the Quality, Safety & Patient Experience Committee (QSPEC) on activities, policies and procedures that improve
Patient Safety and deliver high-quality care.

As a Patient Safety Partner, you will ensure that any committee/groups of which you are a member considers and prioritises the service user, patient, carer and family perspective and champions a
diversity of views.

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust is a community focused provider of local and acute care, providing high quality services to over one million people living across the London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley. With a turnover of around £700 million, we provide services at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, University Hospital Lewisham and a range of community settings in Lewisham. We also provide some services at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup.

As an organisation, we’ve made significant improvements for patients and staff in the last two and-a-half years. This is reflected in our most recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection (from February 2020), which found improvements across the organisation and gave us an improved rating of “Good” in the Well-Led and Effective domains, in addition to the rating of “Good” that we had already achieved in the Caring domain. Our staff culture change programme has been key to the Trust’s improvement journey, as we’ve stabilised our workforce by reducing vacancy rates and improving staff retention. We’ve also significantly increased the representation of minority ethnic leaders across our clinical and corporate teams.

Main purpose of role
To be part of key projects delivered by the Patient Safety Team. Using lived experience as a patient or a member of the local community, to support and advice the Patient Safety Group & the Quality, Safety & Patient Experience Committee (QSPEC) on activities, policies and procedures that improve
Patient Safety and deliver high-quality care.

As a Patient Safety Partner, you will ensure that any committee/groups of which you are a member considers and prioritises the service user, patient, carer and family perspective and champions a diversity of views.

Task description
Attendance and contribution at the Trust’s Patient Safety Group meeting. This is a two-hour
monthly meeting
Attendance and contribution at the Trust’s Quality, Safety & Patient

Experience Committee.
This is also two-hour monthly meeting
- Acting as an adviser/critical friend to the patient safety team in the development & delivery of

the patient safety strategy
Time commitment
- You will be required for up to 8 hours a month. This includes up to 4hrs of meetings (as

above) & 4 hours for supporting you e.g. in preparation for meetings or/and other ad hoc work.
You will need to comply with relevant policies and maintain strict confidentiality in respect to discussions and information when required.

Skills and experience
- Understanding of and broad interest in patient safety.
- Ability to communicate your view and feedback about patient safety reports, polices and guidelines.
- Ability to understand and evaluate a range of information and evidence.
- Willingness to learn how to communicate with senior leaders, and clinicians to improve services for the population we serve.
- Ability to provide a patient, carer, or lay perspective and to put forward views on behalf of the wider community/groups of patients (not own opinion only).
- Experience of championing health improvements; able to be a critical friend.
- Interaction with multiple stakeholders