Job overview

University Hospitals of Northamptonshire NHS Group comprises Kettering General Hospital and Northampton General Hospital. With a budget of over £800 million and with over 11,000 staff, we operate two hospitals, several community services, and serve a population of 900,000 people across Northamptonshire.

It is an exciting time to join us as we set out to focus on our three priorities to improve UHN as a place to receive care, to improve UHN as a place to work and to meet our financial targets.

Our UHN 'Improving Together' strategy was approved by Board in Summer 2024 and we have had a successful year one implementing our ambitions around capability building, improvement coaching, building our culture for improvement and developing our ward-based improvement offer.

With the support of our Boards, we have an exciting journey ahead of us, with plenty for an experienced improvement professional to shape, as we work to embed improvement into day-to-day work across UHN and focus on our quality priorities.

This role, the Head of Quality Improvement, reporting directly to the Director of Continuous Improvement, has a crucial role in embedding QI across UHN.  The role is crucial for creating and maintaining focus, enthusiasm, and momentum for celebrating successes, sharing best practice, embedding improvement management systems, and helping to create a culture where all people view quality improvement as a core part of their role.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will:

• Lead the strategic development and delivery of the Improving Together strategy
• Lead the strategic development of a “QI Training Academy” to build sustainable capacity/capability for quality improvement and change
• Align to the UHN strategic direction, ensuring the Quality Improvement programmes delivery against agreed objectives
• Work closely with system partners, clinical, operational and corporate service managers to provide leadership, support, advice and coaching for the delivery of quality improvement.
• Ensure appropriate infrastructure for QI to provide internal reporting of progress in line with governance structures and expected protocols.
• Promote a culture and ensuring frameworks exist for promoting a culture of continuous and quality improvement, including establishing digital and non-digital forums for best practice sharing, celebrating successes and developing a learning culture
• Promote and provide leadership for the QI programme with internal and external stakeholders, including Northamptonshire ICS, the East Midlands Improvement network, NHS England and with our patients and the public.

The post holder will provide effective input into the work of UHN, to support the achievement of our vision and values.

Working for our organisation

University Hospitals of Northamptonshire NHS Group is made up of Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust and Kettering General NHS Foundation Trust.  Both hospitals are separate hospitals/employers with hospital board and leadership. We share an integrated executive team leading on a shared vision, mission, priorities, strategies and Dedicated to Excellence Values.

Our Excellence values are:

Compassion: We care about our patients and each other. We consistently show kindness and empathy and take the time to imagine ourselves in other peoples shoes.

Accountability: We take responsibility for our decisions our actions and our behaviours. We do what we say we will do when we say we will do it. We acknowledge our mistakes and we learn from them.

Respect: We value each other embrace diversity and make sure everyone feels included. We take the time to listen to appreciate and understand the thoughts beliefs and feelings of others.

Integrity: We are consistently open honest and trustworthy. We can be relied upon we stand by our values and we always strive to do the right thing.

Courage: We dare to take on difficult challenges and try out new things. We find the strength to speak up when it matters and we see potential failure as an opportunity to learn and improve.