The role

Full time/Permanent position

Field based, covering Cumbria & Scotland. Ideally you will be based on patch so you have  excellent access to the dental practices you are supporting.

• You will support effective clinical governance and assurance of Bupa Dental Care clinical services under the direction of the Clinical Governance & Assurance Manager to ensure dental care delivered is patient centred, safe, effective and driven by continuous quality improvement.
• Actively support the embedding of a patient focused, safe and Just culture.
• Support the delivery of high quality, safe and effective dental care through the provision of advice, support to practices within the area of responsibility, in clinical governance, patient safety, clinical audit, clinical risk and continuous quality improvement through education, empowerment and leadership.

 Key responsibilities include:

• Provision of advice and direct support to the BDC practices in effective clinical governance systems and processes to assure legislative, regulatory, national, professional, evidenced based practice and Bupa/Bupa Dental Care policies/SOPs standards are met and are evidenced.
• Actively promote and drive effective use of the clinical governance framework and evidence to support achievement of standards and ensure there are effective and action plans are in place and monitored to address any areas for improvement.
• Within the defined area of responsibility support practice managers to embed and take ownership for effective systems and processes to ensure effective and timely clinical governance and understand the impacts of not achieving the standards in relation to quality and safety.
• To be a 'go to person' for practices teams in relation to clinical governance, clinical audit, patient safety and quality improvement for the specific geographical area of responsibility. Imparting advice, knowledge and support people do their jobs compliantly and well.
• Support and engage with Clinical and Operations teams (virtual and face to face) to identify and either mitigate or escalate risk to patient safety, effectiveness & quality of care and clinical capability/capacity to enable improvement within the defined area of responsibility.
• Deliver effective, reliable quality assured first line of defence (1LOD) clinical assurance of BDC practices under the direction of the Clinical Governance and Assurance Manager across the UK/ROI. The report of findings is to be provided within 5 working days of completion of the assurance visit.
• Ensure that improvement actions plans are in place and are monitored for progress to address any areas for improvement, or suboptimal outcomes, including from 1LOD Assurance or healthcare regulator inspections within the defined area of responsibility. This includes assuring that evidence and/or responses with specific timelines are accurate evidenced and met. Inability to provide evidence or meet timelines are to be escalated immediately to the Clinical Governance and Assurance Manager.
• Support the business/Practices on achieving satisfactory ratings for healthcare regulatory inspections.
• Assure effective and timely implementation of BDC clinical policies and SOP within the defined geographical area of responsibility.
• Act as the Safeguarding Practice Lead, providing SME advice and support to practices on all safeguarding related incidents/concerns to ensure best interests of patients (adults and children) are in line with best practice standards and ensure effective systems for safeguarding are in place in all practices within the defined geographical area of responsibility.
• Act as an enabler to support practices to investigate clinical incidents, identify lessons and identify the actions to ensure lessons are learned to prevent recurrence.
• Under the direction of the Clinical Governance and Assurance Manager or a member of the Senior Clinical Team, lead or take part in Root Cause Analysis (RCA) investigations.
• Act as an enabler by supporting practices to gather and exploit patient/customer experience feedback (including complaints) to identify areas for improvement, evidence improvement /learning and share these lessons within BDC and with the patient/customers.
• Actively support and drive the completion of clinical audit and support Practice Managers to encourage the practice team’s involvement to evidence the achievement of standards.
• Support Practice teams to utilise quality improvement methodologies to continuously improve, innovate and develop the quality, safety of dental care and the patient/customer experience.
• Actively promote a culture of safety and continuous quality improvement where people are empowered to take ownership, responsibility and raise concerns that will be taken seriously and listened to.