Quality (Assurance and Improvement) Lead

At Hft, our vision is to create a future where learning disabled people can live the best life possible. We do this by campaigning for positive change, providing personalised support and creating solutions for living independently.

We're looking for an experienced Quality Assurance and Improvement Lead to join our Quality and Governance team on a 6 month fixed term contract, supporting the delivery of high-quality, safe and compliant services across Hft. The role will work across our services based in the East and West of England.

This is a varied role for someone with a strong background in quality assurance, auditing and continuous improvement within health and/or social care. You'll work closely with service managers to assess quality, monitor regulatory compliance, identify areas of risk and drive improvements that make a meaningful difference to the people we support.

You'll play a key role in delivering Hft's Quality Assurance Framework, undertaking internal audits, analysing performance data and providing practical advice and guidance to services. You'll need to be confident working independently, building relationships with managers and providing constructive challenge to ensure standards are maintained and continuously improved.
This is a homebased role with regular travel across your allocated areas in the West and East (candidates will ideally be based on the M4 corridor)

What you'll be doing

• Leading quality audits: Undertake internal audits across services, assessing care and support, safeguarding, medication, housing and overall service quality.
• Driving improvement: Work with service managers to identify gaps, develop improvement plans and ensure actions are implemented and monitored.
• Monitoring compliance: Support services to meet CQC and Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) regulatory requirements, identifying and escalating areas of concern.
• Managing risk and incidents: Provide advice and guidance on care quality incidents, notifications, complaints and safeguarding concerns.
• Analysing performance: Review quality data, audit findings and service feedback to identify trends, risks and opportunities for improvement.
• Supporting managers: Build management capability by providing practical guidance, constructive challenge and support to embed good practice.
• Reporting and governance: Produce reports, monitor KPIs and share learning and insights with the wider Quality and Governance team.

What you'll bring

We're looking for someone with a strong understanding of quality and regulatory compliance, alongside the confidence and experience to influence improvements across services.

• Experience undertaking quality audits and delivering improvement initiatives within a health and/or social care setting
• A strong working knowledge of CQC and/or CIW regulations, compliance requirements and inspection frameworks.
• Experience monitoring quality, compliance and risk, identifying areas for improvement and driving actions through to completion.
• The ability to analyse data, identify trends and produce meaningful reports to support decision-making.
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills, with the confidence to influence and constructively challenge managers.
• Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage a varied workload independently, prioritising competing demands.
• Good IT skills, including Microsoft Office and Excel.
• A recognised audit qualification (such as ISO or Lean Six Sigma), project management experience and a background in leading Adult Social Care services would also be desirable.

What success looks like

You'll help ensure Hft's services deliver safe, high-quality support, meet regulatory requirements and continually improve. Through effective auditing, insightful analysis and strong relationships with service managers, you'll help identify risks, embed learning and drive improvements that make a real difference to the lives of the people we support.

Why join Hft?

At Hft, our values are at the heart of everything we do. We are Diverse, Kind, Positive and Visionary, and we’re committed to creating an environment where people feel supported, respected and able to make a difference.
This is an opportunity to bring your employee relations expertise to an organisation with a meaningful purpose, working alongside colleagues who are passionate about improving the lives of learning disabled people.

Selection Process

We will be shorting application on an ongoing basis. Should your application be shortlisted, you will be invited to attend a pre-screening interview with a member of the recruitment team. Should you be successful at this stage, the final assessment process will involve a competency-based interview and the opportunity to get to know the team. Interviews will take place the first week of December. Please note that we reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive a high volume of applications, so we encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

Working arrangements

This role is available on a six month FT, and is home based with regular travel to your assigned services (based in the West and East of England) Candidates will ideally be based on the M4 corridor for easy assess to services.

Our Commitment to Inclusion

We are committed to recruiting people from diverse backgrounds and believe that a diverse and inclusive workforce helps us better support the people we work with to live their best lives. If there is anything we can do to support you to do your best during the application and selection process, please contact kate.boughton@hft.org.uk