Job profile

Job title: Senior Improvement Adviser - Registered Nurse (focus on mental health and learning disabilities)

Reporting to: Quality Improvement Manager (Health and Social Care Improvement Team)

Principal working contacts

Internal

• Quality improvement manager
• Health and social care improvement team
• Chief inspectors
• Head of quality improvement and participation
• Quality Iimprovement support team
• Participation and equalities team
• Senior leadership team
• Scrutiny and assurance service managers, team managers and inspectors
• Policy team, intelligence team and communications team

External

• Scottish Government policy leads
• Service providers and care service staff
• Other regulatory, scrutiny and improvement bodies
• NHS boards staff and agencies, local authorities, partnerships, and integrated joint boards
• National specialist groups
• Members of the public and other stakeholders
• Professional Bodies and Royal Colleges

Job purpose

Working alongside the quality improvement manager, health and social care improvement team, wider improvement section colleagues and with close collaboration with scrutiny and assurance, the post holder will promote standards and good practice in nursing-based care and support:

• Lead and deliver key elements of the Care Inspectorate’s health and wellbeing improvement activities.
• Lead and develop aspects of the Care Inspectorate’s health improvement support functions based on current and emerging models of delivery that will facilitate improvements in practice in care services and improve the outcomes for people experiencing care
• Ensure effective coordination between sources of health and wellbeing advice and inspection, complaints, and registration teams, building capacity internally and externally
• Build and develop strategic partnerships across the health and social care landscape to support the delivery of health and wellbeing improvement advice and improvement support.

Key responsibilities

• To build capacity for health and wellbeing quality improvement in the care sector and in the Care Inspectorate, across all scrutiny and quality improvement activities
• To ensure professional advice is provided and sourced to support the Care Inspectorate in the delivery of its scrutiny and improvement activities
• To lead the development of specific health and wellbeing focused quality illustrations/indicators, tools and improvement support materials to support the current inspection frameworks for use by inspectors and in care services
• To develop and maintain the relationships with national bodies/improvement bodies to co-create developments in health and social care improvement, developing guidance, sharing good practice, and expert advice and support
• To lead in ensuring the development of effective practice materials for use by inspectors and care services
• To advise on quality improvement design and delivery to ensure the scrutiny and improvement plan is met, and to determine impact, ensuring that health and wellbeing priorities are addressed
• To provide expert advice and guidance to internal and external stakeholders on health and wellbeing improvement in social care
• To promote the Care Inspectorate’s improvement work and to maintain the organisation’s reputation for supporting the development of high-quality, safe, compassionate care
• To establish and maintain robust working relationships with stakeholders across the health and social care sectors
• To maintain and further develop skills in quality improvement and safety including coaching, mentorship and facilitation of staff and managers both internally and externally
• To challenge outdated and unsafe practice directly with service providers, sharing evidence from research and expert advice to shift practice and achieve the necessary improvement in care quality
• To support the delivery of the Care Inspectorate’s corporate plan
• Monitor, evaluate, and report on all key areas and tasks advising on progress and challenges regularly
• To carry out any other reasonable tasks necessary to support the Care Inspectorate’s business.

Relationship management

• Work with the Care Inspectorate’s quality improvement manager, head of improvement support and chief inspectors to develop and facilitate a comprehensive approach to relationship management between the Care Inspectorate and various parts of the health and social care sector
• Ensure effective communication of the Care Inspectorate’s quality improvement support role in social care to practitioners and managers in the health sector
• Demonstrate a commitment to the Care Inspectorate’s aims, vision and values and to the Care Inspectorate’s overall objective of improving care in Scotland.

Other duties

This job may require extensive travel and involve overnight stays. This job profile is a broad picture of the post at the date of preparation. It is not an exhaustive list of all possible duties and it is recognised that jobs change and evolve over time. Consequently, the post holder will be required to carry out any other duties to the equivalent level that are necessary to fulfil the purpose of the job, and to respond positively to changing business needs.

The post holder will be expected to work autonomously in the main but also within a group, with agreed priorities and objectives. Objectives for this post will be agreed jointly with the relevant line manager and head of improvement support and will be reviewed on a regular basis.

We’ve agreed to investigate a complaint

• Introduction
• Our investigation
• Outcomes of investigations
• Post investigation review
• Outcome of the review

Introduction

This leaflet tells you how we will deal with the complaint that has been raised with us now that we have decided it meets our criteria as a complaint that requires formal investigation.

It tells how you can support our investigation and the important role you play in giving us information.

We hope you find this useful but if any of this is not clear to you, please discuss with the inspector who is investigating the complaint.

Our investigation

We aim to establish all the relevant facts and give complainants and those complained against a full, objective, and proportionate response that represents our final position.

It is important that we gather all relevant information about the complaint from the complainant and the complained against. Therefore, it is important that you give our investigating inspector all relevant information and any documents that have a bearing on the areas of the complaint.

Please tell the investigating inspector if you think you have relevant information that they have not asked for.

Where it’s appropriate, we will interview staff members and observe practice within the service. We will need a private space somewhere in the service to speak confidentially with relevant staff and we will ask the service to make this available. We will try to minimise any disruption to the service, but we do recognise that there will be some disruption of the normal day.

We aim to complete our investigation within forty working days. If this timescale needs to be extended, we will tell you why and give you an expected completion date.

Outcomes of investigations

When we have completed our investigation, we will speak to the complainant and the complained against. We will tell them our findings and the conclusion that we have reached. This is an important part of the process as it allows both parties to tell us about any issues, they feel we have not taken account of in reaching our conclusions.

We will then send a report to both the complainant and the complained against giving our findings and stating whether or not the complaint has been upheld.

There are two possible outcomes for a complaint investigation.

Upheld

We say we have upheld a complaint where we have investigated and found evidence to substantiate the allegations made. We may also uphold a complaint when we believe that on the balance of probability the issues raised in the complaint are valid. Where we have upheld a complaint, we may identify action for the service to take. We will also tell the person who has made the complaint about any requirements or areas for improvement we have made of the care service they have complained about.

Not upheld

We say we have not upheld a complaint where we have investigated and found there is a lack of evidence to validate the complaint.

Post investigation review

Once we have sent our complaint report to the complainant and the complained against, each party has ten working days from the date we sent the report to ask for a post investigation review if they have concerns about the outcome. We will not consider a request for review if we receive it after this period of ten working days has expired.

If you believe we have made a mistake in our findings or that we have come to the wrong conclusion, you can ask for a post investigation review by completing the relevant form.

You can ask for a post investigation review if you consider that:

• we made our decision based on important evidence that was inaccurate and you can show this using readily available information
• you have new and relevant information that was not previously available about the complaint we investigated, and which affects the decision we made

If you ask for a post investigation review, we will let the other party know we have received a request.

Outcome of the review

Once the ten working days are up, we will consider any request for a review.

We will decide whether to:

• investigate further
• update the report to reflect comments received
• update or change the outcomes of the complaint
• not make any changes to the outcomes.

We will write to you to explain the outcome of the review and the decision we have reached. If the complaint outcomes have changed, we will issue an amended complaint report and if no changes are made, we will confirm the report you received as final. Both the complainant and complained against will receive this information regardless of who has requested the review. 

Once we have concluded our review and informed you of our final position, no further appeal or review is possible.

We aim to do this within 20 working days of the final date for submission of a post investigation review request.

Once the review has taken place, we will reach our final position and you cannot appeal the complaint outcome.

Once all the relevant steps in the processes described above are completed, and if we decide the service needs to improve, it will have to give us an action plan within fifteen working days, which details how they will improve outcomes for the people who use their service.

We may also regrade a service following a complaint. Where a complaint has been upheld, we will post a summary of the complaint and any requirements or area for improvement that we have made on our website alongside the service’s other information. You can search for individual services by clicking on the Find care tab at the top of our homepage at careinspectorate.com