Matron

The Oncology Critical Care Unit at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist 8-bed critical care unit providing Level 2 (high dependency) and Level 3 (intensive care) support for patients with complex cancer-related conditions. The unit cares for patients recovering from major oncological surgery as well as those experiencing acute complications of cancer or cancer treatments. OCCU works closely with the Critical Care Outreach Team to support early identification and management of deteriorating patients across the Trust. As Matron, you will provide visible professional and operational leadership across these services, ensuring high standards of patient safety, experience and quality of care. Working closely with senior nursing and multidisciplinary colleagues, you will lead service improvement, support workforce development and promote a culture of continuous quality improvement. This is a unique opportunity to lead specialist oncology critical care services within one of Europe's leading cancer centres., The Matron will provide professional leadership and line management for the OCCU and CCOT nursing teams, ensuring the delivery of high-quality, evidence-based patient care across these services. You will be responsible for maintaining high standards of clinical practice, patient safety and patient experience, ensuring care is delivered in safe, clean and supportive environments. Acting as a visible and accessible leader, you will support patients, families and staff while promoting compassionate, dignified care. The role includes oversight of governance, risk management and quality improvement across the service, including leading investigations, managing complaints and implementing sustainable improvements to practice. The Matron will support workforce planning, staff development, recruitment and performance management to ensure teams are supported to deliver excellent care. Working closely with clinical and operational colleagues, you will contribute to service development, strategic planning and achievement of national and local performance targets, ensuring effective use of resources and continuous improvement in patient outcomes., Communications

• Ensures effective communication channels exist between patients and relevant stakeholders at all levels.
• Ensures patients and their families are treated with dignity and respect and information is conveyed to them in a timely and understandable manner.
Risk & Clinical Governance
• Works collaboratively with Divisional Governance team and Quality & Standards team and leads on complex investigations, resolutions and action planning.
• Undertake root case analysis and develop action plans, ensuring this leads to sustainable changes in improved practice.
• Supports patients and staff in the handling of complaints and works to ensure early and satisfactory resolution of concerns.
• The Matron takes the lead role within their areas of responsibility for ensuring effective patient and family engagement, ensuring that the views and comments of patients, carers and service users are sought and acted upon.
• Be champions for driving the infection prevention and control agenda and challenging poor practice. Ensuring patients are cared for in clean and safe environments taking remedial action if standards are not maintained.
• Where possible, take all reasonable action to address problems, concerns and complaints as near to 'source' as possible, but also understands when to escalate.
• Responsible for implementing effective risk assessment and management within own clinical areas or teams working closely with the divisional quality and governance team.
Responsibility for Patient Care
• Be a visible leader who is accessible and assists patients/service users/carers/relatives during incidental contacts.
• Accountable for ensuring the appropriate and effective development, delivery and monitoring of patient care and service across areas of responsibility.
• Monitor the quality and timeliness of nursing care and service provision in accordance with relevant professional and local standards.
• Responsible for ensuring that care is delivered in a safe, efficient, effective and timely manner and that plans for discharge to ward, and department areas and transfer of patients is within acceptable safe parameters.
• Responsible for providing senior nursing advice across areas of the Trust as required, including participation in Duty Manager rota for evenings, weekends and bank holidays.
• Support Matron colleagues and Ward Managers to ensure the most appropriate distribution of staffing resources to balance risks and to ensure the safe and smooth running of the division.
Planning and organising
• Work in collaboration with the clinical teams daily. Monitor and action decisions in relation to clinical areas ensuring nursing skill mix in relation to activity and acuity. Manage and report any risk issues to the Divisional Associate Chief Nurse in a timely manner.
• Organise and plan own day to day workload or activities to meet the demands of the job role.
• Ensure that day to day staffing and resources are deployed across the division to meet the needs of services in conjunction with the divisional Matrons.
• Use information obtained from patients, families and staff to make changes to the patient environment and care where appropriate or necessary.
• The Matron will supervise the assessment, planning, implementation provision and evaluation of patient care; ensuring that nursing and corporate standards are implemented, maintained, monitored and improved upon where necessary. This includes assuming all overall accountability within the directorate for the monitoring, review, improvement and provision of evidence and assurance relating to patient care.
• In conjunction with the Divisional Associate Chief Nurse, the Matron will contribute to the strategic direction of service lines and specialties through meeting key performance indicators and national and local activity targets.
Responsibilities for Physical and / or Financial Resources
• Ensure safe and efficient use of equipment, resources and consumables always.
• Within sphere of responsibility ensure self and line-report staff manage pay and non-pay resources efficiently and effectively, and in accordance with corporate standards, procedures, policies and objectives. Include formulating and delivering remedial action plans where adverse variances arise.
• Work in partnership with Divisional Senior Management team, finance, HR and information analysts to lead the service line and specialties in a business-like way and to ensure the safe and effective management and leadership of the specialty teams and resources.
• In partnership with facilities and estates colleagues, the Matron is responsible and accountable for ensuring that the environment in which care and service are delivered are fit for purpose, clean and maintained and meet relevant national cleaning and other performance standards.
• The Matron is responsible for ensuring that all equipment in their department is well maintained and cleaned and replaced in accordance with relevant professional and corporate standards, ensuring accurate records are maintained.
• The Matron is accountable for implementation of systems for monitoring the quality and safety of patient care and experiences including effective and efficient patient throughput in the theatre environment.
• Responsible for overseeing ward pay, non-pay budgets and addressing adverse variances whilst identifying opportunities for cost improvements.
Responsibility for Policy and Service Development and Implementation
• Participates with service/specialty teams in the development of policy, processes and business plans at Directorate/Service level.
• Represent and provide nursing expertise and advice to business and operational discussions, meetings and forums.
• Responsible for recognising service requirements and ensuring these are communicated to the Directorate/Specialty teams and Divisional Associate Chief Nurse.
• Ensuring that all staff practice in accordance with statutory and corporate policies; including those specific to patient safety.
• To be aware of, comment on and/or actively participate in changes on policies, procedures or service developments.
• To embrace and support line management and the department in making service improvements effective within the workplace.
Responsibilities for Human Resources and Leadership
• Support new or less experienced work colleagues to adapt to the workplace.
• Ensure self and others practice is in accordance with the Nursing and Midwifery Council's Code of Conduct.
• As an ambassador of the nursing profession, ensure self and others practice to the highest professional standards.
• Responsible for the informal and formal appraisal of direct line report staff and for ensuring that they are trained, supported and developed accordingly.
• Ensure that all direct line report staff have clear and agreed performance objectives that support the delivery of the Directorate and the wider Divisional and Trust objectives
• Participate in skill mix review, workforce redesign and recruitment and retention strategies to develop and modernise the workforce in conjunction with the divisional Senior Nursing and Management team.
• Responsible for the effective management of staff sickness and absence as well as maintaining an overview ensuring absence percentage targets are not breached, acting where required.
• Responsible for overseeing HR management within their areas of responsibility including recruitment, sickness absence, training etc.
• Overseeing and monitoring the quality, timeliness and development of nursing care in accordance with relevant professional standards.
• The Matron will provide professional advice and support to specialty teams and service line colleagues to ensure the delivery of the highest quality of patient care and service delivery.
• As a member of the senior team within the Division, the Matron will act as a professional role model to all nurses and will take corrective action to uphold the standards required of the Trust and the profession.
• The Matron will be required to deputise for the Divisional Associate Chief Nurse as required and appropriate.
• The Natron will ensure that nursing and relevant support staff are managed and developed to enable them to deliver the highest standards of patient care and service.
• Participate in training and development activities that are relevant to the job role.
Responsibilities for data and information resources
• Responsible for providing accurate and timely records on patient care and performance IT based systems.
• Development of audits and analysis of working practices and trends to support improvements in performance in relation to quality and patient experience.
• Ensure patient confidentiality is maintained.
Research, Development and Audit
• Ensure that the clinical areas and teams for which they are responsible for adopt best practice evidence-based standards.
• Ensure national and local quality initiatives are implemented for nursing across the Directorate.
• Responsible for ensuring that areas for which they are responsible implement the quality audits and any associated or successor initiatives to within agreed/required timescales. Maintains accurate and contemporaneous records.
• Promote an environment where research and development are valued.
• Participate in clinical audit and promote/identify research activity/opportunities.
The closing date for this post may be extended if there are insufficient applicants or brought forward if there is a high volume of applicants. Application Information - If you have not heard from us within four weeks of the closing date, I regret that on this occasion your application will have been unsuccessful. Sponsorship Information - We are an approved sponsoring organisation. Applications will be considered from applicants requiring sponsorship alongside all other applications. Please be aware, not all roles are eligible for sponsorship. You can review the list of eligible role and requirements on the government website. Pre-Employment Checks - To confirm your suitability for the role, we will carry out pre-employment checks in line with NHS Employment Check Standards. These include: + Identity verification

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced and dynamic nursing leader to join the Clinical Support and Specialist Surgery Division at The Christie as Matron for the Oncology Critical Care Unit (OCCU) and Critical Care Outreach Team (CCOT).

The Christie is one of Europe's leading cancer centres, treating over 60,000 patients a year. We are based in Manchester and serve a population of 3.2 million across Greater Manchester & Cheshire, but as a national specialist around 15% patients are referred to us from other parts of the country. We provide radiotherapy through one of the largest radiotherapy departments in the world; chemotherapy on site and through 14 other hospitals; highly specialist surgery for complex and rare cancer; and a wide range of support and diagnostic services. We are also an international leader in research, with world first breakthroughs for over 100 years. We run one of the largest early clinical trial units in Europe with over 300 trials every year. Cancer research in Manchester, most of which is undertaken on the Christie site, has been officially ranked the best in the UK., + Disclosure and barring service (DBS)/Criminal record check (dependent on role, payment of this will be the applicants responsibility) + Professional registration and/or qualification check + Occupational health assessment + Employment history and reference validation All applicants external to The Christie NHS Foundation Trust will be required to provide their HMRC employment history to cover the most recent three years employment. This information will used to validate employment history and references. If you require sponsorship, we will assess your eligibility based on current government guidance. If the role is not eligible and you cannot demonstrate your right to work, your conditional offer may be withdrawn. If You're Offered the Role - you will be agreeing to The Christie NHS Foundation Trust transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are offered a job information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system. Please note, all communication regarding your application will be made via email, please ensure you check your junk/spam folders as emails are sometimes filtered there. The Inter-Authority Transfer (IAT) process is a critical and beneficial component of ESR and will form part of the recruitment process. In the event that you are successful following interview your previous NHS employment data, if applicable will be transferred from your current / most recent employer. Sponsorship Information - We are an approved sponsoring organisation. Applications will be considered from applicants requiring sponsorship alongside all other applications. Please be aware, not all roles are eligible for sponsorship. You can review the list of eligible role and requirements on the government website. No Smoking Policy - You should be aware the Trust operates a No Smoking Policy and therefore employees are not permitted to smoke at work. Additional Information - We want to ensure that everyone who works at the Christie or uses our services is welcomed, valued and treated with dignity and respect. The Christie values diversity and is committed to ensuring equal opportunities for all and fair representation across the organisation at all levels. In support of these commitments, we particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and other ethnic minority people and people with disabilities for this post. Appointment will be only on merit. We are committed to creating a balanced and diverse workforce. As such we welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds. Together we will foster inclusion and tackle inequity and health inequalities in cancer care. As users of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the vacancy. The Christie NHS Foundation Trust is committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct and integrity in all our activities. We have a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery in any of its forms, including slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour, and human trafficking. We are fully committed to acting ethically and with transparency in all our business dealings and relationships, and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure modern slavery is not taking place anywhere in our organisation or supply chains.