Head of Client Safety, Governance and Safeguarding Full Time NEW

As our Head of Client Safety, Governance and Safeguarding, you will play a key role in leading and developing robust safeguarding protocols and governance frameworks across our ND services. You will help ensure best practice is followed to promote the safety and wellbeing of our clients, prioritising rigorous compliance with safeguarding legislation and national care standards. You will work closely with our clinical teams to embed a proactive culture of vigilance, accountability, and client-centred care. Your leadership will protect the people we support and directly contribute to the business by mitigating risk to ensure our services remain a safe, trusted, and excellent environment for everyone, especially vulnerable clients and families, who are neurodivergent.

How we work: We ideally look for a hybrid pattern of two days a week in our head office, though we’re open to exploring alternative arrangements for the right person

What You’ll Be Doing

Bringing Best Practice to the Whole Business

• Lead the response to safeguarding concerns and clinical risks by rigorously monitoring, evaluating, and acting on incidents, which will ensure we strive to provide a consistently safe environment that fiercely protects the wellbeing of our clients.
• Cultivate a proactive culture of safety and learning by analysing incident data and client feedback with clinical teams, which will prevent recurring issues and continuously elevate the safety of our care.

Governance, Compliance and Reporting

• Act as the CQC Registered Manager by taking overarching responsibility for regulatory adherence, to ensure our services strictly meet national care standards, professional guidelines, and legal requirements.
• Establish robust clinical governance and safeguarding frameworks by developing and maintaining clear, accessible policies, to provide our ND services with a secure, standardised foundation for daily operations.
• Deliver transparent governance reporting by compiling clear data and insights for senior leadership and external regulators, which will enable informed, strategic decision-making and maintain our organisational integrity.

Quality Assurance and Clinical Collaboration

• Drive continuous quality improvement by leading comprehensive clinical audits and compliance reviews, which will proactively identify potential gaps and ensure we maintain operational excellence.
• Partner regularly with the Neurodevelopmental Clinical Lead and wider multidisciplinary teams to embed current clinical best practices to maintain exceptionally high standards of neuro-affirmative, client-centred care across the board.
• Empower colleagues through targeted training and continuous professional development by designing programs focused on safeguarding, governance, and risk management which will allow us to build a highly skilled, confident, and deeply accountable workforce.

Leadership And Management Accountabilities

• Line manage and mentor the Safeguarding Lead and junior team members by providing regular supervision and developmental goals, which will build a highly effective, resilient, and specialized governance team.
• Drive a high-performance culture within your team by establishing and monitoring role-specific KPIs and clear objectives, which will foster accountability, support continuous development, and ensure your department’s outputs directly align with the wider business strategy.
• Champion a high-performance safety culture across the business by defining and monitoring clear safeguarding KPIs and clinical objectives, which will drive accountability, elevate care standards, and ensure measurable quality improvement across all ND services.

We’d Love It If You’re Someone Who Is

• A values driven and objective decision-maker who consistently demonstrates integrity, empathy, and resilience when managing complex or highly sensitive safeguarding concerns.
• A strategic thinker with meticulous attention to detail, able to see the “big picture” of service safety while rigorously managing the detailed administrative demands of CQC compliance.
• A collaborative and influential leader, skilled at building trust across multidisciplinary teams while possessing the confidence to constructively challenge the status quo and influence positive change.
• Proactive, delivery-focused, and adaptable, thriving when driving continuous improvement initiatives and comfortably navigating shifting priorities in a fast-paced clinical environment.

We’d Love It If You Have

• Previous experience within services providing support to neurodivergent individuals and families and a core profession (e.g. Occupational Therapist, Speech and Language Therapist, Psychology – Clinical, Counselling or Forensic, Mental Health / Learning Disability Nursing, Paediatrician, Social Worker).
• Proven experience acting as a CQC Registered Manager (or extensive, senior-level readiness to hold this registration), backed by a deep, practical understanding of CQC frameworks and national care standards.
• A proficient background in senior safeguarding leadership, including extensive experience managing complex clinical risks, multi-agency safeguarding concerns, and overall clinical governance.
• A successful track record of executing quality assurance cycles, including designing clinical audits, implementing quality improvement (QI) processes, and translating healthcare legislation into everyday operational policy.

You’re Someone Who Connects With Our Values

• We are one team
• We are reliable
• We are creative
• We are passionate

Don’t be put off if you cannot tick all the boxes. We know that candidates can be put off applying if you don’t feel you are a 100% there, but we would still love to hear from you! We get that a diverse workforce makes a great workforce, this is the reason we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive culture where our people can turn up, be themselves & thrive.

We want you to be as relaxed as possible during our selection journey which may require an adjustment to our process. We encourage you to be open about what you need so we can adapt and allow you to thrive.