Quality Assurance Advisor

The Vaccination and Screening Directorate is responsible for discharging the NHS public health functions agreement, under which the Secretary of State delegates responsibility to NHS England for certain public health services (Section 7A services), including around 20 immunisation programmes, 11 screening programmes and other services such as child health information services (CHIS), some of which are led by Health and Justice national commissioning team. Working as a multi-disciplinary team, we work across the NHS and wider partners to design/deliver the best possible services. The directorate is collectively responsible for the delivery of our mission statement:

• To deliver maximum levels of uptake and coverage across the whole population within and between communities, improving health outcomes, avoiding harm, enabling earlier diagnosis and helping people to stay well, leaving no-one behind.
The post holder will work within the bowel cancer screening portfolio team with responsibility for a small number of providers and supported by a senior QA Advisor working within a geographical area, providing input and support to the national portfolio deliverables. They will be required to work with a degree of autonomy in support of the senior QA Advisors in the delivery of a comprehensive programme of QA capable of maintaining and further developing effective high quality screening. Some cross cover between geographically based QA teams will be expected to ensure resilience., The post holder will:
• work with QA Facilitators managing complex QA issues and acting as a point of escalation to support the Senior QA Advisor to ensure their work stream of programmes are planned and managed effectively
• be expected to develop close liaison and communication with local screening programmes, provider organisations and commissioners to monitor organisations against minimum standards of service performance/quality across all elements of the NHS bowel cancer screening programme
• work collaboratively with colleagues responsible for the screening QA and improvement of other screening programmes and work nationally to promote consistency across national screening programmes in the delivery of the national QA and improvement function.
Whilst the postholder may have a usual group of providers and commissioners that they work with they will be expected to have flexibility to work with other screening providers/commissioners across the country to focus screening QA and improvement activity with prioritised providers. The post holder must be able to operate independently with the capability to interpret, implement and provide specialist advice but recognise when to refer matters of particular complexity/sensitivity to the more senior staff. In line with the programme specific operating model, supporting delivery of QA interventions, by supporting QA visits and leading screening pathway reviews with responsibility for report or letter content and recommendations.

The NHS England board have set out the top-level purpose for the new organisation to lead the NHS in England to deliver high-quality services for all, which will inform the detailed design work and we will achieve this purpose by:
• enabling local systems and providers to improve the health of their people and patients and reduce health inequalities;
• making the NHS a great place to work, where our people can make a difference and achieve their potential;
• working collaboratively to ensure our healthcare workforce has the right knowledge, skills, values and behaviours to deliver accessible, compassionate care;
• optimising the use of digital technology, research, and innovation; and
• delivering value for money.