Senior clinical safety officer

Band 8a · Clinical safety officer · 577 job evaluation points

Leads clinical safety for a major program or a portfolio of high-risk systems, signing off safety cases and guiding other clinical safety officers.

Responsibilities

Lead clinical risk management for high-risk systems such as electronic health records, prescribing, and decision support.
Approve hazard logs and clinical safety case reports within delegated authority.
Advise program boards on clinical risk and whether a system is safe to go live.
Lead investigations of serious safety incidents involving health IT.
Coach and quality-check the work of clinical safety officers and safety-trained clinicians.
Help improve the organization's clinical risk management system and templates.

Skills

Skill	Expected level	What this level means
Registered clinical practice in digitalThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: make sound clinical judgments about the effect of digital services on care challenge unsafe practice, in digital or clinical settings, with confidence support other clinicians to apply their professional standards to digital work
Clinical risk managementThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: own the clinical risk management system for the organization set clinical safety policy and assure safety cases for major systems lead the response to serious safety incidents involving health IT build a culture of clinical safety across digital teams
Human factors and usability in clinical systemsThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: plan and run human factors assessments of clinical systems turn findings into design changes and clinical safety controls assess alert burden and the risk of workarounds
Medical device software regulationThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: assess whether a product is a medical device, and its likely class plan the regulatory work for a product with quality and clinical colleagues
Clinical leadership in digitalThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: lead clinical engagement for a product or program turn clinical needs and evidence into requirements champion safe adoption among clinical peers
Understanding health and care servicesThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: analyze how a service fits into care pathways across organizations work with clinicians, care staff, and patients to shape digital services explain the effect of digital decisions on care, safety, and staff workload
Organizational risk managementThis reference	Working (2)	You can: record and update risks for your area suggest controls and track actions
Stakeholder relationship managementUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: work with the team to develop and maintain an understanding of stakeholders work with the team to develop and implement stakeholder communications strategies identify and resolve issues, influence stakeholders and manage relationships effectively build long-term strategic relationships and communicate clearly and regularly with stakeholders
Enabling and informing risk-based decisionsUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: work with higher impact or more complex risks, advising on the impact and whether it's within risk tolerance apply different risk methodologies in proportion to the risk

Typical qualifications and experience

Current registration with a clinical professional body, with extensive clinical experience.
Substantial experience of clinical risk management for health IT.

Band 8a outline

Knowledge: Expert knowledge of a discipline and its management.
Autonomy: Interprets organizational policy for a service; sets the team's direction.
Scope: A service area or a discipline across the organization.
Leadership: Manages a team, or leads a discipline without line management.
Accountability: A service area, its staff, and its budget.

Job evaluation (illustrative)

Factor	Level	Level summary	Points
Communication and relationship skills	5	Gives highly complex or contentious information needing developed persuasion and negotiation, presents to large groups, or communicates where there are significant barriers to acceptance.	45
Knowledge, training, and experience	7	Highly developed specialist knowledge across the range of the specialism (master's level or equivalent).	196
Analytical and judgmental skills	5	Judgments on highly complex facts or situations needing analysis, interpretation, and comparison of options.	60
Planning and organizational skills	3	Plans several complex activities, adjusting plans as needed.	27
Physical skills	2	Skills gained through practice, such as standard keyboard use or driving.	15
Responsibility for patient and client care	5	Develops programs of care, provides specialist clinical technical services, or gives specialized advice on patient care.	30
Responsibility for policy and service development	4	Implements policy and develops policy or services for a service or several areas.	32
Responsibility for financial and physical resources	3	Authorizes payments, buys some assets or supplies, monitors or holds a delegated budget, or maintains assets.	21
Responsibility for people	3	Manages a group of staff day to day, teaches core or specialist training, or gives core HR advice.	21
Responsibility for information resources	5	Designs and develops major information systems, or runs information systems for several services as the main duty.	34
Responsibility for research and development	2	Regularly does research, development, trials, or equipment and system testing as part of the job.	12
Freedom to act	5	Works within general policies, and in most cases decides how to interpret them.	45
Physical effort	1	Sitting, standing, and walking, with little physical effort.	3
Mental effort	4	Frequent prolonged concentration, or occasional intense concentration.	18
Emotional effort	2	Occasional exposure, or frequent indirect exposure, to distressing circumstances.	11
Working conditions	2	Occasional unpleasant conditions, frequent travel or outdoor work, or near-continuous screen use on most days.	7
Total (Band 8a: 540 to 584)			577