National Clinical Lead

National Clinical Lead ()

National Hub for Reviewing and Learning from the deaths of Children and Young People

One year secondment until April 2026

2 sessions per week (0.2 WTE)

Edinburgh/Glasgow:
Hybrid Working will apply for the foreseeable future

Healthcare Improvement Scotland supports healthcare providers to deliver high quality, evidence-based, safe, effective and person‑centred care; and to provide public assurance about the quality and safety of that care. Visible, active clinical assurance is central to the success of our work and will support the delivery of clinically effective care to patients.

A system has been established for reviewing and learning from the circumstances surrounding the death of all children and young people in Scotland, based on a National Hub. Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate lead the National Hub. The programme uses a multidisciplinary approach, focused on using evidence to deliver change, and ultimately aiming to reduce deaths and harm to children and young people.

Funding has been agreed to digitally connect National Records Scotland with the National Hub’s portal to streamline and enhance the current data systems.

The death of every child and young person in Scotland should be reviewed through a high quality and consistent review process. Reviews should be conducted on the deaths of all live‑born children up to the age of 18, or 26 for care leavers who are in receipt of aftercare or continuing care at the time of their death.

The National Hub operates in the context of existing review arrangements, rather than replacing or duplicating them. The landscape is complex with a range of processes currently in place, including:

• clinical reviews such as Perinatal Mortality Review, Significant Adverse Events (SAEs) etc
• reviews of deaths of looked‑after children undertaken by the Care Inspectorate
• Learning Reviews (of which approximately half follow the death of a child), and
• fatal accident inquiry

• Ensure that the death of every child in Scotland is subject to a quality review
• Improve the experience and engagement with families and carers
• Channel learning from current review processes across Scotland that could direct action to help reduce preventable deaths

The National Clinical Lead will provide clinical assurance, visible clinical leadership and improvement expertise and build the organisation’s clinical capability and capacity to improve the quality of health care and inform the content and aims of the National Hub.

The postholder will be accountable for maintaining close liaison with the HIS Strategic National Clinical Lead (Child Health), to ensure opportunities for strategic alignment, collaboration and learning are maximised.

Key competencies and skills:

• Extensive knowledge of, and recent experience in, the field of child health
• Extensive knowledge of strategically managing services for children and young people
• Experience in providing strong clinical leadership at regional or national programme level
• Experience and knowledge of systems and structures of NHS Scotland
• Experience and advanced training in improvement science to drive reliable, sustainable improvement and promote spread and sustainability
• An interest and experience of using data to drive improvement
• Experience and knowledge of systems and organisational attributes to create the conditions for improvement
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills with the responsibility to liaise with key stakeholders including clinical colleagues, professional colleges etc.
• Ability to build strong collaborative working relationships
• Self‑aware and authentic understands and can articulate own strengths, motivations, patterns, needs and limitations, able to engage in open and honest discussions of own performance and can use feedback constructively to improve performance
• Ability to critically analyse complex information
• Ability to manage and work to deadlines

The postholder will strategically align with the Strategic National Clinical Lead (Child Health) for HIS. They will report professionally to the Associate Medical Director, and operationally to the Head of Reviews, Quality Assurance and Regulation Directorate.

If you have any questions in relation to the role, please contact Sandra McDougall, Associate Director, ougall1t or Phil Korsah, Associate Medical Director, at Phil

Closing Date:
Midnight on 22nd March