Head of Governance and Shared Services

Job summary

Bury Hospice is entering a period of growth and innovation, focused on delivering compassionate, high-quality care to patients and families. As Head of Governance and Shared Services, you will play a pivotal leadership role in driving transformation, strengthening governance, and supporting long-term sustainability, ensuring the organisation continues to provide exceptional, dignified care for the community.

Main duties of the job

As a member of the Senior Leadership Team, the Head of Governance and Shared Services leads an integrated approach to quality governance, support services, and organisational assurance across the Hospice. The role fosters a culture of continuous quality improvement, supported by robust governance, risk, and performance systems.

The post holder is responsible for ensuring effective and proportionate governance, risk and compliance arrangements that provide clear assurance that services are safe, effective, and aligned to statutory requirements, national guidance, and Care Quality Commission (CQC) standards, maintaining continuous inspection readiness.

The role also provides leadership and oversight of Hospice wide services across the Hospice, ensuring these functions are safe, efficient, and responsive to service needs. It supports the integration of governance and service operations to enable high-quality care delivery and achievement of the Hospices strategic priorities.

About us

Bury Hospice provides compassionate, specialist palliative and end-of-life care to people and families across the Bury community. Our values: to learn, inspire, care and respect guide everything we do.

Job description

Job responsibilities

Strategic Leadership

• Act as a senior leader contributing to organisational strategy, business planning, and transformation.
• Lead the development and delivery of the Hospice Quality Strategy and Governance Framework.
• Provide visible, values-driven leadership and promote a positive organisational culture.
• Support the Board and Chief Executive through robust assurance reporting.
• Build strong partnerships across the health and social care system.
• Drive innovation and service development to ensure sustainability and responsiveness.

Quality, Governance and Assurance

• Lead and coordinate organisation-wide governance systems, ensuring a structured and consistent approach to compliance, assurance, and performance monitoring.
• Develop and maintain a robust governance framework across clinical and support services.
• Produce high-quality reports for SLT and Board to inform decision making.
• Lead the development of Annual Quality Accounts and other statutory reports, ensuring accuracy, transparency, and regulatory compliance.
• Oversee governance committees and action tracking processes, ensuring timely follow-up, accountability, and closure of actions.
• Promote a culture of learning and continuous improvement.
• Ensure governance systems provide clear and timely assurance on risks, performance, and outcomes.
• Embed an organisation-wide quality improvement methodology, ensuring consistent application and measurable impact across clinical and corporate service.

Compliance and Regulatory Readiness

• Ensure the organisation maintains full compliance with CQC standards, legislation, and national guidance, supporting the delivery of safe and effective care.
• Maintain continuous inspection readiness, ensuring evidence, systems and processes are in place to demonstrate compliance at all times.
• Lead preparation for inspections, reviews and external assessments, coordinating evidence and supporting teams throughout the process.
• Monitor regulatory and legislative developments, ensuring the organisation responds proactively to changes in requirements or guidance.
• Act as the organisational lead for external regulatory engagement, including managing relationships with regulators and overseeing responses to inspection findings and recommendations.

Audit, Risk and Patient Safety

• Lead the organisational audit programme aligned to risks and priorities.
• Ensure audit findings translate into measurable improvement.
• Oversee risk management processes and the organisational risk register.
• Oversee incidents, complaints and investigations using a systems-based learning approach.
• Promote a just culture of openness and learning.
• Lead implementation of PSIRF-aligned safety learning systems.
• Provide Board-level assurance on safety, risk, and mitigation.

Information Governance and Data

• Act as Senior Information Risk Owner (SIRO), providing Board-level leadership and assurance for information governance, data security, and risk management across the organisation.
• Ensure compliance with GDPR and the Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT), maintaining robust systems and controls to safeguard sensitive information and ensure regulatory requirements are met.
• Lead the development of reporting systems, ensuring timely, accurate and accessible data is available to support operational, strategic, and Board-level decision making.
• Provide analysis of…