Description:
Purpose of the Role
The post holder will lead and develop the Quality, Safety and Risk Management (QSRM) Programme at Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), advancing it to a best-in-class standard. This will involve reorganising and integrating existing initiatives across CHI, as well as introducing new and expanded QSRM practices in line with international best standards. The role carries operational oversight and responsibility for all quality, patient safety, and risk management activities throughout CHI. The post holder will guide and support the implementation of the organisation’s quality improvement and patient safety programme and coordinate the activities required for an effective, continuous quality improvement framework.
The post holder will direct and oversee performance improvement initiatives to ensure full compliance with regulatory, national, accreditation, and external standards. Working closely with clinical and non-clinical teams, they will drive improvements in patient safety and systems-level outcomes. They will support, promote, and facilitate robust quality, patient safety, and risk management programmes with a focus on harm reduction, patient-centred care, and the advancement of a just culture across CHI.
The post holder will be accountable for creating and sustaining a QSRM environment within CHI that aligns with leading contemporary international standards of excellence.
Essential Criteria
• A minimum Level 8 NFQ qualification (or international equivalent) in Quality, Risk or Regulation; Health and Social Care Professions; Health Services Management; or a related discipline.
• A minimum of 10 years’ post-graduate experience in a relevant role.
• At least 7 years’ experience in senior or executive management within health or social care organisations, or in other public or private sector, customer-facing organisations. The candidate must demonstrate a strong record of achievement in highly regulated environments and under conditions of public scrutiny, with evidence of meeting demanding performance targets.
• Proven experience as a senior health service executive with a successful track record in acute hospital operations at scale, including multi-site, network, or health service leadership at senior level.
Desirable Criteria
• Advanced training in business, healthcare leadership, quality, or health management.
• Demonstrated success in leading major organisational change, delivering strategy, and achieving Service Level Agreements within budget.
• Experience in leading transformational change at scale, fostering employee engagement, driving innovation, and achieving ambitious organisational goals.
• Experience in strategic, long-term planning, including vision setting, future-focused design, and anticipating organisational opportunities and challenges.
• Demonstrated expertise in Quality, Safety and Risk Management, with comprehensive knowledge of QSRM governance within a large, complex hospital environment.
Essential Experience and Skillset
• Proven experience managing teams and leading large-scale, organisation-wide transformation projects in quality, patient safety, and risk management.
• Deep commitment to modern healthcare, high-quality care delivery, and creating a positive workplace culture aligned with CHI’s values of child-centred, compassionate, and progressive care.
• Exceptional leadership, relationship-building, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to coordinate multiple complex activities and provide strategic and professional leadership to multidisciplinary teams.
• Ability to work collaboratively within a complex, evolving organisational structure and inspire teams to achieve the highest standards of patient care.
• Strong collaboration skills, with the ability to bring together key stakeholders within a clinician-led and child-centred model of care.
• Proven capacity to deliver organisational objectives, supported by advanced analytical abilities to interpret trends and generate strategic QSRM insights.
• Highly developed executive-level critical thinking, judgement, and experience contributing to strategic design, execution, and evaluation as part of a senior executive team.
• Significant experience in leading organisational risk management or governance systems.