Band 8a Deputy Head of Legal

The closing date is 20th Jan 2025

Job summary

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) has a great opportunity for a Deputy Head of Legal Services to join us on a permanent full-time basis. 

Main duties, tasks & skills required

The Deputy Head of Legal Services is responsible for providing professional in-house legal advice and services across a range of matters but in particular in relation to medico-legal issues.

The role also includes management of a mixed case load of clinical negligence/employer and public liability claims and inquests managing these in accordance with Trust policies, requirements of NHS Resolution and relevant legislation/regulations.

The post holder will provide advice and guidance on Trust wide policies relevant to claims management and coronial law and processes. They will assist in the team's liaison with NHS Resolution, HM Coroner, external panel law firms and senior members of the Chief Medical Officer's management team and senior clinicians and operational colleagues.

The role requires excellent organisation skills, attention to detail and ability to be flexible and adaptable to changing workloads/priorities.

About us

We are recognised as one of the leading NHS Foundation Trusts in the UK. Our vision is to Build Healthier Lives, and we recognise that we need incredible staff to do this.

Our commitment to our staff is to create the best place for them to work, and we are dedicated to:

Investing in the health and wellbeing of our staff, including a commitment of offering flexible working where we can;
Offer our staff a wide variety of training and development opportunities, to support their personal and career development objectives.

UHB is committed to ensuring that our staff are treated fairly and feel that they belong, by creating a kind and inclusive environment. This is about equity of opportunity; removing all barriers, including discrimination and ensuring each individual member of staff reach their true potential, achieve their ambitions and thrive in their work. This is more than words. We are taking action. Our commitment to an inclusive culture is embedded at all levels of the organisation where every voice is heard, driven by our diverse and active staff networks, and at Board level by the Fairness Taskforce led by our CEO. We nurture a culture which empowers staff to challenge discriminatory behaviours and to enable people to bring their 'whole self' to a kinder, more connected and bold place to work.

University Hospitals Birmingham is a Smoke-Free premises hospital.

Job description

*Please Note : For a detailed job description for this vacancy, please see attached Job Description* 

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential

*Educated to degree level in law/ legal practice with appropriate post graduate level courses or substantial experience at a comparable level

*Recent experience/ traineeship managing clinical negligence/ employer liability claims to Masters level equivalent.

*Evidence of CPD

Desirable

*ILEX (Institute of Legal Executives) or similar qualification

Experience

Essential

*Previous Coronial/Inquest management experience

*Experience of staff management

*Able to demonstrate a clear understanding of CPR, the claims process and MHC Rules & Regulations

*Strong technical knowledge in areas relevant to legal healthcare practice

*Good understanding of the principles of investigations management, root cause analysis techniques and Clinical Governance

*Understanding data -- extracts, collates, quantitatively analyses and validates data, recognising alternative solution where necessary

Desirable

*Experience of working within a healthcare law setting

*Previous experience of managing inquests

*Advocacy experience

*Implementing risk and case management systems

*Experience of quality management processes and quality improvement mechanisms

*Teaching / Training experience

Additional Criteria

Essential

*Ability to rapidly assimilate a range of complex information and provide advice

*Strong problem solving ability and capacity to recognise alternative solutions where necessary

*Strong team management and work load management skills

*Ability to interpret national policy and guidance, identify local implications and apply implementation to a local setting

*Critical appraisal of wide ranging documents to facilitate assessment of risk and to ensure appropriate & sensitive communication/ management of claims/inquests

*Ability to manage, prioritise and deliver a number of projects and work programmes within timescales

*Ability to lead and supervise teams and wor