Senior Clinical Manager for Complaints, Learning and Improvement

Job summary

Lead Complaints and PALS, Drive Improvement, Shape Trust-Wide Learning

We are seeking an exceptional and compassionate leader to join the Trust as our Senior Clinical Manager for Complaints, Learning and Improvement, a highly visible leadership role at the heart of complaints, PALS, organisational learning and service improvement.

This is a unique opportunity to influence Trust-wide culture, ensuring that concerns, feedback and complaints from service users, families and carers drive meaningful improvements in the quality and safety of our services. Reporting to the Director of Patient Experience, you will provide strategic direction for the Complaints and PALS functions, leading a high-performing team and ensuring feedback is translated into tangible service improvement.

As the Trust’s subject matter expert on Complaints and PALS, you will advise Executive and Clinical leaders, oversee the management of complex and high-profile cases, and represent the organisation in discussions with regulators, external agencies and partner organisations. Your leadership will be instrumental in strengthening governance, embedding a culture of openness and accountability, and ensuring learning is consistently translated into better outcomes for patients.

You will also promote a proactive, early resolution approach through PALS and local services, ensuring concerns are addressed promptly and do not escalate into formal complaints.

Main duties of the job

As Senior Clinical Manager for Complaints, Learning and Improvement, you will provide strategic and clinical leadership for the Trust’s Complaints and PALS service, ensuring the organisation listens to, learns from and acts on concerns from service users, carers and families.

You will lead the development of a culture where feedback, concerns and complaints are welcomed as opportunities for learning and improvement, ensuring insights are translated into measurable service improvements in partnership with Quality Improvement, Transformation, and operational teams.

Acting as the Trust’s senior clinical expert, you will support the resolution of complex and high-profile cases, influence senior leaders, and ensure complaints and patient experience are a key driver of organisational learning and change. You will use data, thematic analysis and feedback intelligence to identify trends, drive improvement, and represent the Trust with regulators and external partners.

You will also ensure the voices of underserved and marginalised communities are reflected in improvement activity, working closely with the Health Equity Team to reduce inequalities and improve experiences for all service users.

Alongside this strategic leadership role, you will retain accountability for the effective operational delivery of Complaints and PALS services, ensuring high-quality, compassionate and timely responses across the entire complaints pathway.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Registered health or Social Care Professional
• Master’s Degree Level Qualification or equivalent experience

Desirable

• Customer care training

Experience

Essential

• Demonstrable experience of managing complaint performance, including timelines, quality assurance and stakeholder accountability.
• Experience of leading patient experience or quality improvement programmes (not just complaints handling)

Desirable

• Experience of delivering complaints investigation and report writing training
• Experience of working in a mental health care setting

Skills

Essential

• Able to hold the team and a range of stakeholders to account, ensuring complaints are responded to on time and to a high standard
• Highly developed relationship-building and negotiation skills, with a proven ability to constructively challenge and support senior leaders across the organisation to drive improvements beyond the immediate team

Desirable

• Understanding of Quality Improvement methodologies and their application in improving the complaints process

Knowledge

Essential

• Understanding of NHS terminology and organisational structures, Care Quality Commission (CQC) and other regulatory requirements.
• Extensive knowledge of patient experience evidence-based approaches and of managing patient experience initiatives

Desirable

• Knowledge of inpatient and community services and pathways

Closing Date: 12 July 2026