Deputy Chief Medical Officer in Safety and Clinical Governance

Barts Health NHS Trust is seeking an exceptional clinical leader to take on the role of Deputy Chief Medical Officer (DCMO) – Safety and Clinical Governance . This is a significant senior leadership opportunity to shape and lead the Trust’s approach to patient safety, clinical governance and assurance across the Group.

This role sits at the heart of the Chief Medical Officer’s portfolio, providing strategic oversight and executive leadership across a broad and complex set of safety‑critical, regulatory and governance functions. The post holder will play a pivotal role in ensuring that high‑risk areas of clinical practice are effectively governed, with strong assurance to the Board and alignment with national expectations.

The DCMO will lead and coordinate key safety and clinical governance workstreams, ensuring robust oversight, consistency of standards, and clear escalation of risks. This includes senior leadership across statutory and specialist governance areas, quality and safety programmes, and the development of a coherent, Trust‑wide approach to safety and assurance across all sites.

Provide senior medical leadership and executive oversight for designated safety‑critical and statutory clinical governance portfolios, holding clear accountability for the effective oversight of patient safety across all Trust sites and services.

Lead the development and delivery of a coherent, Trust-wide approach to safety and clinical governance, ensuring that risks are identified early, managed proactively, and escalated appropriately, with clear line of sight from ward to Board.

Provide medical leadership and oversight of a consistent and high‑performing governance structures, with clearly defined accountabilities and robust escalation routes for high‑risk clinical areas, enabling timely clinical decision‑making and strong organisational assurance.

Provide strategic medical oversight of the Trust’s Quality and Safety Strategy, ensuring full alignment with the Trust’s Clinical Strategy, workforce strategy and assurance frameworks, and supporting Barts Health’s ambition to be an exemplar organisation for safety, quality and governance.

The Barts Health group of NHS hospitals is entering an exciting new era on our improvement journey to becoming an outstanding organisation with a world-class clinical reputation. Having lifted ourselves out of special measures, we now have the impetus and breathing space to chart a fresh course in which we are continually striving to improve all our services for patients.

Our vision is to be a high-performing group of NHS hospitals, renowned for excellence and innovation, and providing safe and compassionate care to our patients in east London and beyond. That means being a provider of excellent patient safety, known for delivering consistently high standards of harm-free care and always caring for patients in the right place at the right time. It also means being an outstanding place to work, in which our WeCare values and behaviours are visible to all and guide us in how we work together.

We strive to live by our WeCare values and are committed to promoting inclusion, where every staff member has a sense of belonging. We value our differences and fully advocate, cultivate and support an inclusive working environment where staff treat one another with dignity and respect. We aim to create an equitable working environment where every individual can fulfil their potential.

Barts Health supports The Pregnancy Loss Pledge and commits to supporting their staff through the distress of miscarriage For further details / informal visits contact: Name: Jahanara Ahmed Job title: Portfolio Director Email address: jahanara.ahmed1@nhs.net

For further information, please contact Laura Thornton laura.thornton4@nhs.net to arrange a conversation with Sanjiv Sharma, Chief Medical Officer.