Deputy Chief Medical Officer in Safety and Clinical Governance | Barts Health NHS Trust

The Deputy Chief Medical Officer (DCMO) forSafety and Clinical Governanceis a senior leadership role within the Chief Medical Officer’s portfolio, providing strategic oversight, clinical leadership, and executive assurance across key patient safety, regulatory, and specialist clinical governance functions.

The post holder will lead and coordinate a defined set of safety‑critical and statutory clinical governance workstreams, ensuring robust oversight, consistency of standards, and effective escalation to the CMO and relevant executive and Board committees. The role plays a core part in assuring the Trust Board that high‑risk, high‑impact areas of clinical practice are well governed, data‑informed, and aligned to national expectations.

The portfolio encompasses a broad and interconnected set of safety‑critical governance workstreams and quality and safety programmes, reflecting the breadth of oversight required to ensure safe, effective and compliant care, while providing flexibility for the Chief Medical Officer to shape and evolve priorities in response to emerging risks, regulatory expectations and organisational strategy. The portfolio will be pivotal in ensuring Barts Health is exemplar in clinical governance and safety, with a clear and consistent focus on patient safety, statutory assurance, and clinical quality signals.

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.

Work in close partnership with the Chief Medical Officer, Chief Nurse, Director of Quality, Hospital Medical Directors and executive colleagues to deliver an integrated and effective clinical governance framework, recognising the interdependencies between safety, workforce capacity and operational delivery

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

Please refer to the job description and person specification for the main responsibilities of this role.

This advert closes on Sunday 8 Nov 2026