Provider Improvement Officer

Are you passionate about improving the quality of care in Staffordshire? Do you thrive in challenging situations and have the resilience to effect positive change? If so, we have the perfect opportunity for you!

The Provider Improvement Response Team is an integral part of the wider quality assurance function in health and social care. Our joint health and social care team, comprising both nurses and local authority officers, is dedicated to driving improvements in the adult care market. We focus on the highest risks in the care market, including services at risk of closure, those in large-scale enquiry, or those subject to CQC enforcement action.

As a Provider Improvement Officer, you will play a crucial role in assessing risks and ensuring providers deliver the required improvements. While our primary goal is to prevent closures of care services, you will lead in circumstances where there is a risk of urgent closure. 

This hybrid role involves on-site visits at care services, working from home, and office work. You will need access to a car and be able to travel across the county.

Key Responsibilities:

• Work with high-risk care services to drive improvements.
• Feed into the overall assessment of risk for care services.
• Lead in situations of urgent closure or significant safeguarding risks.
• Work evenings or weekends when necessary, with a normal working pattern of Monday – Friday.

What We Are Looking For:

• Solution-focused officers with a passion for improving quality of care.
• Resilience and the ability to negotiate and effect positive change.
• Ability to analyze information to prioritize risks and work autonomously.
• Flexibility to manage often changing priorities.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to manage challenging situations.

Essential Qualifications and Experience:

• Understanding or experience in a social care/health provider, commissioning organisation, or assessment and case management team.
• Ability to audit or analyse information from various sources and identify trends and themes.
• Ability to work effectively with minimal supervision and manage own workload.
• Ability to manage a range of issues and conflicting demands linked to tight and unexpected deadlines.
• Ability to negotiate on difficult and controversial issues, including performance and change.
• Demonstrate an ability to deal with challenging and conflicting situations while maintaining effective working relationships.

Don’t feel you meet all the requirements? We value transferable skills, experiences, and qualifications, for an informal chat about the role please contact: 

Sam Dale, Care Market Assurance and Improvement Team Leader samanthac.dale@staffordshire.gov.uk or Laura Johnston, Care Market Assurance and Improvement Service Manager laura.johnston@staffordshire.gov.uk 

Interview Date: Week commencing 21 April 2025  

Our Recruitment Process: We anonymise applications during shortlisting to ensure only relevant information is considered. Please complete your application fully, especially the supporting statement, to highlight what you’ll bring to the role.

We are no ordinary county council:

Our Values:

The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively.

Our values were created and shaped by colleague feedback and national best practice and they sit at the heart of People Strategy:

We have a real sense of community spirit that brings our people together. This feeling of belonging means we are all connected to what we do and take pride in the difference we make every day for Staffordshire people. We are ambitious and our sights are set firmly on a better future.

We look forward and race ahead - that goes for your career too. 

Our benefits:

We recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive working environment where employees can achieve their full potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance. 

In addition to your salary, as a member of staff, you will have access to Our rewards and benefits - Careers at Staffordshire

Our recruitment process:

As an Authority we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Staffordshire County Council is an equal opportunities organisation and Disability Confident employer. We encourage applications from all background and communities

As part of our commitment as a Disability Confident employer, a Gold Award Armed Forces employer and our commitment to supporting care leavers - we offer a guaranteed interview as long as your application meets the minimum criteria for the post. 

As you’ll know safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our children and young people/vulnerable adults is important to us and that’s why this position is subject to a criminal record check from the Disclosure and Barring Service. If applicable you should disclose details of unspent and unfiltered spent reprimands, formal warnings, cautions and convictions in your application form.