Grade E3: Aligned to Professional Experience

Contracted Hours: 0.6 FTE Equivalent (3 days per week)

Contract Type: Secondment / Fixed Term Contract for 18 months

Location: Homebased (Senior members of the CQC workforce may be required to travel to office sites or team gatherings to support front-line staff and in team building exercises)

Closing Date: Thursday 19 March 2026 at 11.59pm

Interview Date: TBC

Make a difference

Every role at CQC contributes to our mission. If you're looking for a new role in Primary & Community Care that gives a true sense of meaning and purpose, then you've found it!

As a National Professional Advisor and Digital Clinical Safety Officer, you'll play a critical role in ensuring our regulatory approach and the digital systems we use to deliver it, are clinically safe, professionally robust and designed to protect people while enabling smarter, more responsive regulation.

Picture this

Imagine influencing how CQC adopts and implements new digital technologies, while also providing national clinical leadership that shapes how Primary & Community Health Services are regulated. Your work will help ensure our systems are safe, our decisions are informed, and innovation truly benefits the public.

In the last year in this role, you might have:
• Worked as part of a triumvirate leadership model alongside the Chief Inspector, Director and Deputy Director, to deliver key portfolios that support Primary and Community Care regulatory priorities.
• Ensured our digital improvement and rebuild programmes used strong clinical hazard identification, risk-management and assurance processes aligned to national safety standards.

The role

You'll be key in helping us deliver our work. The role will include:

• Clinical Leadership: Ensuring expert advice and support are consistently provided to inspectorate and registration colleagues, particularly in relation to complex or high-risk matters.

• Quality and Safety: Influencing how CQC uses data to identify risk, monitor quality, and improve outcomes for people who use services.

• Digital Clinical Safety Leadership: Supporting the design, build and implementation of digital systems to ensure the safety of patients and service users is protected and promoted, in line with our commitment to listen, act, inform and protect the public and to help providers and systems of care improve and innovate.

• Digital Clinical Risk Management and Assurance: Ensuring digital clinical risk management processes are implemented during our digital improvement programme, and comply with relevant guidelines, standards and best practice

• Reporting directly to the Chief Inspector of Primary and Community Health Services, with matrix management from the Chief Data, Digital and Registration Officer. You'll represent all sector inspectorates in the clinical safety aspects of this role.

Show us

We'll be looking for the following skills, knowledge and experience in your application form:

• Extensive experience as a General Practitioner, and Clinical Safety Officer / Chief Clinical Information Officer, with a strong track record as a leader in Primary Care and in digital health implementation, clinical governance, clinical risk management and digital clinical safety. You will be accredited as a Digital Clinical Safety Officer or have in depth experience with a will to go through an accreditation in post.

• A registered General Practitioner, with a strong working knowledge and deep understanding of Independent Healthcare within Primary and Community Care.

• Deep understanding of Primary and Community Care and the challenges of digital integration across diverse care settings.

• Proven ability to influence policy and strategy at a national level, with exceptional communication and stakeholder engagement skills.

Why Join Us?

This is a unique opportunity to work at the heart of health and care regulation, shaping how technology and data transform the way we protect people and drive improvement. You'll help ensure that innovation delivers real benefits for CQC, patients and the wider system.

You can read the full details of the role in the Job Description

How to apply...

To apply for this role, please submit a copy of your CV and Supporting Statement (no more than 750-words) via the Recruitment System.

Your Supporting Statement should cover the following:
- How your previous experience makes you suitable for this role?
- What strengths will you bring to the role?

If you'd like to have an informal chat about the role you can contact - Rob Assall, Director of ASC; Rob.Assall@cqc.org.uk For general enquiries, please email recruitment@cqc.org.uk.

Compliance

To progress your application, you'll need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK. Without valid right to work you won't be eligible for the role. We are unable to offer sponsorship for this role. Some roles may also be subject to a satisfactory DBS check.

Next steps

If you apply, you'll need to create a profile and complete an online application form. Your application will be completely anonymous. Please see our information for applicants for more details on the process. We contact every applicant to let them know the outcome of their application, so you will hear from us whether you are shortlisted.

The Benefits

We offer a wide range of benefits, including:

• Annual leave starting at 27 days per year, rising to 32.5 days with service, plus bank holidays (usually 8 days per year).
• Training and development opportunities.
• Wellbeing initiatives, such as gym discounts and meditation.
• NHS pension scheme, with around 14% employer contribution.
• Discount schemes (including eligibility for Blue Light card, costing £4.99 and valid for 2 years), reward vouchers, car leasing and more!

Please see our benefits page for the full list.

Equity for all

We know job descriptions can feel intimidating. Research shows they can cause some people to doubt whether they're a good fit. This happens more often to people from underrepresented groups (e.g. ethnic minority backgrounds). If this role interests you, we encourage you to apply. Your unique perspective, skills, and experience could be exactly what we need.

We want every candidate to feel supported and able to do their best. If you need adjustments to our process, we'll work with you to remove any barriers. Visit our accessibility page for more on this. If you'd like to chat, please contact recruitment@cqc.org.uk.

We promote a workplace where fairness, respect and inclusion are a priority. See our ED&I page for more about this.

We welcome applications from everyone, and colleagues can find support and community among our many employee networks. This includes people of any:

• Age
• Sex
• Gender identity or expression
• Sexual orientation
• Religion or belief
• Ethnicity
• Disability

A Note on AI

We know AI tools can be great for research and refining ideas, but we want to learn about you. If you use AI or Chatbots to help you with your application, keep these points in mind:
• AI can support research, structuring and refining your writing, but your application must reflect your real skills and experience.
• Spell-checking and condensing word counts are great ways to use AI effectively.
• Do not copy and paste AI generated answers. These will not help you stand out; remember we want to hear about your skills and experience.
• Providing false and insincere examples goes against our core values of honesty and integrity and may lead to your application being withdrawn or termination of your employment.

Values and vision

We are guided by our core values, which shape our work and our culture.

Excellence - being a high-performing organisation.

Caring - treating everyone with dignity and respect.

Integrity - doing the right thing.

Teamwork - learning from each other to be the best we can.