Work for us

Sarah Graham

Board, Governance and Records Manager

My role encompasses working with the HSSIB Board, producing governance policies and procedures and leading on information governance and records management. As you can imagine, it’s a busy and varied workload. But that’s the best part about my job...no two days are ever the same!

Let me take this Monday just gone as an example. I’m amending our risk management manual to ensure that our processes around risk are as robust as they can possibly be. I started off by doing some research for a couple of hours around best practice for PESTLE and SWOT analysis and then translated this into a section of the manual. 

Next on my agenda was looking through a draft cyber security strategy I am working on with colleagues. This entailed proofreading the draft and adding information with regards to all areas of cyber at HSSIB.

The next task was to respond to a freedom of information query. Then I had a meeting with an external organisation to discuss approaches to cyber security and risk (the themes of the day!). It was a really good meeting and I left it with lots of action points and food for thought.

Last on the agenda was checking an information sharing agreement with an external organisation which has been sent to me by our Head of Insights. Here at HSSIB we have a very unique legal set up. Under the Health and Care Act 2022, our investigation records are classed as ‘protected materials’. This means we cannot share with other organisations (apart from very limited circumstances). When we work on information sharing agreements, we must ensure that our legal basis for sharing is very clear – so this was quite an intense piece of work to finish up the day.

At 6pm it was time to stop...but I hope that this shows you how varied the work in my role is.

Craig Hadley

Senior Safety Investigator

My role is to gather evidence about an incident to understand ‘what’ happened. I speak to staff and families to identify the specific circumstances, processes and systems that were in place when the incident happened – the ‘why’.

Then, taking a human factors and system safety approach I review those circumstances, alongside national guidance and policy, to conduct analysis and produce safety recommendations. These safety recommendations are aimed at stopping this sort of incident from happening again across the country.

The testimony of staff and patients is so important in my role, and because we anonymise our reports people feel secure to be completely open and honest.

As an engineer by trade, it is my inherent nature to understand how systems work and, when they haven’t worked as intended and an unexpected outcome has occurred, to then analyse and understand why. Being a safety investigator in healthcare uses those same skills and inquisitive personality to identify where things can work better for improving patient safety.

Thinking that I could actually be saving someone’s life by doing an investigation and making the right safety recommendations is incredibly motivating, and is the reason I love my job.

Yolanda Salimu

HR Administrator

I’m part of a small HR team of two that sits within HSSIB’s Business Services directorate. As we’re a small team, I get exposure to a whole range of HR functions, and I am often the first point of contact for HR queries. It’s nice to be part of the wider directorate and I enjoy collaborating with colleagues across the whole organisation as part of my role.

My day is always varied and can involve providing HR advice to managers, staff and external bodies, recruitment activity, taking notes in formal meetings, supporting the payroll process, diary management and maintaining HR data and systems.

What I most value about being part of the HSSIB team is the good work life balance, opportunity to work flexibly and the consideration paid to employee wellbeing.

Neill Thompson

Senior Investigation Science Educator

I’m part of the education team at HSSIB. Our role is to provide wider learning to the healthcare community and promote professional safety investigations. We do this through our range of courses that aim to improve investigation skills and methods.

Our team comes from diverse professional backgrounds, and it is fantastic to be a part of it. We focus on the design and delivery of learning content. To do this we align ourselves to the work happening across HSSIB and throughout the healthcare community.

No two days are the same, which is one of the real attractions of my role. Yesterday is a good example of this. I started the day delivering our ‘An introduction to After Action Review’ course with my colleague Mel, one of our senior safety investigators and also a member of the education team. Then it was onto new course development, a Teams meeting with other members of the education team, to discuss ‘SEIPs in action’, which will be the next course we launch in 2025. We discussed the scope as well as ideas on how we could approach the delivery and develop resources.

In my role I also have the opportunity to contribute education support to HSSIB investigations. My day ended with one of our regular review meetings with the safety investigators who are leading on an investigation of workplace fatigue. Not only is this work a real area of interest for me, it’s also invaluable to be part of the team and be able to try and incorporate that learning into our educational content.

What I most value about working at HSSIB is the potential impact we are having within healthcare, in areas such as the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF), after action reviews, thematic review and safety investigation, through the education courses we offer. There is a tremendous amount of scope to make a difference.

Lauren Turner

Education Administration Manager

A typical day in my role involves a diverse range of activities centred around the development and management of our educational offerings.

I am currently project managing development of our future courses, ensuring that all components are on track and aligned with our strategic goals. I have just finalised scheduling courses for the next six months. This will provide over 3,000 opportunities for those in the NHS to take one of our courses.

A significant part of my role is dedicated to collating data on our courses and learners, which I compile into detailed monthly reports to track progress and identify areas for improvement. I am currently procuring training management software to support the administration and user experience of our courses.

Above all, I prioritise supporting our learners, addressing their queries and concerns, and ensuring they have a positive and enriching educational experience.

From a personal perspective, I value the flexibility of working from home. I have been able to support my girls to grow and develop in a few of the most important years of their lives.