The people we support may have learning disabilities, autism, mental health needs, acquired brain injuries or complex care needs. Your expertise will help ensure that communication requirements and eating, drinking and swallowing needs are understood, assessed and reflected in safe, inclusive and person-centred support.
As Senior Health Practice Manager, Speech and Language Therapy, you will provide professional leadership and specialist advice across the organisation. You will establish clear practice expectations and ensure Speech and Language Therapy is embedded within our clinical, quality and operational approaches.
Your key priorities will include:
- Setting and leading the strategic direction for Speech and Language Therapy across England and Scotland
- Acting as our specialist lead for communication, interaction, dysphagia and related clinical practice
- Leading the Learning Disability and Autism specialism within the clinical and health team
- Produce clinical governance reports and evaluating whether frameworks, interventions and learning programmes improve communication, participation and outcomes
- Providing senior specialist oversight and advice on complex cases
- Supporting safe, evidence-based decisions relating to communication and eating, drinking and swallowing
- Designing and maintaining clinical quality assurance frameworks, standards and practice models
- Embedding clinical effectiveness, specialist practice and audit within our Quality Management System
- Reviewing incidents and learning reviews to identify risks, themes and improvement opportunities
- Commissioning and leading thematic reviews of services, practice issues and quality or safety concerns
- Translating professional standards, research and clinical evidence into practical guidance and resources
- Providing professional leadership, clinical advice and supervision to colleagues
- Identifying workforce capability needs and shaping effective training and development
- Supporting Positive Behaviour Support, trauma-informed practice and recovery-oriented approaches
- Promoting accessible communication and reducing barriers to healthcare
- Ensuring people with lived experience help design and improve clinical practice
- Contributing specialist expertise to organisational governance, risk management and quality improvement
You will work closely with operational leaders, managers and specialists, as well as colleagues across Business Development, Learning and Development, People Operations and the wider health team. You will also collaborate with external professionals and multidisciplinary partners to ensure support is coordinated and effective.
Your work will include supporting assessments, shared formulations, care and support planning, case reviews and service evaluations. You will contribute to safeguarding discussions, health assessments and multidisciplinary meetings where specialist communication or dysphagia input is required.
Success will mean colleagues have greater confidence and capability, specialist standards are consistently applied and learning from audits, incidents and reviews leads to demonstrable improvement. Most importantly, people will experience more accessible communication, safer support and greater choice, participation and independence.