Suicide Prevention Senior Lead
Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust provides child and adult mental health services, learning disability, wellbeing, older people's and eating disorder services across Norfolk and Suffolk.
We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and want to reflect the diversity of our local communities within our teams. We welcome applications from all talented individuals with the relevant qualifications, skills, knowledge and experience
Job overview
We are seeking a compassionate and strategic leader to take forward the Trust’s Suicide Prevention Strategy. As Suicide Prevention Senior Lead, you will lead the delivery of the Staying Safe From Suicide plan, providing expert guidance across services to reduce suicide and serious self-harm.
Working closely with system partners and embracing lived experience, you will co-design and embed improvements in safety planning, assessment, and care environments. You will manage the Trust’s Suicide Prevention Advisor, ensuring clinical practice is shaped in partnership with people and communities and aligned with strategic priorities.
This role offers a unique opportunity to influence culture, practice and outcomes across the Trust, supporting safer, more responsive services for those at risk.
Main duties of the job
The Suicide Prevention Senior Lead will drive the development and delivery of the Trust’s Suicide Prevention Strategy, ensuring alignment with national and system priorities. You will lead the Staying Safe From Suicide plan, working with partners to embed improvements in safety planning, assessment, and care environments.
You will provide assurance to senior governance groups, manage complex relationships with external stakeholders, and oversee the Suicide Prevention Advisor. The role includes designing training, supporting service development, and embedding evidence-based practice across inpatient and community settings.You will work with Safer Care and Estates to maintain ligature-reduces environments , providing support for environmental risk assessments and assurance processes. You will lead thematic reviews, develop policies, and monitor progress through robust data reporting.
A key part of the role is strengthening lived experience involvement, ensuring compassionate post-incident support, and promoting learning from events. You will also manage the team budget and contribute to strategic planning and service improvement.
Working for our organisation
Here at NSFT we pride ourselves on being a welcoming, talented, friendly and supportive team who like nothing better than sharing experiences and learning from each other. In addition to ongoing training and development opportunities, we are committed to providing an environment in which you can thrive.
Why work for us? We have challenges as a Trust, but we have ambitious aspirations, are pushing ahead with exciting transformation work and we need dedicated individuals to support us on our journey. We have strong, established professional networks coupled with an exceptional leadership team who will ensure you are truly cared for and cared about.
Why Norfolk and Suffolk? The people here are warm and welcoming, you’ll never be far from the beautiful coastline or Broads National Park. We’re an hour and a half away from London and have an international airport in Norwich too. Our villages, towns and cities are packed full of history, independent cafes, shops and theatres.We have excellent shopping, eating out, top ranking schooling and affordable house prices too.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please read the job description / person specification carefully and ensure your application reflects the knowledge, skills and experience needed
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria- Educated to Masters degree level or have equivalent level of experience
- Registered health professional with senior expertise in suicide prevention and clinical risk
- Formal training in suicide prevention approaches
Experience
Essential criteria- Experience leading Trust-wide suicide prevention or patient safety initiatives, including training and practice change
- Experience in writing policy and guidance documents
- Experience of post-incident family liaison and learning processes.
Skills
Essential criteria- Strong partnership skills and experience working with public health and VCSE partners
- Demonstrable report writing skills and ability to analyse data
Knowledge
Essential criteria- Understanding of environmental risk and ligature reduction in mental health settings.
- Understanding relevant national guidelines and local policies related to suicide prevention and mental health.
- Understanding of health inequalities and the impact on self-harm and suicide
Please be aware that, due to the high number of applications for certain roles, this vacancy may close earlier than the advertised closing date. We encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible.
YOUR APPLICATION
We can provide all our job application materials in alternative formats so that these are accessible to everyone. Should you require any documents within this job pack in an alternative format, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected].
PLEASE NOTE: If you use a hotmail, msn or yahoo e-mail account, you will need to check your "junk" mail regularly as these email providers will divert any communication from this Trust/NHS JOBS straight into your " junk" inbox.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES Apart from its legal duties in relation to equality and diversity, the Trust recognises and actively promotes the benefits of a diverse workforce and is committed to treating all employees with dignity and respect regardless of race, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief.
As a part of the Disability Confident Employer Guaranteed Interview Scheme we interview all disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the job vacancy (outlined in the Person Specification).. We encourage you to indicate your eligibility through TRAC jobs when applying.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post may be subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.