Job summary
The postholder will act as the lead clinical specialist within the PEACS (Pain: Equality of Care and Support in the Community) programme, providing senior clinical leadership for the design/development, implementation, quality assurance and national adoption of the PEACS biopsychosocial model of care.

Main duties of the job
This role blends senior clinical leadership, community-based practice, education and implementation support. The postholder will exercise a high degree of professional autonomy and highly developed specialist judgement. The role requires working across organisational boundaries to influence practice, negotiate clinical requirements, advise on complex matters, and support safe adoption in systems with differing readiness, capability and governance maturity.

The postholder will lead clinical standards and ongoing development of the PEACS model, including national rollout through clinical design, delivery, governance and quality assurance of a training package and implementation toolkit. This includes supporting local systems to adopt and deliver the model effectively, maintaining fidelity while enabling appropriate local adaptation.

The postholder will champion cultural humility, anti-racism, equity and co-production across PEACS development and implementation, working collaboratively with partners, alongside people with lived experience, to enable safe, high-quality and equitable delivery.

This is an opportunity to provide senior clinical and implementation leadership for PEACS. The postholder will contribute through targeted clinical input, including occasional co-facilitation, clinical oversight of programme content, and senior oversight of evaluation and research activity.

About us
At South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, we are committed to providing excellent care, delivered with pride and compassion, to improve the lives of the people and communities we serve.

King's Health Partners Mind & Body Programme
Across King's Health Partners (KHP), we are committed to breaking down the barriers between mental and physical healthcare. Our Mind & Body Programme, established in 2016, works to embed integrated care, research, and education across the health system--because whole person care leads to better outcomes and experiences.

This ambition is central to the King's Health Partners Strategy to 2030, which sets out our bold vision for a reimagined health and care system, informed by people, education, research, and innovation, that truly meets the needs of patients, healthcare professionals, and communities alike.

Job responsibilities
1) Clinical Leadership and Service Development

• Lead the clinical design, development and continuous refinement of the PEACS model, including establishing and maintaining clinical standards, delivery principles and safety parameters.
• Provide senior clinical leadership to support the implementation, adoption and quality assurance of the model across NHS, primary care, community and voluntary sector partners, ensuring alignment with agreed clinical, governance and fidelity standards.
• Lead the development of clinical pathways, delivery frameworks and service models to support integration with primary care, specialist services, community and neighbourhood provision.
• Exercise expert judgement in relation to complex or sensitive clinical, safeguarding, quality and implementation matters, particularly where there is ambiguity, incomplete information or tension between fidelity and local adaptation.
• Determine and communicate the clinical, governance and workforce requirements necessary for safe and effective implementation of PEACS, providing expert advice to senior leaders, clinical leads and delivery partners on service design, workforce capability, pathway development and quality assurance arrangements.
• Act as the recognised clinical specialist for PEACS, providing authoritative leadership on clinical standards, evidence-informed practice, risk management and model fidelity across participating organisations.
• Champion cultural humility, anti-racism, equity and co-production across PEACS design, adaptation and implementation across all sites.

2) Clinical Governance, Quality Assurance and Risk

• Lead the development and application of clinical governance frameworks supporting safe and evidence-informed delivery across multiple sites and partner organisations.
• Act as the senior clinical lead for complex clinical, safeguarding and quality issues arising through PEACS implementation, providing expert oversight and supporting appropriate decision-making, escalation and resolution.
• Provide expert clinical judgement on issues relating to risk, model fidelity, variation in local implementation, inclusion/exclusion considerations, safeguarding concerns and adaptation for different communities and populations.
• Oversee clinical assurance processes, including review of incidents, quality concerns, learning, and improvement actions relevant to PEACS implementation.
• Lead the identification, assessment and mitigation of clinical risks associated with PEACS implementation, ensuring issues are managed through agreed governance structures.

3) Implementation and Adoption activities

• Provide senior clinical input to support site readiness, onboarding and implementation, including advising on governance, workforce readiness, pathways and integration requirements.
• Provides professional leadership, guidance and structured support to PEACS facilitators and implementation leads, including supporting reflective practice, capability development and safe delivery.
• Work across organisational and professional boundaries to negotiate and support consistent implementation of the PEACS model in the context of differing local systems, priorities and capacities
• Lead the clinical development of clinical competencies, training standards and workforce capability requirements associated with PEACS delivery and review of training resources, guidance and implementation resources to support delivery.
• Provide expert advice on the development of clinical pathway interfaces with primary care, specialist services and community partners

4) Evaluation and Learning

• Lead the clinical contribution to the evaluation framework, including outcome measures, interpretation of findings and dissemination of resultsand regular production of reports for stakeholders and relevant forums.
• Use highly developed clinical insight, data and lived experience feedback to support continuous improvement, implementation decisions and model refinement.
• Contribute to strengthening the evidence base for PEACS through evaluation, dissemination and knowledge mobilisation to inform future service improvement and sustainability
• Contribute to the design of research and evaluation activity, publications, presentations and partnership development to support sustainability and spread.

5) Stakeholder Engagement and System Leadership

• Develop and maintain highly effective working relationships with senior clinical, operational and system leaders across NHS organisations, commissioners, neighbourhood teams, primary care, community and voluntary sector partners.
• Act as a senior clinical ambassador for PEACS in relevant internal and external forums, presenting complex, sensitive or potentially contentious information to varied audiences and influencing adoption, quality and learning.
• Regularly producing reports for stakeholders and relevant forums.
• Negotiate clinical expectations, governance requirements and delivery principles across organisational boundaries where there may be differing priorities, cultures, capabilities or service models.
• Provides senior professional leadership across the PEACS programme, supporting communities of practice and reflective learning to build workforce capability, maintain clinical standards, and enable consistent, high-quality delivery across sites.
• Support the spread and scale of PEACS through expert clinical input to discussions with prospective sites, partners and system stakeholders, including identification of new sites and partners.

Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential

• Registered healthcare professional with current registration with the relevant professional body.
• Postgraduate study or equivalent specialist knowledge and experience.
• Evidence of continuing professional development relevant to advanced clinical practice, service development, implementation or leadership

Desirable

• Postgraduate qualification (for example MSc or equivalent) in a relevant field.
• Additional training in behaviour change, facilitation, quality improvement, or implementation

Experience
Essential

• Significant experience of working with people with complex needs, chronic pain and/or multiple long-term conditions.
• Experience of working with underserved communities and addressing health inequalities.
• Significant experience working across multidisciplinary, cross-sector or integrated care environments.
• Experience as a lead clinical specialist, providing highly specialist advice and influencing practice beyond an individual team or service.
• Experience of leading or significantly contributing to service development, implementation, transformation or quality improvement initiatives.

Desirable

• Experience of developing or delivering training programmes, implementation resources or toolkits.
• Experience of co-produced, culturally adapted or community-based models of care.
• Experience of research, evaluation, dissemination or knowledge mobilisation.

Knowledge & Skills
Essential

• Highly specialist knowledge of chronic pain, long-term conditions and relevant care pathways.
• Knowledge of biopsychosocial approaches, behaviour change, self-management and patient activation.
• Understanding of culturally responsive care, anti-racism, health inequalities and co-production.
• Ability to provide highly specialist clinical advice and professional leadership.
• Highly developed communication, facilitation and influencing skills.

Desirable

• Knowledge of implementation science, spread and scale methodologies, and fidelity/adaptation approaches.
• Understanding of evaluation frameworks and outcome measurement.
• Experience of delivering, supervising or assuring group-based interventions in community settings.

Other
Essential

• Ability to work flexibly across sites and partner organisations as required.
• Willingness and ability to travel regularly to partner, pilot or implementation sites.

This post is 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.

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website.

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants.

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website.