Work for us

No current vacancies

About the Health Services Safety Investigations Body

The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) aims to be the global leader in professional, high quality healthcare safety investigations.

We investigate patient safety concerns across England to improve NHS care at a national level. Through our education programme we help embed professional safety investigation expertise in healthcare organisations. Our investigations do not find blame or liability with individuals or organisations. Information shared with us is confidential and protected by law.

We are a fully independent arm’s length body of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Location

HSSIB is a fully remote organisation. All our employees are home-based, with some travel depending on roles. We meet as a whole team on a regular basis and support our employees to meet in-person to work, when appropriate, using a network of meeting spaces across England.

Pay and conditions

HSSIB staff are employed under the NHS terms and conditions of service (Agenda for Change). Agenda for Change offers a fair and transparent pay structure, generous pension scheme and competitive annual leave allowance.

What our staff say

Craig Hadley

Senior Safety Investigator

Craig Hadley

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.

Mairi Alexander

Analyst

Mairi Alexander

I feel proud to work at HSSIB. As a healthcare professional by background, I have been investigated and undertaken investigations in my previous roles. HSSIB’s new approach to safety investigations is refreshing and I find contributing to the investigation process very rewarding.

If HSSIB safety recommendations are enacted, it fills me with great hope that there will be meaningful change for NHS patients and staff, substantial change that is not reliant on the latest checklist, just a protocol update or increased vigilance by staff.

I have flexibility and autonomy within my role to deliver projects. I work directly with a small enthusiastic and knowledgeable team from varied backgrounds (from academia and human factors to practicing clinicians) who have a solid understanding of the complexity of a healthcare system.

View another case study: