Specialist Advisor - Doctor Consultant - Neonatology

SpecialistAdvisor - Doctor Consultant - Neonatology

Location: National
Daily rate: £300 (£268 day rate + £32/day holiday pay)
Ad-Hoc: As and when required
Closing Date: Friday 20th March 2026 at 11.59pm

Are you committed to helping us regulate health and social care within England?

The CQC are looking for senior clinicianswith experience of clinical management/governance process to work with us asSpecialty Advisor support our inspectors in their work through your informedinsight, knowledge and experience of working within maternity services.

We make sure heath andsocial care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, equitable,high-quality care and encourage services to improve.

We are looking for peoplewho are caring,demonstrateintegrity,aspire toexcellence,committed to equitable and inclusive services and careandwork wellas part of a teamto join with us and share in this sense of achievement.

If you would like to helpusmake a positive impact to health andsocial care withinEngland and deliver a service of excellence to thepublicthen read on.

Why this could be a great role for you

You will have anopportunity to contribute to ensuring that neonatal services and the care providedto babies and families are safe, compassionate and effective and are led by clinicianswith the required skills, approach, infrastructure and outcomes.

You will gain valuableinsight into how neonatal services are assessed and be exposed to varyingdegrees of and examples of best practice and approaches to improve areas fordevelopment that might provide you with useful insights as an experiencedclinician and for your own service.

You will also support ourinspectors in their work through your informed insight, knowledge andexperience.

CQC has a strategiccommitment to tackling inequalities. You will be supported in your work throughour National Professional Advisor for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, SolaAfuape MBE as well as through the Advisory and Complimentary Workforce. The Workforce Equality Risk and OversightGroup also provides co-ordination and development of our approach to workforceEDI in our regulation.

What you will bring

Expertise as a NeonatalConsultant and experience and understanding of what is necessary to ensure safecare is paramount to ensure that babies and families receive high quality carein the right place at the right time, and delivered by staff equipped toprovide safe, dignified and compassionate care. This includes theopportunities, challenges, statutory requirements and insight from experiencesof both staff and people who use services and what is needed to ensure safe,good quality equitable care.

Because you will beoperating as a consultant, you will contribute to inspection teams inspiringconfidence in provider organisations that the inspection team have the requiredlevel of seniority and expertise to undertake effective assessments of equity, equality,diversity and inclusion within our assessment framework.

Finally, mostimportantly you will bring an understanding of the diversity of livedexperiences of both staff, people who use services and their families thatshould inform our understanding of the culture in which services and care areprovided.

This includes demonstrated awareness and understanding ofintersectionality of oppressions.

For an informal discussion or further informationabout this role, please contact Victoria Head via email at

Please note this role is subject to a satisfactory DBS check. Being a Specialist Advisor

This role can beundertaken as either a Casual Worker, paid directly to a personal bank accountby the CQC for attending in your own time (non-working days, annual leave) oras a seconded position if your service is registered with the CQC and agrees tothe secondment. Seconded SpAs' organisations agree in principle thattheir employees can attend CQC inspections and the seconded SpA seeks theirline manager's permission to take leave to attend individual inspections, whichcan last from one to three days. The seconded SpA's organisation then invoicesthe CQC for the time the SpA spent away from their substantive role.

You will be offeredopportunities to support inspection with 6 weeks' notice whenever possible, however, you will also be contacted for more short notice support on occasions. You are under no obligation to accept an inspection should it be offered and itnot be convenient for you. We are not able to guarantee you a set numberof inspection opportunities in a one year period. You may be offered one amonth or one in the whole year depending on the focus of the inspectionprogramme.

If appointed, as a Specialist Advisor you will be expected to commit to at least 2 inspections per year.

If successful atinterview we aim to conclude your pre-engagement checks within a 6-8 weekwindow, please complete all forms and take actions to assist the team inachieving this. You will be provided with a dedicated onboarding peer who willsupport you in completing pre-engagement checks and will be on hand to answerany questions you have.

You will be required to have a current DBS certificateunder 3 years old and we require references going back three years. Ifyou've been with the same employer for three years' then we'll only require onereference.

Eligibility to work

If you are successful atinterview, CQC will need to verify your right to work in the UK using digitalidentity verification. Details of how to complete the right to work check willbe provided as part of the conditional offer of employment. If we are unable toverify your right to work digitally, we are required to complete this face toface at one of our CQC Offices. Please be aware that we are unable to progressany offer of employment until right to work in the UK is confirmed.

We will require all successful applicants to be active in Professional Practice.

To accessthe full Job Description, please click the link below:

Specialist Advisor Job Description

Individual Adjustments

We are committed to being openand transparent around our processes and we endeavour to offer every candidatethe opportunity to perform at their best throughout the recruitment process. Weseek to support candidates to identify potential challenges and work with themto identify and facilitate individual adjustments as appropriate. Should yourequire assistance and/or would like to request an adjustment at any stage ofthe recruitment process, please contact a member of the team via email:.