The Royal College of General Practitioners (Scotland) is seeking an enthusiastic and committed individual to take on the role of Chair of the Scottish Patient Forum.

This is an exciting opportunity to lead an established online advisory group made up of patient members from across Scotland. The Forum ensures that lived experience and the patient voice continue to inform RCGP Scotland’s work, policy development and strategic direction.

What You’ll Do

• Lead and facilitate three online Patient Forum meetings per year.
• Represent the forum at:
  • RCGP Scottish Council meetings (three online meetings and one hybrid meeting per year)
  • The College’s UK-wide Patient and Carers Participation Group (PCPG) meetings each year (four online meetings per year)
• Work with the RCGP Scotland team to guide agenda setting and Forum priorities.
• Contribute to RCGP policy work, consultation responses, and communications including press and social media where appropriate.
• Represent patient perspectives at relevant internal and external groups, workshops and events when required.

What We’re Looking For

We welcome applications from individuals who:

• Understand or are interested in current health and social care issues in Scotland and have an awareness of key current matters relating to general practice.
• Have an interest in the work and aims of RCGP Scotland.
• Ideally bring experience in chairing meetings, excellent communication skills, and a commitment to contributing positively to the Forum’s work.

Why Apply?

This role offers the chance to champion the patient voice nationally, influence key policy and strategic decisions in general practice, build valuable leadership skills within a respected organisation, and make a meaningful contribution to improving primary care across Scotland.

RCGP Scotland

The Royal College of General Practitioners Scotland (RCGP Scotland) is the professional membership organisation for general practitioners in Scotland. We represent approximately 5,000 members in Scotland and our purpose is to encourage, foster and maintain the highest possible standards in general medical practice.

About the role

The Legal Policy Manager plays a key role in empowering the children’s sector to use the law to drive systemic change and ensure children experience their rights in practice.

This role is employed by Clan Childlaw and is central to delivery of a jointly funded partnership project between Clan Childlaw and Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights), supported by the Human Rights Fund. The post holder will work closely across both organisations to deliver shared objectives.

Clan Childlaw is a leader in child-centred strategic litigation that drives systemic change, while Together represents over 600 organisations working to promote and protect children’s rights in Scotland.

The post holder will support strategic legal interventions, including the use of the UNCRC, to drive change for children and young people in Scotland.

The project aims to empower and enable Scotland’s children’s sector to use the law to advance children’s rights. These legal interventions may include strategic litigation, and seeking legal opinions, as well as wider measures such as supporting Together members to challenge rights breaches through informal processes etc.

Responsibilities include managing Clan’s Strategic Litigation Group, helping Together members identify opportunities for legal intervention, identifying strategic cases for Clan, and developing resources to promote the implementation and advance of children’s rights.

About Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights)

Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights) is a national alliance working to make children’s rights real for babies, children and young people across Scotland. We do this by supporting changes in law, policy and practice in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and other international human rights standards. We bring together over 600 members, from large national and international NGOs to small volunteer-led after school clubs and interested professionals.

About Clan Childlaw

Clan wants a Scotland where all children and young people’s rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled. For that to happen, Scotland has to be a place where all children and young people can stand up for their rights. That means children and young people need:

• Lawyers that are experts in working with children

• People around them who can enable them to use their rights and amplify their voices

• To be respected as rights-holders, who are entitled to hold duty-bearers to account if their rights are not fulfilled.

Clan is an award-winning, independent children’s charity that actively supports children and young people to take ownership of their rights. We are the only charity in Scotland that provides free, independent legal representation exclusively for children and young people, which is child-centred by design. Because our lawyers work directly with children and young people whose lives are affected by legal decisions, we bring that unique practice-based knowledge to every aspect of our work. This includes our specialist training, our helpline supporting others who help children to use their voices and their rights, and our work to influence children’s rights respecting changes to practice, policy and law.

What We Do

• We stand with others who help children use their rights –

Through our membership and training for legal professionals and in legal education we are making being a “children’s lawyer” an accredited legal skill set in Scotland. Our practical training and helpline and support for advocacy in Children’s Hearings provides adults that support children and young people information and guidance that they can use to empower young people to stand up for their rights.

• We stand out through the excellence of our work –

We want our work to have as much impact as possible. We listen to what children and young people tell us about what they need from lawyers and others who support them to use their rights. We use what we learn to develop and design the services they need and talk about why young people’s rights matter, and why children and young people need lawyers.

• We stand for change –

We are lawyers for children and young people representing children and young people in court, at Children’s Hearings, and in important meetings working to give them equal opportunity to heard and use their rights. We take cases that make change for individual children and young people and help shape better rights respecting policy and practice. We use our knowledge of the law, and experience as practising lawyers for children and young people, to ask decision makers and lawmakers to change the law and the way the law is used to make sure that children and young people's rights are respected, protected and fulfilled.

Our Values

Our values are the principles we uphold in all our work, no matter what. They are the foundation of our workplace culture. Everyone who works at Clan shows our values in all they do and say.

We are supportive: We listen and respond, we provide encouragement and emotional help to children and young people, to others who support young people, and to each other.

We are bold: We are confident and courageous in amplifying the voices of children and young people. We are prepared to take risks when we need to, to defend children and young people’s rights.

We are dynamic: We are always active, always progressing. We are positive, full of energy and new ideas. We ask for change where it is needed.

"I love my job at Clan. It's busy and varied and no two days are ever the same. We have a great team here and everyone is really supportive." - A member of the Clan Childlaw team

What we can offer you

Clan Childlaw’s mission is very important to us, but our people are important too. We recognise the importance of a good work-life balance and a friendly supportive work environment. We offer:

• 33 days annual leave (inclusive of public holidays) increasing to 35 after 2 years’ service

• Auto-enrolment into our pension scheme after 3 months service

• Offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and the option to choose the base location that works best for you.

• Flexibility around your working day, with the opportunity to work your hours within the hours of 7am to 7pm, and the option to work from home some of your working week.

• Access to our employee counselling service.

Learning and development is important to us and our team. We hope it’s important to you too. You will be encouraged to engage in learning and continued professional development.

"I have never worked in such a lovely organisation before! I feel valued, seen and heard as an individual here." - A member of the Clan Childlaw team

"I love my job at Clan. It's busy and varied and no two days are ever the same. We have a great team here and everyone is really supportive." - A member of the Clan Childlaw team

*You can choose the location that works best for you. We operate hybrid working with the opportunity to work from home some of the time. The role will also require travel between our office locations on a regular basis and throughout Scotland as required.

The Royal College of General Practitioners is the largest membership organisation solely for GPs in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1952, it has over 55,000 members who are committed to improving patient care, developing their own skills and promoting general practice as a discipline. General practice is the largest branch of the medical profession. It provides some 1 million consultations for patients in the UK every working day and deals with 86% of the health problems experienced by the UK population.

As the Governance Officer, you will manage the governance function of RCGP Scotland, providing high quality support, ensuring that the relevant committees and groups operate efficiently and effectively, following all governance procedures.

To be successful in this role you will have exceptional organisational skills, attention to detail and a can-do attitude. You will have previous experience of providing full administrative and governance support to committees. A confident and effective communicator, you will have demonstrable experience in drafting and presenting written material, communicating effectively to ensure committee members are kept informed.

This role will involve hybrid working with a minimum of two working days in the Edinburgh office in the city centre. We offer flexible working hours Monday to Friday.

If you’re enthusiastic, driven, and want a role where you can really make a difference to the organisation and your own career, we want to hear from you.

The successful candidate will share our corporate values. In return, the College offers excellent terms and conditions and great working environment.