Clinical Quality Specialist for our Children and Young People’s Autism Assessment Services

Clinical Quality Specialist for our Children and Young People’s Autism Assessment Services

Time commitment: Full time, or part time 3-4 days per week

Location: Hybrid in our London office, or remote (within the UK)

Reporting to: Mark Jenkins (CEO), transitioning to the Operations Manager for Clinical Quality

About Paloma

Mark & Darshak founded Paloma as they were frustrated that families are waiting 2-10 years for NHS children’s autism and ADHD assessments. Learn more about the crisis in NHS children’s neurodevelopmental services from this Children’s Commissioner for England here: https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/blog/childrens-commissioner-warns-of-invisible-crisis-as-delays-and-inequalities-laid-bare-among-children-with-neurodevelopmental-conditions/

Paloma’s mission is to make children’s autism and ADHD assessments and care available on the NHS within 4 weeks of GP referral. We are making this happen by redesigning care pathways, building new software & AI tools, and training up a specialist clinical workforce.

We are growing incredibly fast to meet the need for autism and ADHD care, and we have:

• Raised £5m pre-seed funding from leading healthcare investors (Triple Point Ventures and Heal Capital)
• Grown our fantastic team to 80 people, and are hiring ~100 more over the next 12 months

How is Paloma Health different from other Neurodevelopmental providers?

• We are clinically-led, Care Quality Commission (CQC) registered, and continuously improve our outcomes and family experiences.
• Our in-house product & engineering team ensures we can:
• Give families a more consumer-like experience of healthcare
• Free our clinicians from documentation to focus on supporting families
• Our strong culture, including transparency, a sense of community, and supporting staff career development
• The experience of our founders (Dr Mark Jenkins & Darshak Shah), who have previously built tech-enabled NHS obesity and ophthalmology services. Combined, their previous companies have treated over 1 million NHS patients in the last 15 years!
• Being backed by leading healthcare investors (Triple Point Ventures and Heal Capital), allows us to move fast

The Opportunity

We're seeking a detail-oriented and empathetic Clinical Quality Specialist to work within our Clinical Quality Assurance Team. By background you will either be a clinical psychologist, speech and language therapist, occupational therapist, or nurse (mental health, childrens or learning disability).

Working closely with our team of children and young people’s autism assessors, you will ensure we deliver high-quality assessments by quality assuring each step of our care pathway. Helpfully, we record all of our assessments, ensuring you have the complete information required to provide informed feedback.

Our goal is to move from traditional manual quality reviews to proactive AI-driven screening that supports you in focusing where you are most needed.

Importantly, you will stay close to our autism assessment pathway by continuing to deliver developmental histories, making diagnostic decisions in partnership with our observation assessors, writing outcome reports and providing feedback to families.

From a cultural perspective, you are:

• Comfortable working in a dynamic environment and embracing change
• Excited about using new technologies in your role
• Always looking for ways to improve our staff and patient experience

We commit to supporting your development and well-being, including quarterly development conversations and the opportunity to progress to a senior clinical quality specialist.

Responsibilities:

• Working with our Medical Director and Quality Assurance Team, deliver high-quality, evidence-based quality assurance for autism assessments, including:
• Critically review autism assessment outcome reports, appointments, and clinical notes, providing detailed feedback and associated coaching to our autism assessors. 
• Feeding back insights to Team Managers to support assessor development.
• Conduct high-quality autism assessments for children and young people agred 5-18, including developing and maintaining strong relationships with children and their families, fostering trust and understanding throughout the assessment process.
• Stay abreast of the latest research and evidence-based practices in autism assessment, diagnosis and treatment.

About you

You will be an experienced clinician in children’s autism assessments and in quality assuring the assessments of other team members. You are excited to apply that knowledge in a new organisation that uses pathway innovation and technology to improve care for families.

Qualifications and Experience:

Required:

• Registered healthcare professional with HCPC or NMC registration
• 4+ years of experience in autism assessment services
• At least 1 year of experience in quality assuring other autism assessors
• A passion for mentoring, with the ability to motivate and guide staff at all levels of experience.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and collaboration skills, fostering strong relationships with patients, families, and colleagues.
• Commitment to high-quality care and adherence to robust ethical and professional standards.

Why join Paloma?

You will be part of a mission-driven organisation that’s transforming access to autism and ADHD care in England. We offer:

• A strong and positive culture that prioritises staff well-being, transparency, and career development.
• Protected time and budget for team connection, learning, and community-building.
• Salary of £64-75k per year based on clinical experience and professional background
• Annual salary reviews, 5% employer pension, and company laptop.
• Share options in Paloma Health. We all benefit from our success!
• A unique leave benefits package includes 25 days of annual leave, your birthday off, and 10 days of paid sabbatical leave every three years of service.
• Home Office Equipment Allowance, and Professional Registration Fees Allowance for Assessors.
• Access to NHS discounts, including the Blue Light Card (as we are an NHS provider).

Equality & Diversity

Paloma Health is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace and throughout the application process. We do not discriminate based on any protected characteristic.

Accommodations

We’re glad to accommodate candidates who need adjustments throughout the hiring process. We encourage you to be open about the adjustments you need, so we can adapt our interview process accordingly.

Safer Recruitment & Pre-Employment Checks

Paloma Health ensures that supporting people to be safe is at the heart of our work and a key priority across all areas of the organisation. As part of our pre-employment checks, you will be asked to complete a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. Depending on your role within the business, this will be at either an Enhanced, Standard, or Basic level. We are committed to safer recruitment practices and expect all applicants to share our dedication to safeguarding. Our recruitment processes are designed to ensure we appoint individuals who are aligned with our values and who will contribute to maintaining a safe and supportive environment for everyone we work with.

Application process

Please apply via our website. We understand that applying for a new job requires a significant amount of effort, and we appreciate your time. We look forward to reviewing your application.

Join us and be part of our journey to revolutionise access to NHS autism and ADHD care!