Chief Operating Officer

Job Description:

Chief Operating Officer - Cromwell Hospital

Location – Cromwell Hospital, Kensington, SW5 0TU

Permanent | Full time (37.5 hours)

Competitive salary & excellent benefits package

Closing date for applications – 1st September 2026

We make health happen

As Chief Operating Officer of Cromwell Hospital, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of one of the UK’s leading independent hospitals. Reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer and working as a key member of the Executive Team, you will be responsible for the strategic and operational leadership of the hospital, ensuring the delivery of exceptional patient experience, outstanding operational performance and sustainable business growth.

Cromwell Hospital is internationally recognised for delivering complex, high-acuity care and an exceptional patient experience. As COO, you will lead a broad portfolio of operational services and teams, driving performance, innovation and continuous improvement across the organisation while ensuring patients remain at the heart of every decision we make.

This is an exciting opportunity for an accomplished healthcare leader to influence the delivery of private healthcare at scale, working closely with clinical leaders, consultants and executive colleagues to achieve operational excellence and deliver ambitious growth plans.

How you’ll help us make health happen

• Provide visible, inspirational leadership across hospital operations, building a high-performing and patient-focused culture.
• Lead the delivery of operational and financial performance targets, ensuring efficient use of resources and sustainable business success.
• Translate the hospital strategy into clear operational plans, ensuring successful execution across all service areas.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives that enhance operational efficiency, productivity and patient experience.
• Drives colleague engagement and team performance across the hospital, by fostering an inclusive, high-performing culture where people feel valued, supported and empowered to succeed, creating an environment in which individuals and teams can thrive while enabling the hospital to achieve its employee engagement and organisational objectives.
• Work closely with the CEO, Finance Director, Commercial Director, Chief Nursing Officer, Medical Advisory Board and Clinical Leads to optimise hospital performance and deliver strategic objectives.
• Build strong relationships with consultants and key opinion leaders, ensuring Cromwell remains the hospital of choice for leading specialists.
• Champion patient experience, delivering against Net Promoter Score (NPS) targets and embedding a culture of service excellence.
• Ensure robust major incident, emergency planning and business continuity arrangements are in place and regularly reviewed.
• Maintain the highest standards of governance, risk management and regulatory compliance, ensuring operational readiness for CQC requirements.
• Oversee key operational functions including service delivery, operational efficiency, resource optimisation and patient journey management.
• Support the continued growth and redevelopment of Cromwell Hospital, ensuring operational infrastructure evolves in line with future demand.

Key Skills / Qualifications

• Significant senior operational leadership experience within a large acute hospital, independent healthcare provider or comparable healthcare environment.
• Proven experience leading large-scale, complex operations, with accountability for multiple functions, large multidisciplinary teams and operational performance across a sizeable healthcare organisation.
• Proven experience leading large operational teams and delivering performance improvement within a complex organisation.
• Strong commercial acumen with experience of P&L accountability and delivering sustainable operational performance.
• Extensive understanding of healthcare operations, service delivery and patient experience management.
• Experience operating within highly regulated healthcare environments, with knowledge of CQC requirements and clinical governance frameworks.
• Demonstrable success driving transformation, innovation and continuous improvement programmes.
• Exceptional stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate effectively across clinical, executive and consultant communities.
• Strong people leadership capabilities, with a track record of building, developing and inspiring high-performing teams.
• Experience managing operational risk, business continuity and governance processes.
• Previous experience working within a large, complex and matrix organisation.
• Experience within the London private healthcare market would be advantageous.
• Degree-level qualification or equivalent professional experience, with relevant healthcare leadership credentials desirable.

Benefits

Our benefits are designed to make health happen for our people. Viva is our global wellbeing programme and includes all aspects of our health – from mental and physical, to financial, social and environmental wellbeing. We support flexible working and have a range of family friendly benefits.

Joining Bupa in this role you will receive the following benefits and more:

• 25 days holiday, increasing through length of service, with option to buy or sell
• Bupa health insurance as a benefit in kind
• An enhanced pension plan and life insurance
• Free health assessment for you and your spouse
• Annual performance-based bonus
• Company car allowance
• Onsite gyms or local discounts where no onsite gym available
• Various other benefits and online discounts

Why Bupa?

We’re a health insurer and provider. With no shareholders, our customers are our focus. Our people are all driven by the same purpose – helping people live longer, healthier, happier lives and making a better world. We make health happen by being brave, caring and responsible in everything we do.

We encourage all of our people to “Be you at Bupa”, we champion diversity, and we understand the importance of our people representing the communities and customers we serve. That’s why we especially encourage applications from people with diverse backgrounds and experiences.

Bupa is a Level 2 Disability Confident Employer. This means we aim to offer an interview/assessment to every disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria for the role. We’ll make sure you are treated fairly and offer reasonable adjustments as part of our recruitment process to anyone that needs them.

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