Chief Quality Officer

Job overview

East London NHS Foundation Trust is seeking an outstanding and values-driven Executive leader to join us as our new Chief Quality Officer. We want someone who is  passionate about continuous quality improvement, meaningful co-production, and reducing health inequalities, and who can provide visible, credible leadership across a diverse organisation

Our trust strategy 2021-26 commits us to improving quality of life for all. This means improving the overall health of the communities we serve, alongside delivering the highest quality care, excellent staff experience, and good value for money. As the first Marmot Trust in the country, we actively look to work “beyond the hospital walls” to make our bit of the world a fairer place to live and work, and to support our populations to thrive. To do so, we are reliant on our organisational treasures – these are quality improvement, people participation, clinical and care professional leadership, our kind and caring staff, and our commitment to inclusivity.

Whilst we are currently working to refresh our trust strategy for the next five years, our mission and our organisational treasures will remain at the heart of everything we do. The Chief Quality Officer will be front and centre in helping us to do so.

Main duties of the job

The Opportunity

The Chief Quality Officer (CQO) role is central to our ability to meet these challenges and deliver on our vision. The portfolio spans a broad range of functions that shape how we design and deliver care and how we use data and insight to improve outcomes.

The role includes:

• Co-leading strategy and planning
• Oversight of quality, safety and performance
• Leadership of data, analytics and intelligence
• Embedding a quality management system (QMS) that reduces unwarranted variation, supports intelligent use of data, applies consistent improvement methodologies and ensures quality is systematically designed into everything we do

This is a role for a leader who can build on strong foundations, sustain momentum, and take quality and improvement to the next level across services, places and systems.

Like the wider NHS, we are operating in a time of significant challenge across the NHS. Rising demand, workforce pressures, financial constraints and persistent health inequalities are reshaping the landscape of health and care. Despite this, ELFT has a strong track record of innovation and delivery, including the development of integrated models of care in partnership with local authorities, voluntary sector organisations and system partners. We are well positioned to build on this success, improve population health outcomes and continue to play a leading role within our Integrated Care Systems.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Join Us

This is an opportunity to join a Trust that is passionate about making a real difference. If you share our values and are ready to lead with compassion, hope, honour and humility, we would love to hear from you.

For more information about this outstanding opportunity, please email us at [email protected]

We warmly welcome applications from members of our vibrant and diverse communities who bring an understanding of some of the challenges faced by our local populations, and who are committed to developing a truly inclusive culture. This is an exciting time to be part of our journey.

For detailed role profile please see the attached Job description and Person spec & the Candidate Pack

Advert closing date - 31st January 2026

Interviews week commencing - 23rd February 2026