Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Band 9

Job overview

Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Band 9

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

This is an exciting opportunity to join Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as our Deputy Chief Operating Officer, working closely with the Chief Operating Officer and playing a central role in the operational leadership of the Trust.

We are looking for an experienced and highly credible senior operational leader with extensive and current experience across both planned and unplanned care, together with a demonstrable track record of delivering statutory and national performance standards within a large and complex acute NHS provider.

You will also hold responsibility for the Trust's Organisational Resilience function, including emergency preparedness, business continuity and operational response, and have oversight of the Trust-wide operational on-call arrangements.

Beyond the Trust, you will play an important role in the Gloucestershire Provider Partnership (GPP), working with partner organisations to support delivery across the wider health and care system and to strengthen collaboration around operational priorities, capacity and patient flow.

You will also play a key role in the Trust's Deputy Executive Network, contributing to cross-cutting leadership, organisational development and delivery beyond your immediate portfolio.

Main duties of the job

As Deputy Chief Operating Officer, you will be the principal deputy to the Chief Operating Officer and a senior operational leader within the Trust.

Your primary responsibility will be to work through our four Clinical Divisions to ensure consistent delivery of operational activity, trajectories and performance, providing professional leadership to the Trust's Directors of Operations.

You will ensure that Divisions have the information, expertise, infrastructure and corporate support required to deliver, intervening early to remove barriers and mobilise additional support where performance is off trajectory.

You will lead and oversee the corporate teams supporting delivery of:

- Referral to Treatment (RTT)

- Cancer standards

- DM01 diagnostic performance

- Urgent and Emergency Care and the Emergency Care Standard

- Whole-hospital flow, capacity and discharge

- Operational performance, recovery and assurance.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Extensive planned and unplanned care experience is essential

A defining requirement of this appointment is extensive, current senior-level experience across both planned and unplanned care.

Candidates must demonstrate a strong and evidenced record of delivering statutory, constitutional and national performance requirements across both portfolios, including:

- RTT, elective recovery and waiting-list management

- Cancer and diagnostic performance

- Theatres, outpatients and elective productivity

- Urgent and emergency care

- Whole-hospital flow, capacity and discharge - Operational recovery and sustained performance improvement.

The successful candidate will need to be equally credible across planned and unplanned care and able to demonstrate that they have personally led the delivery and improvement of operational performance at scale.

Professional leadership

A core part of the role will be providing professional leadership to the Directors of Operations across our four Clinical Divisions, creating a strong and consistent operational leadership community.

You will work alongside Divisional teams to identify emerging risks early, ensure the right expertise and support is available, and establish consistent Trust-wide approaches to operational planning, performance and recovery.

As the principal deputy to the Chief Operating Officer, you will also represent the COO internally and externally and provide senior operational leadership during periods of significant operational pressure.

The person

We are looking for an outstanding operational leader who brings:-

- Substantial senior or sub-Board level operational leadership experience within the NHS

- Extensive and current experience of both planned and unplanned care

- A demonstrable record of delivering statutory and national performance standards across both

- Proven delivery across RTT, Cancer, DM01 and urgent and emergency care

- Significant experience of whole-hospital flow, capacity and operational escalation

- Experience of leading complex performance recovery and improvement

- The credibility to provide professional leadership to senior operational leaders

- Experience of working effectively with Clinical Divisions, Executive teams, Boards and system partners

- The ability to operate effectively across organisational boundaries and contribute to wider system leadership

- Strong judgement, resilience and a collaborative, delivery-focused leadership style.

Above all, we are looking for someone who understands how to translate plans and trajectories into consistent operational delivery and who can ensure that our Clinical Divisions have the leadership, infrastructure and support they need to succeed.

For an experienced senior operational leader with proven delivery across both planned and unplanned care, this is an opportunity to have a significant impact on the performance and development of Gloucestershire Hospitals and the wider Gloucestershire health and care system.

Interested in finding out more?

If you would like to learn more about the role, the opportunities ahead and what we are looking for in our next Deputy Chief Operating Officer, I would be very happy to have an informal and confidential conversation.

Please contact Al Sheward, Chief Operating Officer, to arrange a discussion. Please contact Suzanne White Executive Assistant suzanne.white7@nhs.net