Deputy Director Allied Health Professionals

Job overview

Deputy Director of Allied Health Professionals (MHLDA and CAMHS Services)

Working closely with the Director of AHPs, the Deputy Director will provide visible, credible, compassionate and inclusive professional leadership for a large and diverse Allied Health Professional workforce (780 WTE). The postholder will hold a designated portfolio of strategic leadership and professional oversight, supporting delivery of the Trust Strategy and the ELFT AHP Plan.

The initial portfolio will cover Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism, Specialist Services and CAMHS (approximately 320 AHPs), with flexibility to adapt responsibilities in response to evolving Trust priorities.

The role will provide professional leadership and governance assurance, lead the AHP quality and safety agenda, and drive innovation, workforce transformation and the development of new models of care. These models will be person‑centred, prevention‑focused, community‑based and digitally enabled. The postholder will also strengthen AHP identity, visibility and impact across the four pillars of practice: clinical practice, leadership, education and research.

Main duties of the job

Acting with delegated Trust‑wide authority, the Deputy Director will be a senior member of the Trust leadership team, deputising for the Director of AHPs as required. The role includes representing the Trust and the AHP workforce at place‑based, Integrated Care System (ICS), regional and national forums.

This is a pivotal senior leadership opportunity for an experienced AHP leader who can translate complex strategy into deliverable plans, influence across organisational and system boundaries, and contribute to improving outcomes, experience and population health.

• Provide visible, credible and compassionate professional leadership for the Allied Health Professional (AHP) workforce, acting with delegated authority on behalf of the Director of AHPs.
• Act as a senior professional leader (Tier 2) within the Trust, providing expert AHP advice and contributing to corporate and clinical governance structures as required.
• Work in close partnership with Directorate Management Teams, Clinical Directors, Professional and Discipline Leads, and corporate teams to align AHP priorities with Trust, place‑based, system and national strategies.
• Translate complex strategic priorities into deliverable service, workforce and quality plans, communicating effectively with clinical, professional and system stakeholders.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• aintain visibility within clinical services through direct engagement with frontline staff, ensuring risks and issues are identified, escalated and managed through Trust governance arrangements.
• Provide assurance through the collection, analysis and reporting of quality, workforce, outcomes and productivity data to inform decision‑making and improvement.

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Our Allied Health Professional (AHP) workforce plays a vital and expanding role in delivering high-quality, evidence based care across ELFT. The Deputy Director of AHPs will support the Director of AHPs to provide visible, credible and compassionate professional leadership for our AHP workforce (780 WTE). They will hold a designated portfolio of strategic leadership and professional oversight, supporting delivery of our Trust strategy and ELFT AHP plan. This will initially include our Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism, Specialist Services and CAMHS services (320 AHPs), with flexibility to adapt portfolios in response to Trust priorities.

Working in close partnership with Directorate leadership teams, Clinical Directors and Professional/Discipline Leads, the post holder will develop and embed a cohesive and ambitious AHP vision and priorities across their portfolio of services, ensuring the effective deployment, support and optimisation of the AHP workforce. They will play a critical role in aligning AHP priorities with the ELFT Trust Strategy, delivering our AHP Plan and supporting place based initiatives, and wider system transformation programmes.

The Deputy Director will provide strategic leadership, identifying transformative potential within the AHP workforce and enabling innovation, new ways of working and new models of care that are person-centered, prevention focused, community based, data informed and digitally enabled. They will convert complex strategic concepts into deliverable plans, communicating effectively with diverse clinical, professional and system audiences.