Head of Service, Community Health Services Dentistry and Primary Care

Job overview

We are seeking an experienced and motivated senior leader to take on the pivotal role of Head of Service, Locality Therapy and Nursing Services. This role provides strategic and operational leadership across community pathways, ensuring high‑quality, safe, effective and person‑centred care for adults and older adults.

You will work in partnership with system partners across health, social care and the VCSE sector, shaping the future of community service provision and driving improvement aligned with local, regional and national priorities.

What we’re looking for

• Substantial experience managing community nursing and therapy services. • Proven ability to lead complex change and improvement programmes. • Strong stakeholder engagement skills and the ability to work collaboratively across systems. • Commitment to improving patient outcomes, safety, experience and reducing health inequalities. • Ability to work in a dynamic, challenging environment with competing priorities.

Applicants must have a full valid driving licence and have access to a vehicle for work. Adjustments can be considered in line with the Equality Act 2010 where required.

Main duties of the job

• Operational & Strategic Leadership — Maintain firm oversight of community pathways, leading service development, transformation and improvement initiatives.
• Quality, Safety & Governance — Provide leadership across all aspects of clinical and operational governance, ensuring compliance with national standards and embedding a culture of openness, learning and continuous improvement.
• Performance & Financial Management — Lead delivery of performance targets, manage budgets, and ensure financial sustainability, including delivery of CIPs.
• Workforce Leadership — Line‑manage senior clinical and managerial leaders, promote staff wellbeing, and champion inclusive, compassionate leadership.
• Partnership Working — Build strong relationships with system partners, representing the Trust at local and regional forums and influencing strategic direction.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

As part of the Senior Management Team (SMT) the Head of Service is  responsible for contributing significantly to overall Directorate strategy/policy to ensure that the Directorate delivers its quality, quality improvement, people, finance and performance objectives.

As part of a ‘matrix’ style organisation structure the Head of Service is also responsible for working highly collaboratively with ‘horizontal’ leads from across the Directorate and the broader Trust. This includes clinical and non-clinical professional leads such as medical, nursing, therapies, social work, psychology, learning disabilities, finance, HR, IM&T, estates, emergency planning etc. The role will have close external partnership working and is required to represent the Trust in a professional collaborative manner at all times.

As a very senior leader in the organisation the post holder is expected to role model exemplary personal and leadership qualities at all times.

This role may involve working unsocial hours during evenings and at weekends as well as working in hours as service need dictates to attend Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust meetings as required.

We hope that the advert has given you a clear understanding of the skills we are seeking and the opportunity at hand. You will need to use the “supporting statement” element of your application form to demonstrate your suitability for this role and you should refer to the job description, person specification and the guidance notes attached to this role to help you tailor your application.

The essential and desirable criteria will be used to shortlist for interview and you should ensure that you refer to these within your application to increase your chances of being selected for interview.

We are aware that some candidates may choose to use AI tools to support their application. We kindly remind applicants that submissions should remain an honest and accurate representation of their experience and must take care to ensure the use of AI tools does not generate an application that does not accurately reflect their knowledge, skills and values.