Job overview
About the Role
We are seeking an experienced and dynamic leader to join us as Head of System Discharge and Flow, a pivotal role working across the Sussex Integrated Care System (ICS).
This role provides strategic and senior operational leadership to improve discharge, patient flow, and integrated community pathways. You will play a key part in ensuring patients receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time — supporting Home First principles, reducing length of stay, avoiding unnecessary admissions, and enabling care closer to home.
Please note: Due to recent changes in UK immigration and visa rules, this role may not be eligible for Skilled Worker visa sponsorship. Applicants who do not currently have the right to work in the UK may not be considered. Candidates requiring sponsorship should review the eligibility criteria on the gov.uk website before applying to assess their eligibility for a Certificate of Sponsorship for this role.
Skilled Worker visa: going rates for eligible occupation codes - GOV.UK
Health and Care Worker visa: If you’ll need to meet different salary requirements - GOV.UK
Main duties of the job
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the development, delivery and continuous improvement of safe, timely and person-centred discharge pathways across Sussex
- Hold system-wide accountability for patient flow and discharge performance, driving measurable improvements
- Provide senior system leadership to resolve complex, cross-organisational challenges impacting discharge and flow
- Lead large-scale transformation programmes, embedding sustainable change into business-as-usual practice
- Work in partnership across health, social care, housing, VCSE and wider system partners to align priorities and deliver integrated solutions
- Ensure consistent standards, reduce unwarranted variation, and support financial sustainability across the system
- Use data and insight to inform decision-making, improve outcomes, and support evidence-based planning
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The postholder is accountable for:
- Providing visible, strategic system leadership for discharge, patient flow, and integrated community services across the ICS, ensuring alignment with national and local priorities
- Maintaining oversight of system performance and providing clear, timely assurance and challenge to system partners through forums such as the Discharge Oversight Board
- Leading the delivery of ICS-wide transformation and operational improvement programmes to drive sustainable change and system resilience
- Driving improvements in discharge performance, patient flow, and overall system efficiency through evidence-based, data-informed approaches
- Ensuring the development and delivery of safe, timely, and person-centred discharge pathways that optimise outcomes and experience
- Providing senior leadership to resolve complex, high-risk, system-wide flow challenges, working across organisational boundaries to remove barriers and mitigate risk
- Strengthening and advancing neighbourhood and community-based care models to support admission avoidance and timely discharge
- Driving robust performance management, quality improvement, and governance frameworks to deliver assurance and continuous improvement
- Building and sustaining effective, strategic partnerships across NHS organisations, local authorities, VCSE, housing, and independent sector providers
- Ensuring the voice of patients, carers, and communities is embedded within service design, transformation, and evaluation
- Providing inclusive, compassionate leadership to develop and empower high-performing teams, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and accountability
Person specification
Experience
Essential
- Significant senior leadership experience within the NHS, ICS or complex multi-agency environments
- Proven track record of leading large-scale, cross-organisational transformation programmes
- Experience of delivering improvements in patient flow, discharge pathways, or urgent/community care services
- Demonstrable experience of translating national policy into local/system-wide implementation
- Experience of working at system level (ICS/ICB, provider collaboration) with evidence of influencing across organisational boundaries
- Multi-agency partnership working (NHS, LA, VCSE)
- Leading change in complex and pressured environments
- Experience building and leading teams
- Experience of financial oversight, including managing budgets, identifying efficiencies, and delivering value
- Significant experience of leading across organisational boundaries within a matrix or system leadership model
Qualifications
Essential
- Educated to master’s level or equivalent level of experience of working at a senior level in specialist area.
- Evidence of continued professional development in leadership, transformation, or programme management
- Formal programme/project management qualification (e.g. PRINCE2, MSP) or equivalent experience
Other requirements
Essential
- Resilient and adaptable in complex environments
- Collaborative and relationship-focused
- Commitment to improving patient outcomes
- Demonstrates NHS values and behaviours
Skills and Knowledge
Essential
- Highly developed understanding of national policy, strategy, and regulatory frameworks relating to urgent care, community services, and discharge optimisation, with the ability to translate these into system-wide delivery
- Strong knowledge of national policy relating to urgent care, discharge, flow and community services
- Expert analytical skills, with the ability to translate complex data into actionable intelligence to support system-wide planning, prioritisation, and performance improvement
- Exceptional stakeholder engagement and influencing skills, with experience operating credibly at system level to drive alignment and deliver change across organisational boundaries
- Ability to manage risk and resolve complex system issues
- Ability to navigate and lead within highly complex, ambiguous environments, balancing strategic priorities with operational pressures
- Ability to work across organisational and professional boundaries
- In-depth knowledge of improvement methodologies (e.g. Quality Improvement, Lean, system transformation approaches) and their application at scale
- Significant senior-level experience of leading research, evaluation or innovation programmes within complex health and care systems
- Experience of working within complex financial frameworks across health and care systems, with an understanding of funding flows related to discharge, community services and patient flow.
- Ability to design, commission and oversee high-quality training and development programmes that build capability and support service transformation across complex systems.
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Applying for this NHS job
This advert is for Head of System Discharge and Flow with Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust in Brighton, South East, England. It is listed as a Band 8 role. The advertised salary is £79,504 - £91,609 per annum. The contract type is Permanent. The application deadline is 12 Jul 2026.
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