Associate / Chief Operating Officer Support ServicesinWarwickinWarwickPUBLISHED WED 12 MAR 2025

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an Associate Chief Operating Officer. As a Trust, we are committed to delivering outstanding care to our patients and public. To achieve this, we need our leaders to inspire, to motivate and to work collaboratively with colleagues, partner organisations and our public to ensure we are trusted to deliver safe, effective, compassionate care always.

Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, this full time, permanent post is available on our Senior Manager trust Terms & Conditions.

This is a wide-ranging role, spanning across the Trust, covering clinical diagnostics, the Central England Rehabilitation Unit (including Acquired Brain injury, Neuro rehabilitation and Stroke Rehabilitation), contract management and non-clinical support functions.

There is a strong emphasis on our transformation programme, focused on getting the right care to patients, at the right time, in the right place, with a mandate to only provide care in the acute setting that cannot be delivered elsewhere.

Your strategic planning skills are crucial as you will lead on the development of the Division's strategy. You will have demonstrable ability to execute a high level of financial control and be able to prove how your people management skills ensure your teams deliver excellent work. You will report back to the Executive Directors on performance, ensuring robust plans are in place to deliver good performance against agreed targets.

The post holder will be accountable to the Chief Operating Officer for the effective strategic and operational management of the Support Services Division, ensuring delivery of high-quality patient care services within the resources available. This will be achieved through the development, performance management and support of all clinical and non-clinical based services within the Division.

The role also has a responsibility to lead and co-ordinate the improvement of all care and support pathways within the Division across the organisation in liaison with other divisional teams.

Key responsibilities include the operational and strategic leadership of the Division, encompassing the management of all resources and the achievement of agreed performance objectives within the context of National and Trust frameworks. The Associate Director will manage the members of the Divisional Management Team and member of the Trust Management Board and will also act deputise for the Chief Operating Officer, as required.

About us

Business and Strategic Planning and Management Lead the development and regular review of the Divisions short, medium, and long-term plans, ensuring this is fully informed and influenced by both national and local policy and imperatives.

Ensure that strategic plans are fully developed and tested, e.g., long term workforce planning, and that movement towards the strategic plans is built into annual delivery plans and individual objective setting.

Develop an active awareness of the future national and local agendas, identifying those items that will have a significant impact on the division/organisation and ensure that the divisional teams have plans in place to meet requirements.

Lead the business planning process within the Division ensuring that activity modelling informs the development of any bids or proposals and that these are rigorously tested and shared with stakeholders.

Responsible for enabling change through the acquisition of resources via internal or external business cases when redesign is exhausted as a source of funds or cannot adequately support progress.

Lead or be involved in Trust wide projects or groups, both to influence the organisational agenda/strategy and to deliver organisational wide objectives or approaches to particular issues.

Operational and Performance Management

To develop annually, in conjunction with the Associate Medical Directors and Divisions Management Team, the delivery plan and specific objectives of the Division in the context of the organisational strategy and annual objectives.

Develop and implement robust and proactive systems to ensure the delivery of performance against plan for Division objectives, national/local targets, activity levels and finance. Lead the development, monitoring, measurement and reporting of key organisational performance indicators.

To provide appropriate, accurate and timely information as assurance to the Executive Finance & Performance Committee.

Ensure that the Division operates within budget constraints and delivers against challenging annual cost improvement targets and income plans.

Contribute to the development of service line management within the Division to facilitate decisions regarding the maximisation of quality and resource management.

Ensure the services provided by the Division are clinically and cost effectively patient-centred, through redesign, service improvement initiatives and projects, learning from national or local best practices etc and that this approach is embedded in the Division as a way of working.

Manage large-scale projects from creation of business cases through to delivery of schemes as required involving all necessary stakeholders.

Responsible for assuring robust systems and standards of corporate governance are achieved within the Division, including health and safety, Care Quality Commission assurance processes and relevant elements of Board Assurance Framework.

Human Resources Management and Leadership

Demonstrate the principles of the Trusts Leadership Charter and ensure that these principles are embedded within the Division.

Ensure that an appropriate management structure is in place within which clear accountability and responsibilities are defined.

Create a culture of responsibility and accountability throughout the Division in which staff feel empowered, valued, respected, and provided with appropriate opportunities for their development.

Ensure that managers and staff at all levels have a clear understanding of their specific objectives and of the standards expected of them.

Lead and motivate all staff within the Division, ensuring that staff in leadership roles have the level of skill and leadership capability necessary to continue to develop a service improvement and innovation culture.

Ensure both a communication strategy and effective systems of communication are in place within the Division and that there are good communication links between the Division and other areas of the Trust, as well as with external bodies with whom the Division works.

Ensure the Division actively works with other services and organisations, both within the Trust and with external local health communities and nationally, to promote service improvement and strategy development.

Deputise for the Chief Operating Officer as required.

Patient and Client Care

Responsible for the Clinical Governance of the Support Services Division in partnership with the Clinical Governance Team and the Corporate Nursing Team, ensuring high quality patient care that can be supported with evidence. Attend the Divisional Audit and Governance Group as a member.

Responsible for the implementation of the Trusts health and safety and risk management policies within the Division.

Ensure that within the Division there is a culture of learning and continual improvement in the quality of patient care.

Ensure that a culture of patient involvement develops within the Division and that this input actively informs the development of services and patient information.

Promote cross division and cross organisational working at management level and amongst the wider divisional team, to ensure that these boundaries are not an impediment to the development of patient centred care.