Assistant Service Manager - Planned Care

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Isleworth; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading NHS Trust in the UK is looking for an Assistant Service Manager for their Planned Care department. You will be responsible for ensuring high-quality patient services in Urology and General Surgery among others. The role requires excellent communication skills, operational management capabilities, and experience in an NHS environment. You will collaborate with clinical teams to meet performance targets and participate in service improvements. Flexible working arrangements are available.

Qualifications

• Experience in NHS or public sector environment.
• Proficient in using IT systems and patient data systems.
• Experience with NHS acute Outpatient processes and capacity planning.

Responsibilities

• Provide operational management to designated areas.
• Ensure service delivery meets quality and performance targets.
• Assist in the management of small service changes or improvements.

Skills

Excellent communication skills

Operational management

Customer service

Education

NVQ Level 3 in Business Administration/Customer Care

Computer Literacy Course

AMSPAR Medical Terminology

Tools

Cerner

Lilie

Lastword

Job description

Assistant Service Manager - Planned Care

The closing date is 05 January 2026

Opportunity to join Planned Care Surgery Operational team as an Assistant Service Manager in West Middlesex Hospital.

This role will be responsible for the Urology, General Surgery, Colorectal, Breast & Sarcoma services.

The Assistant Service Manager will work closely with nursing, administrative and clinical teams to deliver excellent performance and achieve agreed productivity targets. You will be responsible for the delivery of high quality and efficient patient services in defined clinical areas and will work on and support the direct management of a range of agreed projects and service improvement initiatives.

You should have experience delivering improvements to systems, processes for patients. You will have excellent communication skills—both oral and verbal—and will be able to work well under pressure, balancing competing demands and meeting tight deadlines.

Main duties of the job

The Assistant Service Manager is responsible for the delivery of high quality and efficient patient services in defined clinical areas. The post holder will support the service manager and the Service Directors with the operational management of the services and delivery of national KPIs.

The Assistant Service Manager will work closely and in partnership with other services within the Trust, in particular the nursing teams; clinical teams; Patient Access, PALs and other divisions to achieve agreed performance, productivity targets and clinical quality indicators; assist the Service Manager and the Service Directors in the delivery of objectives across the Directorate as well as directly manage mutually agreed projects and service improvement initiatives.

The Assistant Service Manager will ensure that line management of their staff is undertaken professionally with Directorate, Division and Trust objectives.

About us

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is one of England's top‑performing and safest trusts. We operate two main acute hospital sites—Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and West Middlesex University Hospital—along with award‑winning clinics across North West London.

Our nearly 7,500 staff care for a diverse population of 1.5 million, providing full clinical services, including maternity, A&E, and children's services, plus specialist HIV and sexual health clinics. The Care Quality Commission rates us ‘Good’ in safety, effectiveness, care, and responsiveness, and ‘Outstanding’ in leadership and resource use.

We continually invest in our facilities, including a £30m expansion of critical care at Chelsea and Westminster and an £80m Ambulatory Diagnostic Centre at West Middlesex.

We welcome applications for flexible working arrangements, accommodating requests where possible to support our staff and patient needs.

The Trust is committed to equality and welcomes applications from all, regardless of background. Adjustments can be made for disabled candidates. Early application is advised as vacancies may close once sufficient applications are received. If you haven't heard from us within three weeks of the closing date, your application was likely unsuccessful. Employment is subject to a six‑month probationary period.

Some roles may require weekend shifts at multiple sites.

Job responsibilities

Operational Management

• Provide hands‑on operational management to designated areas of the Division, ensuring the delivery of services in line with expected service standards.
• Be accountable through the General Manager, Deputy General Manager and Service Manager for the monitoring and delivery of key quality, productivity and performance targets.
• Promote excellent customer service throughout all areas of responsibility, taking remedial action to correct poor and unresponsive service.
• Assist the Service Manager in ensuring that clinic templates, procedure schedules and rotas deliver care at times that meet service capacity and patient needs.
• On behalf of the Service Manager, work closely with the Service Directors and Clinical Directors to assure compliant working patterns for junior doctors, ensuring adequate medical staffing cover is in place to meet the clinical and operational needs of the service. Assist with the booking of additional medical staff as needed and maintain the relevant staffing spread sheets.
• Support the service manager with the investigation and co‑ordination of complaints that are predominantly administrative/medical related within the directorate working closely with medical staff and with the Patient Advisors. Ensure corrective action is taken in response to patient feedback.
• Be responsible for effective communication systems within areas of management responsibility including regular team and departmental briefing.
• Facilitate partnership and integration between services across multiple sites e.g. in relation to aligning systems and processes, sharing best practice, improving data etc.
• Ensure effective clinic utilisation and capacity planning, identifying where there are inefficiencies or a lack of capacity and taking steps to address where productivity and access fall below targets.
• Play a key role in ensuring effective systems of capturing high quality data and that all datasets are submitted to a high level of accuracy in line with required timescales.
• Identify service improvement or modernisation initiatives that will enhance the patient experience, improve the quality of care provided or enable improvements in performance; work with relevant staff and stakeholders in order to make recommendations in relation to the size and scope of the project.
• Manage small service changes or assist in wider change programmes as required, ensuring there is thorough planning, scoping, stakeholder engagement, patient communication and resource planning.
• Proactively take steps to ensure compliance with internal and external governance and best practice requirements.
• Identify and manage audits and service improvement projects in collaboration and with support of GMs, DGMs, SMs, Nursing and Medical teams.
• Promote excellent customer service and patient experience throughout all areas of responsibility, taking remedial action to correct poor and unresponsive service.
• With support of the service manager, participate in business planning and ensure that there is enough capacity within the service to match the patient demand and needs.
• Participate in the production, implementation and revision of operational policies throughout the Directorate, instigating the changes to or implementation of policies and procedures.

Staff Management

• Support Service Managers and Operational Admin Support B4 in emergency rotas, co‑ordination of annual leave and study leave for clinicians, ensuring cover is always maintained and agency expenditure is minimised.
• Support Operational Admin Support B4 in delivering their objectives.
• Ensure close working relationships are maintained with the clinical professionals on all matter relating to patient care within the service.
• Play an active role in identifying areas within the service where expenditure can be reduced and/or income generated (CIP).
• Be involved under the Service Managers/ DGMs/GM instruction in the business planning process, producing capital and revenue business cases and proposals for service development.
• Undertake detailed information analysis of specific projects/reports requiring high levels of analysis.
• Contribute to the management of performance information, taking a lead for specific projects.

General

These duties are not exhaustive and will be reviewed with the post holder, allowing for amendments within the broad scope and band level of the role. All duties must be carried out under supervision or within Trust policy and procedure. You must never undertake any duties that are outside your area of skill or knowledge level. If you are unsure you must seek clarification from a more senior member of staff. Appointment to this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and the post holder is required to undertake a Disclosure & Barring Service Check (DBS). Once a job offer is made, all NHS staff must have a work health assessment that adheres to equal opportunities legislation and good occupational health practice. Any offer of appointment is conditional pending the successful completion of pre‑employment checks, including a health assessment. Work health assessments are one of six employment check requirements that employers must undertake, as outlined in the NHS Employment Check Standards.

Person Specification

Education and Qualifications

• NVQ Level 3 in Business Administration/Customer Care or acquired equivalent experience GCSE or equivalent.
• Computer Literacy Course.
• AMSPAR Medical Terminology.

Experience

• Previous worked within an NHS or public sector environment/team.
• Experience of using IT systems and patient data systems.
• Experience of using Cerner, Lilie, Lastword or other relevant Trust systems.
• Experience of NHS acute Outpatient processes, medical records, waiting list management, capacity planning.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure & Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer name

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Address

West Middlesex University Hospital NHS FT