Chief of Care Group

NHS; Port Talbot; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Swansea Bay University Health Board is recruiting a Chief of Care Group (Band 9) to provide strategic leadership across a full care group. You will guide quality, safety, patient experience and financial sustainability while working in a triumvirate with the Care Group Clinical and Operational Directors.

Applicants should outline top three Care Group preferences and engage in system-wide service transformation, pathway redesign and staff engagement across Wales.

Qualifications

• Full GMC registration and inclusion on the Specialist Register.
• Fellowship examination from a Medical Royal College or equivalent.
• Extensive knowledge of NHS governance, policy, risk and financial planning.

Responsibilities

• Act as the Accountable Officer for the Care Group, with overall responsibility for quality, safety, patient experience, operational performance and financial stewardship.
• Provide line management to the Care Group Operational Director and Care Group Clinical Director, ensuring clarity of roles and joint accountability.
• Hold executive accountability for professional standards, job planning, workforce utilisation and clinical productivity.
• Lead and sponsor integrated, pathway-based models of care, centred on patient need.
• Ensure governance, patient safety and continuous improvement across the Care Group.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Analytical thinking

Communication

Team leadership

Governance understanding

Education

Full GMC registration and Specialist Register

Fellowship examination from Medical Royal College

Case Manager and Investigator training

NHS governance and policy knowledge

Tools

Microsoft Office

BI dashboards / modelling systems

Job description

Main area Chief of Care Group Grade Consultant / Band 9 Contract Permanent Hours

• Full time
• Part time

10 sessions per week (Minimum 6 sessions (3-days)) Job ref 130-CCG10209

Employer Swansea Bay University Health Board Employer type NHS Site Swansea Bay University Health Board Headquarters Town Port Talbot Salary Commensurate with your Substantive role i.e. Consultant/Band 9 Closing 19/11/2026 23:59 Interview date 11/12/2026

We expect everyone that works for the Health Board, regardless of their role, to share and uphold our values in all that they do:

• Caring for each other - in every human contact in all of our communities and each of our hospitals.
• Working together - as patients, families, carers, staff and communities so that we always put patients first
• Always improving - so that we are at our best for every patient and for each other.

Job overview

CHIEF OF CARE GROUP

Posts Available:

• Cancer Centre and Clinical Services Care Group

Swansea Bay University Health Board is implementing a clinically led Care Group model, aligning services around patient pathways to improve outcomes, experience and sustainability. This is a unique opportunity to shape how health services are designed and delivered for the population of Swansea Bay.

As Chief of Care Group, you will provide strategic leadership across a whole Care Group, holding overall accountability for quality, safety, patient experience, operational performance and financial sustainability. Working within a triumvirate model, you will lead the Care Group Clinical Director and Care Group Operational Director, ensuring cohesive, clinically informed and values-driven leadership.

You will lead service transformation, drive pathway improvement, promote staff engagement and ensure services are organised around the needs of patients, carers and communities. The role requires a visible, collaborative leader who can work across organisational boundaries and contribute to regional and system-wide priorities.

Applicants should indicate their top three Care Group preferences within their application and refer to the accompanying Care Group structure document for further information.

Interview dates: 11, 16 and 18 December

Hours: Minimum 6 sessions (3-days)

Main duties of the job

• Act as the Accountable Officer for the Care Group, with overall responsibility for quality, safety, patient experience, operational performance and financial stewardship.
• Provide line management and leadership to the Care Group Operational Director and Care Group Clinical Director, ensuring clarity of roles, effective decision-making and collective accountability within the triumvirate model.
• Hold executive accountability for the effective management of professional standards and concerns within the Care Group, including oversight of consultant and senior clinician job planning, workforce utilisation and programmes to improve clinical productivity, ensuring safe, sustainable and value based clinical services.
• Lead and sponsor the design and delivery of integrated, pathway-based models of care, ensuring services are organised around patient need rather than organisational or geographical boundaries.
• Ensure a clinically led and prudent approach to decision-making, balancing benefit, harm and value while reducing unwarranted variation and inequality.
• Provide assurance to Executive leadership and the Board through robust Care Group governance, including learning from complaints, incidents, mortality reviews and patient feedback, in line with Listening to People and Duty of Candour

Working for our organisation

Swansea Bay University Health Board is one of the largest public service organisations in Wales, with an annual budget of approximately £1.7 billion and a workforce of around 14,700 people. As a major employer in South West Wales, we play a pivotal role in improving health, wellbeing and life chances for the communities we serve.

We provide NHS care to a population of around 390,000 people across Swansea and Neath Port Talbot, delivering services across acute, community, mental health and primary care settings. We also host a range of specialist and tertiary services for patients from across Wales and beyond, including burns and plastics, renal services, cardiac surgery and specialist neonatal care.

Our services are delivered across Morriston Hospital, Singleton Hospital and Neath Port Talbot Hospital, alongside a comprehensive network of community and mental health provision. We also hold responsibility for commissioning primary care services, working in partnership to ensure care is accessible, timely and delivered as close to home as possible.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

You will be able to find a full Job description and Person Specification attached within the supporting documents.

Qualifications & Knowledge

• Full GMC registration and inclusion on the Specialist Register.
• Fellowship examination from a Medical Royal College or other relevant educational establishment.
• Evidence of in-depth, specialist professional knowledge across multiple clinical and organisational disciplines, including (but not limited to): professional clinical standards, quality governance, patient safety, risk management, clinical research, audit, workforce/HR, finance, service planning and operational delivery, supported by relevant specialist courses, continuous professional development, and sustained exposure to strategic decision-making in complex healthcare environments.
• Completion of Case Manager and Investigator training, either prior to appointment or within six months of commencing the role.
• Extensive knowledge of NHS structures, strategic planning frameworks, governance, and national policy and significant experience of clinical quality governance, patient safety, risk management and regulatory frameworks.
• Significant experience in a relevant senior leadership role within an NHS organisation or equivalent, with responsibility for strategic planning and development.
• Experience leading and embedding a quality management system including quality control, assurance, planning and improvement.
• Proven experience of leading and delivering job planning across multiple professional groups within the Care Group. Advanced knowledge in service redesign methodologies, QI approaches and organisational development with a strong understanding of financial planning, workforce, performance and digital transformation.

Essential Aptitude and abilities

• Adhere to and can demonstrate SBU Values & Behaviours
• Ability to travel within geographical area. Able to work hours flexibly. Demonstrates highly advanced analytical, conceptual and critical-thinking skills, applied to complex clinical, operational and strategic decision-making across diverse services
• Communicates complex, sensitive or contentious information with clarity and authority across clinical teams, senior leaders, partner organisations and patient groups. Produces high-quality clinical and operational reports, strategic papers and presentations. Possesses strong negotiation, persuasion and influencing skills, enabling engagement with senior clinicians, executives, external partners and system-wide stakeholders to support safe, evidence-based decision-making. Able to manage multiple competing clinical and operational priorities simultaneously, maintaining high professional standards, accuracy and sound clinical governance under pressure.
• Highly skilled in interpreting complex data sets, clinical outcomes, audit findings and quality indicators to inform service redesign, patient safety improvements and evidence-based Quality Improvement initiatives.
• Effectively manages conflict at individual, team, and system level, ensuring fair outcomes and maintaining positive working relationships.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint) for analysis, reporting and presentation of clinical and operational information. Able to use digital tools, business intelligence dashboards and modelling systems to support strategic clinical analysis.
• Ability to lead, motivate and coach high-performing multidisciplinary clinical teams through complex change, uncertainty and transformation programmes. Strong organisational and programme-management skills, with the ability to plan, deliver and evaluate large-scale clinical and service transformation programmes.

Swansea Bay University Health Board is committed to supporting its staff and processes to fully embrace the need for bilingualism thereby enhancing service users experience. In our commitment to increase the number of staff able to communicate in Welsh with patients and professionals, we would particularly welcome applications from Welsh speakers.

Equality remains at the centre of the Health Boards policy-making, service delivery and employment practices. We value the diversity of our staff and welcome applications from people from protected groups under the Equality Act 2010, this specifically includes age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/reassignment, race, religion, disability, pregnancy and maternity and marriage and civil partnership.

We are a Disability Confident Employer and applications are welcomed from persons with disabilities. A disability will not prejudice your application. If you are unable to submit your application in the requested format because of a disability please contact the Recruitment Team, who will agree a more suitable way for you to apply. All disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria listed in the Person Specification will be invited to interview.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Name Jon Scott Job title Chief Operating Officer Email address [e-mail] Telephone number 01792702222 Additional information

Applicants interested in learning more about the role are encouraged to contact theOrganised for Success Programme Team via [e-mail].

The Programme Team is managing all enquiries on behalf of the Executive Team and will coordinate requests for informal discussions with the appropriate Executive Lead(s). This approach ensures a fair, consistent and managed process for all prospective applicants.