Director of Nursing

Elysium Healthcare; Thatcham; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

Join Elysium Healthcare as the Director of Nursing at Thornford Park, where you will lead the nursing workforce in delivering high-quality mental health care. This role involves workforce planning, talent development, and creating a supportive work culture while ensuring clinical excellence and effective budget management.

Benefits

33 days annual leave plus birthday off

Free meals and parking

Wellbeing support and activities

Career development and training

Pension contribution

Life Assurance

Enhanced Maternity Package

Retail discounts

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in senior nursing leadership within mental health services.
• Proven ability to develop a future-ready nursing workforce.
• Strong communication & collaboration skills.

Responsibilities

• Leading workforce planning and talent development.
• Managing nursing budgets effectively to optimise patient care.
• Championing clinical excellence using quality assurance.

Skills

Communication

Leadership

Teamwork

Quality Improvement

Collaboration

Education

Registered Mental Health Nurse (RMN)

Job description

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Introduction

Are you an experienced Nurse Leader looking for the next step in your career? If so, join Thornford Park as the Director of Nursing.

As the Director of Nursing, you will provide visible leadership and management across the nursing workforce, ensuring the delivery of high-quality, evidence-based mental health care.

As a key member of the senior management team, you will be key in creating a psychologically safe work culture, where staff feel empowered to speak up, share concerns and drive innovation. The role prioritises quality assurance, clinical skill development, leadership growth, risk management, continuous learning, integrating quality improvement, ensuring effective budget management for nursing services, developing a workforce fit for the future and leveraging governance data to drive strategic improvements.

As the Director of Nursing, you will be:
• Leading workforce planning and talent development, ensuring nurses have the skills, resilience, and adaptability required for future healthcare demands.
• Equipping nursing teams with advanced therapeutic competencies, leadership , and developing skills for a digital future.
• Developing staff retention strategies, addressing workforce sustainability in mental health services.
• Integrating national nursing workforce strategies, ensuring alignment with evolving service models and policy requirements.
• Ensuring service improvements enhance patient care while optimising workforce capacity.
• Leveraging governance data to inform decision-making, ensuring quality metrics and patient safety insights translate into actionable improvements.
• Supporting data-driven leadership, embedding structured audit cycles, benchmarking, and performance analytics into nursing governance.
• Championing clinical excellence using quality assurance and quality improvement, ensuring measurable advancements in nursing care.
• Strengthen coproduction models, ensuring patients are actively involved in shaping service improvements.
• Lead PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) cycles, embedding structured approaches to innovation and improvement.
• Managing nursing budgets effectively, ensuring resources are allocated to optimise patient care and workforce development.
• Developing nursing leadership, ensuring a strong pipeline of future nursing leaders.

To be successful as the Director of Nursing, you will need:
• Registered Mental Health Nurse (RMN) qualification with active NMC registration.
• Extensive experience in senior nursing leadership within mental health services.
• Proven ability to develop a future-ready nursing workforce, leveraging innovation, training, and workforce planning.
• Strong communication & collaboration skills, fostering teamwork and ethical leadership.
• Expertise in quality improvement methodologies, patient safety, workforce wellbeing strategies, governance data and planning.

Where you'll be working

Location: Thornford Park, Crookham Hill, Thatcham, Berkshire, RG19 8ET

You will be working at Thornford Park, a 141 bedded independent hospital which supports service users that require medium and low secure Forensic Mental Health Services. In addition to these services there is also a PICU Mental Health Service.

The service provides a seamless internal care pathway supporting and empowering people in their recovery and rehabilitation. Working alongside the multidisciplinary team, you will provide personalised assessment and treatment programmes for males with mental illness/complex care needs as well as those with personality disorder, and females and males in a PICU service.

What you will get:

• Competitive salary
• The equivalent of 33 days annual leave (inc Bank Holidays) - plus your birthday off!
• Free meals and parking
• Wellbeing support and activities to help you maintain a great work-life balance.
• Career development and training to help you achieve your career goals.
• Pension contribution to secure your future.
• Life Assurance for added peace of mind.
• Enhanced Maternity Package so you can truly enjoy this special time.

There is also a range of other benefits including retail discounts, special offers and much more.

About your next employer:

You will be working for an established, stable and agile company with over 8,000 employees and a unique approach to the delivery of care. With a network of over 90 services across England and Wales covering Mental Health, Neurological, Learning Disabilities & Autism, Children & Education, there is opportunity for you to grow and move.

Elysium Healthcare is part of Ramsay Health Care with a global network that extends across 10 countries and employs over 86,000 people globally.

Elysium Healthcare follows safer recruitment of staff for all appointments and is a Disability Confident employer, committed to inclusive and accessible recruitment. It is a requirement that all staff understand it is each person's individual responsibility to promote and safeguard the welfare of service users. All candidates will be subject to a DBS disclosure.