Divisional Director of Operations - Surgery, Critical and Planned Care

Dartford & Gravesham NHS Trust; Dartford; On-site; GBP 111,000 - 128,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading healthcare provider in Dartford seeks an experienced operational leader as Divisional Director of Operations for Surgery, Critical and Planned Care. The ideal candidate will have significant operational and leadership experience, a strong surgical background, and the ability to foster relationships for improved patient outcomes. This permanent, full-time role offers a competitive salary and opportunities for professional development.

Benefits

Significant investment in leadership development

Supportive work environment

Opportunities for service transformation

Qualifications

• Extensive senior managerial experience within an acute healthcare setting.
• Proven numeric and analytical skills.
• Experience of managing multi-disciplinary teams.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership to the Division.
• Ensure operational delivery and continuous improvement.
• Develop partnerships and share best practices.

Skills

Extensive operational and leadership experience

Strong surgical background

Relationship-building skills

Ability to manage significant budgets

Education

Master's Degree or equivalent experience

Job description

Job Summary

Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust (DGT) is a dynamic and transforming Trust, committed to delivering the highest quality service to the communities we serve. We pride ourselves on being an organisation where people feel valued, supported and empowered to deliver their best work. We provide services across Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, Queen Mary's Hospital Sidcup, Erith and District Hospital, Bexley and Gravesham Community Hospital in Gravesend, and community settings across our population. At DGT, we put quality at the heart of everything we do. Whether directly or indirectly, everyone contributes to providing safe, effective and compassionate care.

We are seeking an experienced operational leader to join our senior divisional team as Divisional Director of Operations for Surgery, Critical and Planned Care.

This Role Requires:

• Extensive operational and leadership experience within an acute healthcare setting, with a strong surgical background.
• The ability to work in close partnership with senior clinical colleagues, supporting the development of high-performing surgical service lines.
• The confidence to lead large, complex teams and manage significant budgets, while driving service transformation and innovation.
• Strong relationship-building skills, including the opportunity to work closely with neighbouring acute providers to develop shared pathways and improve patient outcomes across the wider health economy

Main duties of the job

You will work alongside the Divisional Medical Director and Divisional Director of Nursing to provide strategic leadership and ensure robust governance, operational delivery and continuous improvement. This is a pivotal role in shaping surgical services and wider divisional performance, and would suit someone looking to consolidate their leadership experience ahead of a future Board-level career.

What We Offer

• A highly supportive environment, with significant investment in leadership and management development.
• The opportunity to influence and transform surgical and planned care services at scale.
• A culture that values compassion, respect, collaboration and excellence.

If you are a proven senior leader with strong surgical operational experience, and are excited by the chance to work collaboratively with both internal colleagues and neighboring acute providers to deliver high-quality care, we would be delighted to hear from you.

About Us

We are committed to being an inclusive and diverse employer. We strive to employ people who reflect the communities we serve, and aim to create an inclusive culture where everyone can reach their full potential. Whatever your race, ethnicity, belief, generation, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity, disability or experience, you\'ll appreciate the opportunities we give you to work in an inclusive atmosphere. We welcome applications from people of diverse backgrounds, perspectives and experiences to build on the progress we\'ve achieved to make our Trust diverse and the best place to work. We celebrate the diversity of thought, viewpoints and ideas that help us overcome challenges and embrace new possibilities. We have signed the Armed Forces Covenant Pledge and have a commitment to the Armed Forces Community.

We are dedicated to using our Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) approach as our shared organisation model of change to enhance our services and ensure excellence in patient care.

If you are considering applying for a role, please be aware that as an NHS Employee you may have contact with vulnerable service users. We strongly encourage that all our staff are vaccinated against COVID-19 and are vaccinated annually against Flu, in order to protect the health and safety of our staff and patients. Your commitment will help us to put the safety and care of our patients first, as well as helping us to protect you and your colleagues.

Details

Date posted: 08 October 2025

Pay scheme: Agenda for change

Band: Band 9

Salary: £111,377 to £127,835 a year per annum inclusive of allowances

Contract: Permanent

Working pattern: Full-time

Reference number: 252-7535552

Job locations: Darent Valley Hospital, Darenth Wood Road, Dartford, DA2 8DA

Job Description

Job responsibilities

Leadership

• With the Divisional Medical Director, provide clear leadership to the Division, ensuring that all staff are appropriately managed and developed and that they are efficient, effective, engaged and motivated.
• Role model appropriate leadership behaviours across the Division.
• Represent the Division at local levels, developing partnerships, sharing best practice and integrating this knowledge within the Trust.
• Act, where appropriate, as the spokesperson for the Division both internally and externally.
• Provide strategic leadership at divisional level, ensure that there are appropriate systems and processes within the Division to enable staff to deliver good quality clinical care and drive forward the service improvement agenda to achieve efficiency gains and improve the operational effectiveness of the Division.
• Ensure that business development opportunities for the delivery of patient services are explored, agreed and implemented. This would include the commissioning of multiple sets of relevant data and information that will inform the management of the objectives.
• Promote innovation and quality improvement to ensure best-practice services for patients and positive working experience for staff.
• Participate in Intensive Support of challenged services as agreed with the Divisional Management team and the Chief Operating Officer.

Please see attached job description for further information.

Person Specification

Education and Training

Essential

• Educated to Master's Degree level or equivalent experience.
• Evidence of CPD

Desirable

• MBA or other appropriate management postgraduate qualification.

Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Coaching skills - relevant training or experience of coaching staff
• Highly developed understanding of the changing NHS on service provision and staff
• Able to deliver objectives within an agreed timeframe.
• Proven numeric and analytical skills.
• Ability to analyse highly complex problems and to develop practical and workable solutions to address them.
• Extensive knowledge of practice and policy across a broad range of responsibilities e.g. finance human resources.
• Understanding of how to use technology to support delivery of improvements to services.
• Knowledge and experience of leading significant change to patient services, delivering tangible and sustained improvements.

Experience

Essential

• Extensive senior managerial and leadership experience within an acute healthcare setting.
• Experience of developing and maintaining active partnerships with stakeholders in the development of services.
• Experience of improvement measurement systems and understanding of the role of measurement in performance improvement.
• Experience of managing large numbers of staff/multi-disciplinary teams.

Desirable

• Experience of using redesign methodologists.

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 and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website. From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here: Criminal records checks for overseas applicants.

Additional information

Employer details

Employer name: Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust

Address: Darent Valley Hospital, Darenth Wood Road, Dartford, DA2 8DA

Employer's website: https://www.dgt.nhs.uk/working-for-us