Divisional Director of Operations - Surgery, Critical and Planned Care

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

Job summary

A regional healthcare provider is seeking a Divisional Director of Operations in Surgery, Critical and Planned Care. This senior leadership role focuses on operational efficiency, strategic direction, and service enhancement. Candidates should possess extensive managerial experience in an acute healthcare setting, with a strong surgical background. The position offers a competitive salary of £111,377 to £127,835 and the opportunity to lead transformative initiatives in patient care.

Benefits

Investment in leadership development

Supportive work environment

Qualifications

• Extensive operational and leadership experience in acute healthcare.
• Proven ability to lead and develop high-performing teams.
• Strong understanding of NHS service provision and patient care improvements.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership to ensure operational effectiveness.
• Drive service transformation and quality improvement initiatives.
• Develop partnerships to improve patient outcomes.

Skills

Coaching skills

Analytical skills

Relationship-building skills

Leadership experience

Education

Master's Degree or equivalent experience

MBA or appropriate management qualification

Job description

Divisional Director of Operations - Surgery, Critical and Planned Care

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, as well as 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.

Job responsibilities

Specific 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

• Educated to Master's Degree level or equivalent experience.
• Evidence of CPD
• MBA or other appropriate management postgraduate qualification.

Knowledge and Skills

• 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

• 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.
• 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.

£111,377 to £127,835 a yearper annum inclusive of allowances