Group Head of Digital Customer Experience- Band 8B

United Lincolnshire Hospitals; Lincoln; Hybrid; GBP 67,000 - 77,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

NHS Pension

Flexible working

On-site parking

Job summary

United Lincolnshire Hospitals is seeking a Group Head of Digital Customer Experience to lead the digital customer journey and service delivery across Lincolnshire hospitals. The role focuses on building a customer-centric culture, driving continuous improvement, and managing ITIL-aligned service operations within a large NHS Trust in Lincoln.

The post holder will shape strategy, lead incident management, and collaborate with clinical, operational and corporate teams to deliver high-quality

Qualifications

• Masters level qualification, or equivalent demonstratable experience relevant to the post.
• Highly developed specialist knowledge of IT Service Management methodologies, frameworks and approaches (e.g. ITIL, SDI).
• Degree level qualification or equivalent experience in professional management / leadership training.
• Evidence of ongoing personal and professional development.
• ITIL Expert or Capability Level qualifications.
• Project Management Qualification (e.g. Prince 2 Foundation/Agile).
• Experience leading and developing senior staff and managing change in a large NHS or complex health system.
• Outstanding stakeholder management and strong communication and influencing skills.

Responsibilities

• Provide visible and effective leadership across Digital Customer Experience, setting clear strategic direction and service standards.
• Lead major incident management and act as senior escalation point for complex delivery issues.
• Drive ITIL-aligned incident, problem and change practices and embed SDI principles.
• Own the Digital Customer Experience strategy, roadmap and performance framework with data-driven improvement.
• Manage capacity, resources and demand, promoting agile, user-centred improvement with cross-functional partners.

Job description

Group Head of Digital Customer Experience- Band 8B

NHS AfC: Band 8b

Main area Digital Services Grade NHS AfC: Band 8b Contract Permanent Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week Job ref 357-LN-693-26-A

Site Lincoln County Hospital Town Lincoln Salary £66,582 - £77,368 per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 19/10/2026 23:59

We are committed to developing a workforce that reflects the community it serves and welcome applicants from all sectors of the community.

Our Group values guide everything we do. They are:

• Compassionate - We care about people - Compassionate is the act of showing empathy, kindness, and respect to others, recognising their individual needs and circumstances. It involves listening, understanding, and supporting others in a way that makes them feel valued, safe, and cared for.
• Collaborative - We work together as a team - Collaborative is working inclusively and respectfully with others to achieve shared goals. It involves open communication, valuing diverse perspectives, and building trust to create a supportive and effective team environment.
• Innovative - We strive to improve - Innovative is the process of exploring new ideas, approaches, and technologies to improve care, services, and working practices. It involves creativity, curiosity, and a willingness to take risks in a safe and supportive environment.

If you believe in them too, then you are ready to join the ULTH team.

We’ve taken great pride in building working environments where staff always feel valued, cared for and part of a team. Without doubt this is a challenging yet very rewarding job that is at the centre of health and care in Lincolnshire - making a positive difference to our patients.

Our Trust is situated in the beautiful county of Lincolnshire and is one of the biggest acute hospital trusts in England, serving a population of more than 700,000 people. We provide acute and specialist services to people in Lincolnshire and neighbouring counties. We have an annual income of £710 million (22/23) and we employ nearly 8,600 people.

Our Group Board have recently agreed a new vision statement – “Caring and building a healthier future for all” – stating their ambition for our Trust and the wider group to be among the best.

We also have a five year Integrated Improvement Plan setting out how we will achieve our strategic objectives, for patients, services, people and partners, the last recognising that our future success depends on our ability to ensure the Lincolnshire healthcare system is successful in achieving its ambition to help people live healthier lives and provide care closer to where people live.

Our latest CQC report increased our ratings for being effective and well-led from ‘Requires Improvement’ to ‘Good’. Our rating for caring remained as ‘Good’.

This is in recognition of the huge amount of work that our amazing staff have done to improve the quality of care for our patients in recent years.

We are committed to helping our staff balance their work and home lives and ensure they feel supported, valued and appreciated.

So,what is in it for you?

• Flexible working: Depending on the needs of your role, we will consider requests for flexible and/or part-time working for whatever reason you should need it. We recognise flexible working will not look the same for everyone, because it depends on the nature of the role and the needs of the individual.

Types of flexibility could include:

• Part-time - less than 37.5 hours per week.
• Off-site/remote working - working from home or other sites for part or all the week.
• Compressed hours – usually full-time hours but over fewer days or shifts.
• Staggered hours – having different start and finish times.
• Set shift patterns – to allow for predictability
• NHS Pension: A generous and flexible pension scheme with contributions from us as your employer fully protected against inflation and guaranteed by the government
• Annual Leave: Starting at 27 days a year, rising to 33 days after 10 years plus eight bank holidays (for staff covered by Agenda for Change) For Medical Workforce positions (Consultant and Specialty Doctor), the full-time entitlement commences from 32 days per annum. For all other Medical Workforce positions, the full-time entitlement commences from 27 days per annum.
• Bank working: The chance to work extra hours at enhanced rates and we will pay you weekly too, ideal if your income needs a quick boost.

In addition, there ismore.

• Family & Childcare: Including on-site nurseries at Lincoln County Hospital and Pilgrim Hospital Boston, maternity, paternity, adoption & shared parental leave following a set period of employment.
• Health & Wellbeing: including counselling, mental health first aid, physiotherapy, eye tests.
• Learning & Development: including Lincolnshire Talent Academy, leadership training, medical education, clinical education, Lincolnshire clinical research
• Financial support and benefits i ncluding Cycle2Work, car lease scheme, home electronics. Free on-site parking and free tea and coffee and the ability to save and borrow through your salary.
• Rewards & Recognition: including staff awards, long service awards, retirement awards, examples of excellence and staff lottery.

Enjoy a better quality of life in one of the UK’s most welcoming counties. Whether you’re taking the first exciting steps in your career, itching for a new challenge or searching for a better place to raise a family, Lincolnshire welcomes everyone. Discover a range of rewarding health and social care careers in a county that’s friendly, fascinating, affordable and brimming with everything you need to live a happy life.

Job overview

The Group Head of Digital Customer Experience is a newly created Group-wide leadership role within Digital Services, delivering support as part of the hosted Digital Service across all Lincolnshire NHS provider organisations, including primary care (c. 25,000 services users). The postholder is responsible for leading, managing and developing the Digital Customer Experience function, encompassing 1st, 2nd line support services, requesting and ITIL-aligned Service Management functions. The role holds accountability for service performance, customer outcomes and the effective management of teams delivering support across multiple organisations.

A key focus of the role is to develop and embed a customer-centric approach to digital service delivery, ensuring services are responsive, efficient and aligned to consumer needs. The postholder will provide visible and inspiring leadership within a fast-paced, high-demand environment, driving continuous improvement, innovation and service excellence whilst operating within finite resources.

This is an exciting time to join the Digital team and play a part in shaping how our services continue to develop and mature. Following the transition of IT services from the previous CSU arrangements during 2025 and 2026, we are focused on building a service that reflects the needs of our diverse customer base and delivers a consistently positive experience for colleagues.

Main duties of the job

Provide visible and effective leadership across Digital Customer Experience, setting clear strategic direction, performance expectations and service standards, and fostering a customer-centred, outcomes-focused culture.

Lead major incident management, coordinating stakeholders and communications, and ensuring post-incident learning drives service improvement. Act as the senior escalation point for complex delivery issues, balancing competing priorities, dependencies and risks while maintaining stakeholder confidence.

Drive a mature, service-led approach to IT Service Management, embedding consistent ITIL-aligned incident, problem and change practices, alongside relevant SDI principles and industry best practice.

Own the Digital Customer Experience strategy, roadmap and performance framework, using data, insight and customer feedback to drive continual improvement. Work with Digital Business Partners and service leads to strengthen relationships and ensure services adapt to customer needs.

Manage capacity, resources and demand, providing clear advice on priorities, risks and trade-offs. Embed agile, user-centred improvement methods and build strong partnerships across clinical, operational and corporate teams.

Working for our organisation

Lincoln Hospital is a thriving university city and with the opening of the medical school, it provides all major specialties and a 24-hour major accident and emergency service.

United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust has been granted teaching hospital status, after demonstrating evidence to significant teaching commitment. From now on it will be known as United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

Pilgrim Hospital is situated in beautiful countryside and serves the communities in the South Lincolnshire area. It provides all major specialties and a 24-hour major accident and emergency service.

Grantham and District Hospital serves the communities of Grantham and the local area. It provides ambulatory paediatric and accident and emergency services.

Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS) and United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT) have come together in a Group arrangement, with the goal of improving the care provided to patients across the county.

This will not constitute a formal merger of the two organisations, but will bring the Trusts together under a single Board and Executive Leadership Team, with the goal of improving the care that is provided to patients both in the community and in hospitals across Lincolnshire. Both Trusts will retain their separate statutory names and legal obligations.

The Group will be known as Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group (LCHG).

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see attached job description and person specification for full details. We look forward to receiving your application in due course.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Masters level qualification, or equivalent demonstratable experience relevant to the post.
• Highly developed specialist knowledge of IT Service Management methodologies, frameworks and approaches (e.g. ITIL, SDI), underpinned by theory and applied experience to Master's level or equivalent.
• Degree level qualification or equivalent experience in professional management / leadership training
• Evidence of ongoing personal and professional development
• ITIL Expert or Capability Level qualifications.
• Project Management Qualification e.g. Prince 2 Foundation/Agile.
• Member of a relevant professional body.
• Outstanding people leadership, able to lead, motivate and get the best from experienced, senior and at times difficult staff through rapid, high-pressure change.
• Exceptional stakeholder management; able to build, maintain and repair senior relationships, re-engage stakeholders who have disengaged, and secure cooperation and collaboration in contested situations.
• Highly developed communication, negotiation and influencing skills, able to handle complex, sensitive and contentious matters and convey difficult decisions while keeping relationships intact.
• Able to create a systematic, disciplined, delivery focused focussed on customer experience and a continual service improvement culture.

Knowledge

• Highly developed specialist knowledge of service management, process improvement, operational excellence and service-focused governance and controls, underpinned by theory and applied experience.
• Understanding of managing change in a complex NHS or comparable environment, including prioritisation, dependencies, risk and benefits.
• Understanding of resource and capacity planning to deliver services based around customer expectations, SLA’s and KPI’s.
• Understanding of the regional and national NHS landscape and experience working within it.

Experience

• Significant experience of leading and line-managing teams, including experienced and senior staff, through demanding change, uncertainty or restructure.
• Proven experience of continual service improvement.
• Experience of managing challenging performance, conduct or capability situations, and providing high motivation to teams.
• Experience of operating service management governance, reporting and controls.
• Experience of working with customers, leading service/major incident reviews.
• Experience developing, maintaining and improving customer relationships.
• Experience of working across a number of teams to develop collaborative services, where customer experience is the focus.
• Experience developing policies and processes.
• Experience of leading or implementing of ITSM solutions.
• Experience of introducing new ways of working through process improvement and re-design.

Specific Requirements

• Sufficient seniority, credibility and resilience to lead, influence and hold to account experienced delivery staff and senior stakeholders.
• Self-motivated, able to work on own initiative and to establish the approach where policy requires interpretation.
• Able to prioritise and adjust services under pressure.
• Able to travel across Group and partner sites as required.

Personal Qualities

• Ability to work in line with and role-model the Group values.
• Calm, credible and resilient under pressure, and able to bring people with them.
• Committed to collaborative, stakeholder-engaged delivery.

ULTH recognises that everyone is different, and values the unique contribution that individual experiences, knowledge and skills make in delivering quality healthcare and becoming a model employer. We are committed to transforming our organisational culture by actively committing to implementing the Trust Single Equality Scheme, and other policies, such as the Dignity in Care policy and the Dignity at Work policy. We will continue to promote equality and challenge discrimination in all service provision, recognising and meeting the needs of the diverse communities we serve. We will strive to provide an environment in which people want to work and to be a model employer leading in good employment practice.

Due to the high volume of applications we receive, ULTH reserves the right to close this advert prior to the closing date.

We welcome applications from the UK Armed Forces Community. On the application form please tick “Member of the Armed Forces Community” if the below applies to you.

You are:

• A Veteran
• A Military Reserve
• Partner/Spouse of those Serving NB: partners/spouses are only eligible whilst their partner is serving in the Armed Forces

All new employees will be subject to a charge for the DBS check that is required for the post. The Disclosure & Barring Service application form (formerly CRB) will be provided by ULTH and the fee will be deducted from your salary over a 3 month period.

Candidates are advised to read the attached guidance on using AI technology. When you complete your application, you are required to declare that the information in your application form is true and complete.

Please note, for applicants with previous NHS service: If successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.