Head of Service, Integrated Care

NELFT NHS Foundation Trust; Barking; On-site; GBP 4,000 - 6,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent healthcare trust in Barking seeks a dynamic Head of Service, Integrated Care. This role involves operational and clinical leadership across Children's Services, ensuring quality delivery and performance management. The ideal candidate will bring significant NHS operational management experience and a strong background in strategic planning. They will promote an inclusive workplace culture, delivering the best care for children and young people while managing complex service portfolios.

Benefits

Flexible working opportunities

Health and wellbeing support

Commitment to equality and diversity

Qualifications

• Significant operational management experience of NHS services including finance and HR.
• Experience of managing successful change and strategic planning.
• Understanding of business model principles.

Responsibilities

• Deliver effective operational and clinical leadership to service leads.
• Support strategic direction for services based on national policies.
• Oversee patient pathways into and out of Community Services.
• Ensuring quality care delivery across service areas.

Skills

Operational management

Strategic planning

Stakeholder engagement

Education

Management Qualification

CPS and/or Professional Development

Job description

Joining #TeamNELFT means you’ll become part of a welcoming and supportive working environment. We’re CQC rated Good, and we want you to join us on the journey towards an Outstanding rating. NELFT has sites across North East London, Essex, Kent and Medway. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.

The Trust has award winning equality and diversity initiatives and staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest heavily in your development, because when you are valued and supported, we provide the best care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been featured in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for five consecutive years, and we have achieved a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Along with our staff networks and training opportunities, we work hard to embed a just and compassionate culture here at NELFT.

Find out more about NELFT careers and what makes our Trust a great place to work, in this video

Job overview

We are looking for a dynamic and experienced Head of Service, Integrated Care to lead a huge portfolio of clinical services in Barking & Dagenham Childrens Services. The post holder will have responsibility for the effective operational and clinical operation of Childrens Specialist Integrated Care Services within B&D, Children's Services ensuring effective clinical delivery and performance management against key performance and quality indicators and financial targets. The post holder is responsible for the continuous professional development and performance of all clinical and non-clinical staff within their portfolio.

Previous applicants need not apply.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will achieve this by taking managerial responsibility for the effective operational and clinical running for a portfolio of designated clinical services within NELFT ensuring effective clinical delivery and performance management against key performance indicators and financial targets.

The post holder will work with the senior management and the clinical leadership team to deliver on the vision and ambition of the Trust to deliver best care and services to our Babies, Children and young people in the borough. The role will also be critical in leading on the delivery of the SEND agenda and on the BCYP Neighbourhood model.

Some of the service portfolio under this role to manage are:

• Looked After Children
• CDC Nursing
• Specialist School Nursing
• Therapies (SLT / OT / PT)
• Integrated Administration Team
• Community Paediatrics

Working for our organisation

Our Values 2025 - 2030

Working with our colleagues, patients and carers we have co-produced three new values that we aim to embed within our culture here at NELFT.

They are:

We are kind.

We are respectful.

We work together with our communities.

These three values help us to strive to provide the best care by the best people.

Probationary Period This post will be subject to a probationary period.

High Cost Area Supplement - Outer London

This post also attracts payment for High Cost Area Supplement of 15% of the basic salary (minimum payment of £4,714 and a maximum payment of £5,941 - per annum, pro rata).

Use of AI

Please see attached document regarding acceptable use of AI during the recruitment process.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see the attached job description and person specification for more information about this role. We encourage you to refer to this

when completing your application.

1. To deliver effective operational and clinical leadership and direction to the service leads and multi-disciplinary teams
2. To support and develop the strategic direction for the service in line with national policies and locally identified health needs
3. To support and influence the development of new patient pathways in response to the requirements of the commissioners
4. To oversee patient pathways / flows into and out of Community Services
5. To manage a range of processes and systems, across the service to support the effective running of the service and patient pathways
6. To ensure harmonisation of quality care delivery across the service areas
7. To lead the Learning and Development plan for services and ensure that developmental requirements are in place for all staff in line with the knowledge and skills framework
8. To ensure services are cost effective and delivered within budget
9. To lead change management in the implementation of service development
10. To create a culture in which innovative ideas can flourish and provide vision and inspiration to enable staff to deliver support effectively
11. To identify and participate in the tendering for new business opportunities
12. To ensure effective performance management and professional and clinical leadership of the workforce
13. To deliver robust financial management in line with Directorate and Trust targets, including Cost Improvement Programmes
14. To ensure services meet care quality and performance management standards and are compliant with all regulatory requirements and standards
15. To represent the Service and Trust at external meetings with stakeholders
16. To ensure the safeguarding agenda is firmly embedded

Person specification

Qualifications

• Management Qualification
• CPS and / or Professional Development

Experience

• Significant operational management experience of NHS services (Finance, HR, Staff management, Governance)
• Experience of strategic planning resulting in change management programmes
• Experience of managing successful change
• Experience of managing complex HR investigations
• Experience of contract management, inc. business cases, demand & capacity modelling
• Extensive experience with SEND delivery and Children Specialist / targeted services

Desirable criteria

• Have a clinical background - Nursing / AHP / Social Worker

Skills

• An understanding of applying business model principles
• Knowledge of the national policy agenda

Benefits

We believe in bringing your authentic and best self to work, in order to deliver the best care to our patients. We are committed to supporting our employees holistically. Here is a snapshot of what is on offer at NELFT :

• A long-standing and award-winning approach to equality and diversity with supportive networks for ethnic minority staff, staff with disabilities or long term / chronic conditions and LGBT staff.
• A commitment to supporting colleagues to achieve a work life balance, through flexible working opportunities and our efforts to support our working parents and carers. This has resulted in us being recognised as a ‘Top 10 Family Friendly Employer’ from the Working Families Charity.
• Proactive health and wellbeing support, including access to our employee assistance programme, staff psychological support, individual wellbeing conversations and a network of health and wellbeing ambassadors.
• Detailed information about our wellbeing and benefits offer can be found in this link.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s a job share, part time hours or another flexible pattern.