Interim Head of Improvement (Band 8C)

Transformation Unit; Warrington; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 92,000; Full time

Job summary

North Cheshire and Mersey NHS Foundation Trust is seeking an Interim Head of Improvement (Band 8C) to lead the Trust's productivity enhancement agenda. The role is fixed-term for 12 months to January 2028, working 37.5 hours per week, reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, and coordinating across Care Groups and clinical departments to deliver tangible improvements.

Responsibilities include developing a robust PMO framework, driving service and quality improvements, and ensuring governance,

Qualifications

• Experience in leading service improvement and transformation within a complex health organisation.
• Strong ability to design and implement improvement programmes with governance and risk management.
• Knowledge of GIRFT, QA/QI methods and performance reporting within NHS settings.

Responsibilities

• Lead on service improvement priorities aligned to Trust objectives and GIRFT opportunities.
• Develop and embed QI methodology, training, and delivery across teams.
• Plan improvements with Care Groups, finance, and executive teams; translate plans into actionable priorities.
• Ensure governance and assurance for major improvement projects and programmes.
• Coordinate reporting to Improvement Group and Finance & Sustainability Committee.
• Drive cost-benefit analysis and sustainable financial stewardship of improvement initiatives.

Skills

Project management

Quality improvement

Financial management

NHS experience

Education

Degree or equivalent experience

Tools

MS Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint)

Job description

Main area Head of Improvement Grade NHS AfC: Band 8c Contract Fixed term: 12 months (Until January 2028) Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week Job ref 370-ADM8CCOPS-2285

Employer North Cheshire and Mersey NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Warrington Hospital Town Warrington Salary £79,504 - £91,609 per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 06/11/2026 23:59 Interview date 20/11/2026

Interim Head of Improvement (Band 8C)

NHS AfC: Band 8c

Job overview

As part of our productivity improvement journey, this is an exciting opportunity to oversee the Trust's Operational Improvement Programme. The post is fixed-term until January 2028.

Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, the Head of Improvement will support Care Groups and engage with clinical departments to develop and ensure delivery of productivity improvement plans that align and support the successful achievement of the Trust’s strategic objectives.

This will involve proactively working with finance and operational teams to assimilate information from several sources to determine opportunities to improve the productivity of services, secure agreement on the prioritisation of these projects before coordinating operational, clinical, transformation, digital and quality improvement teams to implement improvement at pace.

The postholder will implement a robust standardised PMO framework for productivity improvement within the organisation, ensuring effective reporting and escalation to the Trust’s Improvement Group and onwards to its Finance and Sustainability Committee. The postholder will be an advocate in furthering the Trust’s culture of continuous improvement and will work closely with the Associate Director of Quality in the application of continuous improvement principles in major improvement programmes.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will work collaboratively with teams across the Trust in the delivery of quality, financial and performance improvement objectives:

1) Service Improvement: Ensure clear service improvement priorities are defined and prioritised aligned to Trust strategic objectives and GIRFT opportunities. Use system management skills and project management expertise to bring together teams to produce improvement plans and projects. Design and embed monitoring and assurance systems to track progress and impact.

2) Quality Improvement: Work with the Associate Director of QI to ensure the Trusts Quality Improvement strategy is aligned to the Trusts strategic improvement objectives, develop plans, procedures, and processes to ensure a wider group of staff are empowered with skills in continuous improvement and use these skills to deliver measurable improvements.

3) Improvement Planning and Project Management: Leading on the development of the improvement plan, drawing on the operational and financial plan liaising with professional groups across the organisation to produce the plan. Create systems to monitor ongoing performance and delivery against the plan and report to the improvement group and FSC.

Working for our organisation

Our mission, vision and values are at the heart of North Cheshire and Mersey NHS Foundation Trust (NCM). They undermine everything we do and everything we aspire to be as an organisation

Our mission is to be exceptional for our patients, our communities and each other

Our vision is to be a great organisation providing excellent healthcare and opportunities to work and learn

Our approach to healthcare is founded on our four core values:

Kind – we are caring, supporting and respectful to everyone

Open – we are honest, transparent and open to new ways of working

Fair – we listen, value our differences and are inclusive to all

One team – we work well together and with our communities

We employ almost 6,500 people from more than 80 nationalities and are fully committed to being an equal, diverse and inclusive employer. Our culture and values ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect, and that no job applicant or employee is disadvantaged at any stage of their journey.

We are also proud to be an Armed Forces Friendly organisation and welcome applications from members of the Armed Forces community, including veterans, reservists and families.

Working at NCM means becoming part of a dedicated team of clinical and support staff who are passionate about keeping people well and supporting wellbeing. If you share our values and are motivated by making a difference for our patients, we'd be delighted to receive your application

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

1) Service Improvement:

Work effectively with all stakeholders to understand service needs and to co-design improvement plans and projects to align service needs with organisational improvement priorities.

Work effectively with Care Group teams to support the development of improvement plans for their services.

Create forums and methodologies that support colleagues to advance their services for patients.

Responsible for change projects that may be associated with significant operational, financial and resource implications.

In conjunction with the Care Group and Executive teams develop new and innovative service improvement schemes including the operational translation of re design projects which support the provision of safe, effective and high-quality patient care services (both within the Trust and across the wider population we serve).

Apply continuous improvement principles and methodologies to all improvement programmes.

Prioritise appropriately to ensure that improvement resources are targeted and deployed in an optimum way.

Ensure appropriate programme governance and assurance.

2) Quality Improvement:

Work with colleagues at all levels to further develop the improvement strategy and priorities aligned to the Trust strategy.

Maintain a culture of continuous improvement across the Trust, showcasing the outcomes of QI work.

Support the Associate Director of QI in ensuring effective and standardised QI methodology, training and delivery.

3) Planning:

To support the Business Planning and operational planning process working proactively with the Care Groups and Finance teams to ensure annual business plans are translated into clear and effective improvement priorities, effectively identifying clinical, access and financial priorities for improvement.

Co-ordinate improvement activity ensuring a clear alignment and coherence of quality, workforce, finance and activity plans.

Play a key role in the communication and reporting of the annual improvement plan both internally and externally.

4) Performance and Information Management:

Support performance improvement through the use of improvement project management, effective relationships with staff and data-driven approaches

Appropriately manage high level operational governance risks associated with performance and improvement projects.

Communicates with internal staff and external agencies (GIRFT, Place etc) to ensure compliance with performance targets, strategic objectives and returns.

Track delivery of major programmes, by analysing performance against objectives providing support and intervention by offering a range of options as required so programmes remain on track to deliver specified benefits in the timescales required.

Produce statistical/performance reports to track performance against targets and objectives.

Analyse and communicate highly complex verbal and written information and data to all relevant stakeholders using developed negotiating and persuasive skills where co-operation is required and where there may be barriers to understanding.

Working with finance and programmes leads, ensure the cost benefits of improvement programmes are modelled and understood and contribute towards financial targets set by the Trust.

Using financial acumen assess change programmes via cost-benefit analysis and assess their impact on gross contribution.

Ensure the optimum use of resources, including the establishment and maintenance of effective management processes to ensure effective financial control.

Evaluate the return on investment.

Manage improvement & transformation programmes and projects to budgets.

Monitor activity, budgets and financial controls as set out through annual budget setting.

6) Governance and Risk:

Promote and support the Associate Director for QI in implementing systems for quality and safety improvement.

Present to staff groups and the public to convey information in proposed change.

Apply robust project governance for major and large programmes, ensuring clear accountability frameworks and reporting mechanisms are in place to support the delivery of outcomes and enable early identification and management of issues and barriers, which could affect delivery.

Create governance frameworks, tools, guidance and support to the Care Groups and corporate functions to ensure robust project governance across improvement projects.

Ensure all improvement plans have appropriate quality and equality impact assessments.

Person specification

Experience

• Demonstrate achievements in improving patient care, meeting NHS targets and managing within budgets.
• Experience of delivering end to end change in a service or function with scale and complexity.
• Recent evidence and experience of leadership skills and the ability to transform and lead a team to work effectively together.
• Senior management experience within the NHS: transformation, financial management, planning, performance management and improvement, and staff.
• Building and maintaining external relationships across a range of organisations and stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Educated to degree level and/or significant relevant experience.
• Management or Professional qualification at postgraduate level or equivalent relevant experience.
• Evidence of continuing personal and professional development.
• Advanced theoretical & practical knowledge

Skills, knowledge and competencies

• A thorough understanding of the principles and techniques of process redesign and improvement including project management techniques and quality improvement.
• Demonstrate sound financial management across multiple services
• Demonstrate working knowledge of governance and risk.

Specific role requirements

• Ability to prioritise own and others workloads effectively to meet tight deadlines whilst managing conflicting priorities
• Computer literacy (Excel; Microsoft Word; PowerPoint; email) and well developed IT skills to manage reporting on complex performance including clear presentation skills.

Further Information

Further Information

NCM hold a Sponsor Licence; this means that we may be able to sponsor you providing the Home Office requirements are met. To be eligible for sponsorship, there is a minimum set of criteria that must be met and not all roles are eligible. You can find more information on the Government website

Please review your eligibility and the eligibility of the role before submitting your application.

All advertised roles may close early if there are high numbers of suitable candidates.

Pre- employment checks for applicants with previous NHS service will include confirmation of any Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme (MARS), Voluntary Redundancy or Compulsory Redundancy payments received.

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.

Application numbers

This vacancy is due to close on the advertised date. However, we reserve the right to close the vacancy early should we receive a high volume of suitable applications. We recommend submitting your application as soon as possible.