Operational Lead

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust; King's Lynn; On-site; GBP 58,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust is seeking an Operational Manager to lead a community-based, recovery-oriented mental health team across Norfolk and Suffolk. The role focuses on implementing a specialist service, ensuring high-quality, patient-centered care within a collaborative framework with carers, internal teams and external partners.

The base location will be flexible with hub locations across the counties.

Qualifications

• Education to degree level or evidence of sound intellectual ability and ongoing personal development at senior management level.
• Recognised post graduate management qualification or equivalent experience.
• Experience of managing health and social care integrated services.

Responsibilities

• Lead a community-based, recovery-orientated mental health team ensuring resources, including staff, are used and monitored effectively within a budget.
• Plan and develop the team to provide a person-centred, recovery-focused service.
• Exercise judgement in complex situations and maintain day-to-day autonomy for decisions.
• Foster links with internal and external partners to deliver safe care for patients with complex needs.
• Monitor performance, quality, safety and service development per policies.
• Lead and support strategic and operational planning for specialist service areas.
• Ensure effective day-to-day management of operational and clinical services.

Skills

Operational change management

Education

Degree-level education

Postgraduate management qualification

Experience in health & social care

Job description

Site Trust wide Town Norfolk/ Suffolk Salary £57,528 - £64,750 gross per annum (pro rata) Salary period Yearly Closing 15/11/2026 23:59

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust provides child and adult mental health services, learning disability, wellbeing, older people's and eating disorder services across Norfolk and Suffolk.

We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and want to reflect the diversity of our local communities within our teams. We welcome applications from all talented individuals with the relevant qualifications, skills, knowledge and experience.

Please note due to the nature of our roles and patient demographic, you will be required to undertake physical intervention training and remain trained, as required by your role.

Job overview

At NSFT, we consider it is vital that we better serve the needs of people with complex psychosis. We are excited to launch our new Intensive and Assertive Service that will provide intensive, person-centred care in the community support to individuals living with a psychotic illness across Norfolk and Suffolk.
We are looking to recruit a dynamic, enthusiastic and passionate individual in the role of Operational Manager to manage the service. This is a unique opportunity to support with the implementation and development of a specialist team that will provide invaluable care to service users who struggle to engage with traditional services.

The role will require you and the team to work collaboratively with patients, carers, internal teams and wider system partners, including the VSCE organisations who will be part of the core team. You will need to have a positive and creative attitude towards innovation and changes and embrace a flexible approach to quality improvement.

You will value continuing professional and practice development, service improvement and evaluation and the development of meaningful outcomes with our service user population.

The base location for this role will be flexible due to it being a Trust wide service, with hub and spoke locations across both counties.

Main duties of the job

Lead a community-based, recovery-orientated mental health team ensuring that all resources, including staff, are used and monitored effectively while remaining within an agreed budget.

• Actively participate in planning and developing the team, to provide service users with a person-centred approach relevant to their needs and a recovery focus.
• Exercise your own judgement in complex situations relating to service delivery or organisational matters and have a high level of autonomy day to day to make the necessary decisions.
• Foster effective links and partnerships, both internally and externally, to deliver safe care to a cohort of patients with many complex health and social needs.
• To actively monitor performance, quality, safety and service development within their service areas, in line with Locality and Trust-wide policies and protocols.
• Lead and support strategic and operational planning for specialist service areas within the locality.
• Ensure effective day-to-day management of operational and clinical services.
• Provide strong leadership to deliver high-quality, inclusive, and patient-centred services.

Working for our organisation

At Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, inclusion is at the heart of how we work. We are committed to creating a fair, transparent and accessible recruitment process where every candidate has the opportunity to succeed.

We actively encourage applications from people from all backgrounds, particularly those currently underrepresented in our workforce. We recognise that not everyone has equal access to opportunities and are working to address this.

We are committed to providing reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process and ensuring all candidates receive a positive and equitable experience.

Here at NSFT we pride ourselves on being a welcoming, talented, friendly and supportive team who like nothing better than sharing experiences and learning from each other. In addition to ongoing training and development opportunities, we are committed to providing an environment in which you can thrive.

Why work for us? We have challenges as a Trust, but we have ambitious aspirations, are pushing ahead with exciting transformation work and we need dedicated individuals to support us on our journey. We have strong, established professional networks coupled with an exceptional leadership team who will ensure you are truly cared for and cared about.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

This is a permanent role, however can be offered on a secondment basis for the right candidate.

Please find attached our Job Description and Person Specification for more detail on your Key Accountabilities, then if you feel you have what it takes to make a difference in your local communities,

Interview dates are yet to be set; you will be contacted via email and invited to book a time. These emails may go to your SPAM, so please keep checking all your emails if applying.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Education to degree level or evidence of sound intellectual ability and ongoing personal development at senior management level
• Recognised post graduate management qualification or equivalent experience.
• Experience of managing health and social care integrated services.

Experience

• Significant experience working within and Managing clinical services
• Significant general and operational management experience to include the management of a large multi-disciplinary group of staff – part of which to have been in the NHS
• Extensive experience of managing services at a senior level

Skills

• A proven record of success in managing significant operational / strategic change whilst also developing and maintaining the provision of a high quality service, within a clinical setting, with multidisciplinary teams

Knowledge

• Knowledge of the philosophy, principles and national drivers underpinning services for people with mental health problems.

Please be aware that, due to the high number of applications for certain roles, this vacancy may close earlier than the advertised closing date. We encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible.

YOUR APPLICATION

We can provide all our job application materials in alternative formats so that these are accessible to everyone. Should you require any documents within this job pack in an alternative format, please do not hesitate to contact us at [e-mail].

PLEASE NOTE: If you use a hotmail, msn or yahoo e‑mail account, you will need to check your "junk" mail regularly as these email providers will divert any communication from this Trust/NHS JOBS straight into your " junk" inbox.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES Apart from its legal duties in relation to equality and diversity, the Trust recognises and actively promotes the benefits of a diverse workforce and is committed to treating all employees with dignity and respect regardless of race, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief.

As a part of the Disability Confident Employer Guaranteed Interview Scheme we interview all disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the job vacancy (outlined in the Person Specification).. We encourage you to indicate your eligibility through TRAC jobs when applying.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post may be 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.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.