Senior Improvement Programme Manager (Outpatients)

Lewisham and Greenwich; Greater London; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust (LGT) is seeking a senior improvement professional to lead outpatient transformation within the Improvement Delivery Team in London. You will shape and deliver high-impact programmes to improve patient access, experience and flow across services.

The role requires extensive programme delivery experience in health settings, strong stakeholder engagement and a track record of delivering measurable benefits within timescales and budgets.

Qualifications

• Masters degree or equivalent ability.
• Formal education to first degree level or equivalent ability.
• Project management qualification or equivalent ability.
• Improvement qualification or equivalent ability.
• Evidence of continuous professional development.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate outpatient transformation projects.
• Deliver projects using analytical and change-management methodologies.
• Ensure clinical, professional and patient engagement is central to delivery.
• Set up governance and track progress to budget and scope.
• Develop benefit realisation plans and milestones.

Skills

Change management

Project management

Data analysis

Budget management

Communication

Education

Masters degree or equivalent

First degree or equivalent

Project management qualification

Tools

Microsoft Office

Job description

Step into a place where exceptional care, patients, culture, and careers come together.

Explore our current vacancies and take your first step toward making a real difference.

Join us. Make a difference. Be part of Team LGT.

Band 8b

Main area Improvement Grade Band 8b Contract Secondment: 11 months (Short term project until 30th September 2027) Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week Job ref 197-RF8772

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, (LGT), is a community-focused provider of local and acute care, delivering high-quality services to over one million people living across the London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich, and Bexley. We provide whole-life care and are here to support our communities to live healthier lives as well as taking care of them when they need us the most.

Employing almost 7,500 colleagues, affectionately known as Team LGT, we provide services at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, University Hospital Lewisham, and at over a dozen community settings in Lewisham. We also provide some services at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup.

We have recently launched our new vision and values to mark the LGT10 – the tenth anniversary of our Trust forming in 2013. Our trust vision is to be exceptional. In the quality of our patient care; our support for colleagues; and in the difference we make through our partnerships and in our communities.

Our hospitals and community sites provide a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services, as well as emergency and planned care. The Trust is rated as “good” or “outstanding” in over three-quarters of the services inspected by the Care Quality Commission.

Every year our work includes performing 10,000 procedures in our theatres; bringing seven and a half thousand new lives into the world; carrying out 570,000 visits to patients in their homes or communities and providing emergency care for more than 300,000 patients arriving in our busy Urgent and Emergency Departments.

LGT is a centre for the education and training of medical students enrolled with King’s College London’s GKT School of Medical Education. We are a training centre for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals. We are pioneering new roles that will support the changing needs of our patients and are one of the largest employers of physician associates in the country.

We are committed to working with our partners to deliver the best outcomes for our local communities. This means playing an active role in the South East London Integrated Care System (ICS), and in formal partnerships including the South East London Acute Provider Collaborative, provider partnerships with our local mental health trusts and borough-based boards of the ICS in Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham.

Job overview

We have an exciting opportunity to play a pivotal role in improving outpatient services within our Improvement Delivery Team at LGT, supporting the delivery of high-impact transformation and efficiency programmes that improve patient access, experience and flow. You will bring significant experience of working on complex improvement and transformation programmes in a health environment to support the Programme Director for Elective Improvement to transform outpatient pathways and processes.

Our team delivers high quality improvement support to Trust priorities including urgent and emergency care, outpatients, theatres, efficiency and neighbourhoods. You will join an existing thriving team that has a track record of delivering tangible improvements to performance and outcomes for our population.

You will be experienced in improvement and project management approaches and have a track record of establishing and maintaining good relationships to deliver sustainable change programmes across complex pathways with multiple stakeholders. You will work closely with clinical/professional and corporate teams at all levels, both internally and externally, to ensure projects and programmes are delivered to agreed objectives within agreed timescales.

Main duties of the job

The postholder will lead and coordinate outpatient transformation projects, working closely with clinical, operational, and wider corporate teams to identify opportunities, and design practical, evidence-based, solutions that deliver measurable benefits for patients, staff and services. This may include:

• Supporting services to implement national GIRFT guidance and best practice
• Embedding clinical triage and supporting wider primary – secondary care interface to deliver patient centred care

Addressing unwarranted variation in processes and outcomes to improve efficiency, productivity and utilisation of our resources

Design and implementation of demand management initiatives

Supporting wider OP preparedness for implementation of new EPR in April-27

More detail on our approach is available on our improvement hub: https://www.lewishamandgreenwich.nhs.uk/improvementhub

Working for our organisation

Our people are our greatest asset. When we feel supported and happy at work, this positivity reaches those very people we are here for, the patients. Engaged employees perform at their best and our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiatives contribute to cultivate a culture of engagement. We have four staff networks, a corporate EDI Team and a suite of programmes and events which aim to insert the 5 aspirations:

• Improving representation at senior levels of staff with disabilities, from black, Asian, and ethnic minorities background, identify as LGBTQ+ and women, through improved recruitment and leadership development
• Widening access (anchor institution) and employability
• Improving the experience of staff with disability
• Improving the EDI literacy and confidence of trust staff through training and development
• Making equalities mainstream

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key Result Areas & Performance:

· Provide corporate leadership and support to design and deliver a series of specific improvement and efficiency projects and programmes from start to end, ensuring they align with agreed organisational, system and national strategic priorities.

· Deliver projects and programmes using analytical and issue-based problem solving, qualitative and quantitative analysis, and improvement / change management methodologies.

· Ensure that clinical, professional and patient engagement is central to the delivery of all project activities.

· Play a leadership role alongside other senior colleagues in the implementation of standardised improvement, project and change management methodologies across the trust which will deliver the key priorities outlined in the Trust’s improvement and change strategy.

· Ensure systems are in place to enable improvement information to be used effectively by the Trust Board and managers at all levels across the Trust.

· Understand and interpret new strategic targets and policies both at a national and local level which are relevant to the Trust

· Analyse key performance data relating to improvement, identifying areas of poor performance and agreeing an improvement plan with the relevant teams

· Provide regular progress reports for improvement projects and programmes and ensure learning is disseminated and spread across the Trust to maximise benefit and promote sustainability of change.

· Set up appropriate programme and workstream plans highlighting key deliverables, milestones, roles and responsibilities required.

· Set up governance arrangements and track progress against milestones to ensure projects are delivered on time, to budget and scope.

· Arrange workshops and meetings to solve problems and generate buy-in to solutions.

Qualifications and Training

• Masters degree or equivalent ability
• Formal education to first degree level or equivalent ability
• Project management qualification or equivalent ability
• Improvement qualification or equivalent ability
• Evidence of continuous professional development

Experience

• Significant management experience in healthcare or a transferable environment where change management skills have been required in the post
• Significant experience in project management delivery with evidence of autonomously leading and delivering large scale improvement projects and tangible benefits including financial benefits
• Significant experience of modelling complex data sets, including financial data sets, and providing clear and comprehensive outputs
• Significant staff management experience, including the setting of objectives, team and individual appraisal, recruitment and disciplinary issues
• Significant budget management experience, including reducing costs, monitoring and determining corrective action
• Evidence of report writing and presenting skills, to include business cases and formal presentations
• Developing and delivering strategic plans to include tangible delivery of benefits realisation plans, including financial
• Management of change and improvement and the use of tools and methodologies
• Familiarity with basic IT applications
• Experience in financial management
• Experience of working in an operational role

As a local employer and anchor institution we work closely with our community to recruit locally and we welcome applications from the widest variety of people to ensure our workforce are reflective of the local communities which we serve. We encourage all suitable candidates to apply including if you are Black, Asian or other ethnic minorities, live with a disability (visible or not) or are LGBT+. We have a number of active staff networks including Disability, LGBT+, Multicultural Inclusion and Women’s staff networks to bring staff together and celebrate diversity across our whole workforce.

Please note: Information provided during recruitment and pre‑employment checks must be accurate. Misrepresentation may be investigated as fraud and could lead to withdrawal from the process, professional sanctions, or criminal action.

Please note: that sponsorship under the Skilled Worker route is subject to Trust allocation and UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) approval.

Use of AI in recruitment: We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support the initial review of applications against the essential criteria for this role. Where AI is used, it will support rather than replace human decision-making, and applications will remain subject to appropriate human review.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Name Beckie Burn Job title Associate Director - Improvement & Transformation Email address [e-mail] Telephone number 07721 353699