Job summary
- Main area
- Nursing
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8d
- Contract
- 12 months (fixed term)
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 220-WHT-3773
- Employer
- Whittington Health NHS Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Whittington Hospital
- Town
- Archway
- Salary
- £99,808 - £113,803 per annum Inclusive of HCAs pro-rata
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 29/03/2026 23:59
Employer heading
Deputy Chief Nurse
NHS AfC: Band 8d
Please note in order to progress your application, your data will be processed by our 3rd party recruitment providers – North London Partners Shared Service, who conduct recruitment activities on behalf of Whittington Health NHS Trust.
For our current apprenticeship vacancies, please go to https://www.gov.uk/apply-apprenticeship and use Keyword ‘Whittington’
By applying for this role, you accept in the event you are successful that your personal data may be transferred from the Trust to another NHS organisation where your employment transfers within the NHS. This is in accordance with the streamlining programme which is aimed at saving you time and improving efficiencies within the NHS when your employment transfers.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a set of technology that can perform various tasks that typically required human intelligence. Your application is your opportunity to demonstrate to us how you meet the requirements of the role. We recognise that AI tools can support accessibility, equity and confidence for applicants. However, it’s important that examples and responses genuinely reflect your own experience and abilities, as these will be explored further during the selection process. AI must not be used to provide misleading or false information during any stage of the application journey. Further guidance can be found in the NLPSS Applicant Toolkit https://royalfree.pagetiger.com/cuuomnr/1.
Job overview
Whittington Health NHS Trust is seeking an exceptional, visionary and values driven Deputy Chief Nurse to join our Nursing and Patient Experience Directorate on a 12 month fixed term basis.
This crucial senior leadership role supports the Chief Nurse & Director of Allied Health Professionals in delivering safe, compassionate, high quality care across our integrated acute and community services. We are looking for a leader who is committed to excellence, passionate about professional standards, and ready to influence care outcomes for the diverse population we serve.
You will bring:
• Significant senior nursing leadership experience at divisional/organisation level across acute and community settings.
• Experience leading large teams, managing budgets, and delivering organisational change.
• A deep understanding of quality governance, patient safety, risk, and assurance frameworks.
• Strong communication, influencing and relationship building skills across all professional groups.
Whittington Health is an integrated care organisation with a strong reputation for delivering safe, personal, and coordinated care. You will be part of a senior leadership team with a clear focus on quality, improvement and equity. This fixed term opportunity is ideal for experienced senior leaders seeking to broaden their portfolio or prepare for a future Chief Nurse role.
Main duties of the job
Reporting to the Chief Nurse and Director of Allied Health Professionals, the post holder will provide nursing and midwifery leadership ensuring patients, and the population we serve, are safe, cared for and listened to.
The post holder’s principle responsibilities will be to:
• Deputise for the Chief Nurse across the full portfolio of the Director’s responsibility in their absence and act in his/her place as required including representation at Trust Board level and meetings external to the Trust
• Support the Chief Nurse to provide professional visible leadership across the organisation to ensure that senior staff understand the contribution required of them to meet professional nursing and midwifery standards and Trust objectives
• With the Chief Nurse, Assistant Chief Nurse and Associate Directors of Nursing & Midwifery (ADON/M), provide professional leadership to foster a culture of professionalism, compassion excellence and quality improvement, in all aspects of delivery of patient care.
• Support the Chief Nurse in the setting and monitoring of nursing and midwifery staffing levels, skill mix and care contact time across the organisation relating these to patient dependence to ensure effective use of the nursing and midwifery workforce
Working for our organisation
Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trust believes that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Leadership and Professional Responsibilities
• Promote a culture which focuses on the provision of high quality, compassionate, safe, effective care and continuous improvement which allows staff to maximise their potential and is underpinned by honest, open communication.
• Lead the trust’s team of nurses and midwives to ensure systems and processes are in place to assure the Chief Nurse on all issues related to nursing and midwifery workforce planning, professional nursing governance, education, practice development and policy development.
• Work in partnership with professional and managerial colleagues to ensure the continued improvement of patient care and safety. Develop and implement systems to assure and improve the quality of nursing and midwifery care, ensuring that appropriate processes and systems are implemented to monitor quality and outcomes.
• Ensure that systems are in place to monitor the registration of nurses and midwives and be the trust contact for all NMC issues. Ensure that all issues relating to unsafe and poor quality practice of nurses and midwives are identified and addressed.
• Provide professional advice, guidance and support to ICSU directors, and Service Managers through the Associate Directors of Nursing and Midwifery
• Work in partnership with the trust’s Assistant Chief Nurse for Education to lead the modernisation of nursing and midwifery roles and practice, ensuring that roles provide value for money and benefit to the organization.
• Provide professional leadership in partnership with the ICSU Associate Directors of Nursing and Midwifery (ADON/M) to the trust’s Consultant Nurses and Midwives, participating in their appraisal process with the relevant ADON/M
• Take an active role in the development of partnership working across patient pathways with local organisations and agencies, both NHS and non-NHS
• Ensure that appropriate reports on the monitoring of quality and outcomes measures of care are produced
• Ensure that quality improvement methodology becomes embedded into nursing, midwifery and AHP practice in the organisation
• Provide leadership to staff in the ICSU’s to ensure systems and processes are in place to continuously listen to and learn from patient/client views and experiences and enhance the experience of users of the Trust’s services
• Develop partnerships with Health Watch groups and other community groups to develop strategies and processes to learn from patient/user experience
• Provide regular reports to ICSU boards and the Trust Board through the Quality Assurance Committee which outlines the main themes and trends from complaints, PALs, incidents and claims cases and identifies key learning for the ICSU’s and Trust
• Develop processes for the development and monitoring of actions/action plans emanating from complaints, PALs and Claims at ICSU level and identify those areas that have Trust wide implications for learning and change of behaviour
• Along with Executive Directors and Operational Directors, participate in the ‘Gold on Call’ Rota acting as the Trust senior responsible officer out of hours for all unexpected issues and incidents
Financial Management
• Manage services within his/her control to ensure that budgets are adhered to and that end of year targets are met
• In collaboration with finance and human resources, lead on the management of non-medical bank and agency spend
• Ensure that all expenditure within control provides value for money and that financial targets are met
• Contribute to the development and delivery and quality impact of cost improvement plans that meet the trust’s financial targets while maintaining safe and high-quality services
• Provide clear and strategic leadership in partnership with ADON/M to ensure an appropriate mix of a skilled and motivated nursing and midwifery workforce to provide safe standards of care
• Participate in contract and service level negotiations in relation to quality issues
Quality Governance
• Contribute to the Trust’s corporate and quality governance processes to ensure the implementation of the Trust integrated governance framework that assures safe and effective care for patients and clients and complies with public sector values and codes of conduct and accountability
• Support the ADON/M to develop quality governance assurance processes for clinical care and fort professional standards within their ICSU
• Develop and establish processes and systems which provide ward/team to board assurance on patient care, experience and safety
• Work collaboratively with ICSU Directors, and Service Managers, ADON/M to ensure systems are in place to ensure all statutory nursing and midwifery requirements are being met
• Ensure systems are in place to ensure nursing and midwifery and policies are evidence based, relevant and current
• Contribute to the development of policies for the effective management of agency and bank nursing across the Trust
• Further develop the nursing and midwifery quality indicators dashboard for nursing and midwifery professions which encourages a culture where nurses and midwives can accept ownership, accountability and responsibility for the care and service they provide
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Registered and practising nurse with current NMC registration
- Degree/management qualification or equivalent
- Educated to post graduate Masters level
- Recognised leadership development
- Evidence of further professional development/professional qualification
Desirable criteria
- Registered Midwife
- Post graduate management qualification
Experience
Essential criteria
- A significant period of senior nurse management in a health care environment, of which a number should have at divisional management level or equivalent, this should be across hospital and community health care settings
- Experience of managing a team and budgets
- Experience of multi-agency working
- Experience of working with patients/service users to improve their experience
- Experience of implementing safety/quality initiatives and service improvement projects
- Experience of effective workforce planning
- Experience of carrying out complex internal investigations
- · Experience of producing and presenting papers for and to trust board and external committees
Desirable criteria
- Experience of implementing and leading significant change projects at corporate level
- Experience of providing advice on complex professional issues to executive/non-executive colleagues and external stakeholders
- Experience of offering senior guidance on an on-call basis
Skills
Essential criteria
- Ability to work collaboratively across the health and education economies and take an outward facing approach
- Ability to build relationships of mutual trust with all staff groups especially with clinical and professional staff
- Understanding of quality governance issues and the broader risk management agenda
- Able to demonstrate sound judgment
- Excellent verbal and written communications skills
- Ability to understand complex clinical environments
- Able to build sound working relationships with external agencies and organisations
- Ability to understand the long term or widespread implications of decisions in managing others, has an approach which is both inclusive and developmental
- Ability to grasp critical issues and distil them into clear and manageable priorities, weighing both costs and benefits
- The ability to express oneself clearly both orally and in writing
- Examples of where they have ensured that local people, staff and other agencies are involved in shaping the health modernisation agenda
- Communicates the vision and brings it alive – describes what the future needs to look like in terms of service and quality improvement
- Able to take conscious steps to manage self under pressure, creating time for reflection and support for self and others
Desirable criteria
- Uses a range of influencing strategies to bring about change and modernisation of services
Qualities and Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Demonstrates a commitment to the highest ethical and professional values and a belief in government funded healthcare
- Inspirational, visionary and creative leader
- Team player, sensitive to organisational tensions
- Ability to achieve change through others
- Self-motivated and well organised
- Committed to equality of opportunity for patients and staff
- Expert knowledge of nursing science and advanced development of theories to support nursing practice and development
- Advanced knowledge of patient experience and factors affecting the engagement and satisfaction of patients using hospital and community services
Desirable criteria
- Advanced knowledge of nursing theory
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
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.
Application numbers
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Sarah Wilding
- Job title
- Chief Nurse
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 0207 288 3588
List jobs with Whittington Health NHS Trust in Nursing and Midwifery or all sectors