An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced and forward‑thinking Lead Advanced Practitioner / Consultant Practitioner to provide clinical, professional, and strategic leadership within their divisional team at The Christie. The post holder will lead and support Advanced Practitioners to ensure the delivery of consistently high‑quality care, effective workforce utilisation, and the ongoing development of advanced practice. Working closely with the Divisional Associate Chief Nurse (ACN), the role will deputise as required and actively contribute to the implementation and delivery of the divisional quality strategy. This role combines senior clinical practice with transformational leadership, offering the opportunity to influence patient experience, clinical outcomes, and professional development across the division.
Responsibilities
* Provide visible, inspirational clinical and professional leadership to Advanced Practitioners, promoting excellence in practice and continuous improvement.
* Deputise for and support the Divisional ACN in delivering the quality strategy, ensuring progress against agreed objectives.
* Act as the lead advanced practitioner within the division, supporting learning, development, and innovation in and from practice.
* Maintain a consultant‑level clinical role within a defined specialty, ensuring clinical credibility and expertise.
* Practice independently and autonomously, managing undifferentiated patients with undiagnosed conditions, with minimal or no supervision.
* Lead and contribute to transformation programmes and improvement projects aligned to The Christie strategy.
* Ensure that patient experience is of the highest quality, inspiring patient and public confidence.
* Drive measurable improvements in patient experience, clinical outcomes, and service benefits.
Planning and Organisation
* Work in close association with divisional leadership team (clinical and operational), clinicians and departments to enable staff to support service delivery across the Trust.
* Contribute to the development, implementation and review of the Divisional Strategy, development and innovation priorities and strategic goals, and set out the structures and organisational plan to achieve these goals.
* Contribute to the development, implementation, and review of the Trust's Corporate and Divisional Objectives.
* Support with the operational development, implementation and review of Trust systems and processes relating to service delivery including digital technology and IT systems.
* In collaboration with the Divisional Associate Chief Nurse, lead on workforce development & training for clinical staff within the Trust.
* Represent the Trust locally and nationally and participate in national forums and work streams.
* Contribute to the senior Trust meetings and, working with the Trust clinical staff and senior nurses/AHPs, promote the strategic development of nursing within the Trust.
* Represent the Division and Trust at forums or consultative groups in relation to clinical delivery services.
* Support the divisional objectives relating to EDI, ensuring these programmes of work are seen as a key part of divisional workplans and strategic objectives.
Patient Care
* Act as an autonomous practitioner in their specialist field using highly specialist clinical knowledge ensuring patient‑centred care and family involvement, including health promotion and disease prevention.
* Be directly responsible for the management of patients within own caseload.
* Apply advanced theoretical and practical knowledge to the clinical care of people, their families and partner agencies involved when delivering and shaping services in line with national guidelines, best practice, and the national personalised care agenda.
* Identify and lead the development and implementation of advanced practice within services.
* Work clinically as a resource and role model and to cover absence as required, ensuring a reasonable balance between need, area of expertise and own service area.
* Work across teams to analyse, produce, provide, and receive highly complex, sensitive, or contentious information including information on finances, performance data and HR data.
* Produce, analyse and interpret key performance data in accordance with various internal and external performance management frameworks, and produce meaningful reports for the Division.
* Use a variety of clinical information systems within the Trust.
* Examine patients pre, during and after treatment often in highly complex situations, where patients may be in distress or pain and the examination needs to be performed using highly developed physical skills.
* Perform clinical, technical, or invasive procedures safely according to defined protocols, adhering to manual handling policy.
* Maintain clinical records and ensure clinical governance in accordance with The Christie NHS Foundation Trust policies.
* Provide governance and overview of record keeping for patients on the clinic caseload.
Human Resources
* Provide professional leadership and direct line management for Acute Oncology AP team and other staff as required.
* Provide advice or demonstrate own activities or workplace routines to new or less experienced advanced practitioners, other team members, students, and trainees in own work area.
* Regularly provide teaching and training in own discipline to less experienced advanced practitioners, other team members, students and trainees following identification of training needs. Provide practical training of procedures as informed by own area of expertise. Provide workplace assessments as part of ongoing clinical supervision and evaluation.
* Maintain own CPD as evidenced by maintaining a portfolio in line with the centre for advancing practice and own professional bodies legislation.
* Ensure that grievances and raising concern issues are treated appropriately and within Trust policies.
* Lead by example by ensuring your communication style reflects the values of the trust, utilising advanced communication skills, empowering, and motivating a positive culture within individuals and teams.
* Monitor adequate staffing levels within the Division, identifying skill mix requirements to reflect service developments and clinical need and consider innovative roles to support clinical service delivery.
* Support the Divisional ACN to develop a long‑term strategy for nursing within the division to ensure the workforce is competent, flexible, and responsive and continues to develop.
* Lead on workforce planning (short and long term) to identify potential problems/shortfalls in skills and knowledge, and to improve capacity and capability, retention, and career development of all staff.
* Support the development of trainee AP placements across the division ensuring a good learning experience.
* Participate in the recruitment, selection and retention of staff and manage, develop and support others within the team to support resilience and build confidence in all team members.
Financial and Physical Resources
* Identify and contribute to the drawing up of Value Improvement Programme (VIP) by the evaluation of the effectiveness, efficiency and safety of clinical practice contributing to service improvement initiatives.
* Participate in the implementation of models of care appropriate to patient population needs.
* Support the promotion of patient and public involvement in activities designed to inform service improvement.
* Oversight of incidents within departments and ensuring dissemination and learning from reported trends and events.
Governance & Quality
* Oversight of incidents within departments and ensuring dissemination and learning from reported trends and events.
* Proactively identify and manage risks and issues, escalating as required through standard Trust processes.
* Ensure that confidentiality for patients and staff is maintained in all areas and that staff adhere to the Data Protection Act, Freedom of Information Act, and the Caldicott Principles.
* Ensure all relevant governance and quality training is completed within teams in appropriate timeframes.
* Ensure regular use of quality management systems.
* Maintain a range of communication resources to ensure all staff across the teams have access to up‑to‑date information about the governance and performance of the division.
* Develop the skills to identify and implement evidence‑based practice, new developments, treatments, and technologies into clinical practice.
* Implement policies for own work area and propose policy or service changes which impact beyond own area of activity.
* Develop skills in the use of quality improvement methodology to assist in changes in practice and service delivery in accordance with evidence‑based standards and policy, challenging traditional boundaries and current thinking; and overcoming resistance and conflict at the Trust, system, and national level.
* Work with the senior leadership and advanced practice team to develop service‑specific pathways and place‑based care.
* Promote a culture across the Trust where risk management and governance are known to be the responsibility of everyone.
* Support senior healthcare colleagues and clinical governance teams and take responsibility for patient safety, experience and clinical governance issues relating to integrated community services.
* Act as a role model and professional resource and advise as an expert practitioner in all areas of practice, to improve safe patient care, patient experience and clinical practice.
Qualifications
You will be a highly skilled and motivated advanced or consultant practitioner with:
* Significant experience working at an advanced or consultant practice level.
* A strong track record of autonomous clinical decision‑making in complex and undifferentiated patient presentations.
* Demonstrable leadership experience, with the ability to influence, inspire and develop others.
* A passion for quality improvement, transformation, and delivering outstanding patient‑centred care.
* The ability to balance strategic leadership responsibilities with expert clinical practice.
The Christie is one of Europe's leading cancer centres, treating over 60,000 patients a year. We are based in Manchester and serve a population of 3.2 million across Greater Manchester & Cheshire, but as a national specialist around 15 % of patients are referred to us from other parts of the country. We provide radiotherapy through one of the largest radiotherapy departments in the world; chemotherapy on site and through 14 other hospitals; highly specialist surgery for complex and rare cancer; and a wide range of support and diagnostic services. We are also an international leader in research, with world‑first breakthroughs for over 100 years. We run one of the largest early clinical trial units in Europe with over 300 trials every year. Cancer research in Manchester, most of which is undertaken on the Christie site, has been officially ranked the best in the UK.
Pre‑Employment Checks
* Identity verification
* Right to work check
* Disclosure and barring service (DBS)/Criminal record check (dependent on role, payment of this will be the applicant's responsibility)
* Professional registration and/or qualification check
* Occupational health assessment
* Employment history and reference validation
All applicants external to The Christie NHS Foundation Trust will be required to provide their HMRC employment history to cover the most recent three years of employment. This information will be used to validate employment history and references. If you require sponsorship, we will assess your eligibility based on current government guidance. If the role is not eligible and you cannot demonstrate your right to work, your conditional offer may be withdrawn. If you are offered a job, information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system. Please note, all communication regarding your application will be made via email; please ensure you check your junk/spam folders as emails are sometimes filtered there.
Sponsorship Information
We are an approved sponsoring organisation. Applications will be considered from applicants requiring sponsorship alongside all other applications. Please be aware not all roles are eligible for sponsorship. You can review the list of eligible roles and requirements on the government website.
No Smoking Policy – The Trust operates a No Smoking Policy and therefore employees are not permitted to smoke at work.
Diversity, Equality and Inclusion
We want to ensure that everyone who works at the Christie or uses our services is welcomed, valued and treated with dignity and respect. The Christie values diversity and is committed to ensuring equal opportunities for all and fair representation across the organisation at all levels. In support of these commitments, we particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and other ethnic minority people and people with disabilities for this post. Appointment will be only on merit. We are committed to creating a balanced and diverse workforce. As such we welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds. Together we will foster inclusion and tackle inequity and health inequalities in cancer care. As users of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the vacancy.
Ethical Conduct
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust is committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct and integrity in all our activities. We have a zero‑tolerance approach to modern slavery in any of its forms, including slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour, and human trafficking. We are fully committed to acting ethically and with transparency in all our business dealings and relationships, and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure modern slavery is not taking place anywhere in our organisation or supply chains.
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