Overview
Job Overview Due to an internal promotion, we have an exciting opportunity for a substantive Deputy Chief Nursing Officer to join our Trust. This senior leadership role offers the chance to provide visible, compassionate, and strategic nursing leadership across clinical, operational, and corporate teams. This is a fantastic opportunity to develop your career towards a future Chief Nursing Officer role, with dedicated CPD funding to support your growth. You’ll work closely with colleagues to drive meaningful improvements that positively impact patients and their families. We’re looking for someone ambitious and tenacious, with a proven track record of leading change, inspiring teams, and championing patient voices at every level.
This Is a Unique Opportunity To
* Influence strategic direction
* Champion patient-centred care
* Develop as a future Chief Nursing Officer with CPD support
Main duties of the job
You will lead and drive high-quality, safe patient care and create a positive experience for patients—while enabling staff to thrive— this is central to our organisational vision.
In this key leadership role, you will work closely with the Chief Nursing Officer to shape and implement the Nursing and Midwifery Strategy. A core focus will be developing leadership capacity across nursing, midwifery, and care staff to drive continuous improvements in quality and safety. You will help ensure our services are recognised as compassionate, patient-centred, and responsive to feedback.
You will also collaborate with the Chief Nursing Officer, Chief Medical Officer and other executive leaders to provide strategic direction for the Trust’s Quality Improvement Strategy. This includes fostering a culture of excellence in patient care, safety and experience.
Working across organisational boundaries with health and social care partners, you will help deliver the best possible outcomes for our patients.
Interviews
Interviews for this role will take place the week commencing 15th June 2026.
Working for our organisation
At the RUH we put people at the heart of what we do, working together as one team to make a difference for our patients, each other, and our community. No matter what your role is, we value everyone’s contribution in supporting the exceptional, person-centred care we pride ourselves on.
We are committed to creating a compassionate and inclusive environment. This can be seen in our growing community of staff networks – celebrating successes and creating opportunities to listen and learn. We value our differences, champion kindness and civility, and truly believe that diversity makes us stronger.
A culture of learning, developing and innovating is the thread that runs throughout our whole organisation. We want to support you to thrive, taking your career to its full potential.
We value staff wellbeing, with a well-established programme of support. We believe in a holistic approach spanning all aspects of living a healthy life, including physical, emotional, spiritual and financial wellbeing. We’ve even got a pool!
We are committed to supporting you and hope you want to join our team. In the meantime, find out more about living and working the beautiful historic city of Bath, learn about our extensive package of staff benefits, and read about how we’re providing healthcare fit for the future with the landmark Dyson Cancer Centre and our passion for research.
Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities
For more information about this role please refer to the attached job description and person specification.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
* Registered nurse with clinical background and recent experience in acute Trust
* Masters level qualification
* Demonstrable evidence of ongoing continuous professional development
Knowledge
Essential criteria
* Recent experience of working at a senior level in the NHS
* In depth knowledge of the current NHS agenda and challenges
* Ability to interpret national and local policy drivers and translate them into practice
* Proven ability to manage change within a complex organisation
* Experience of working with Executive teams and Boards
Desirable criteria
* Experience of developing business cases
Please note - Due to recent changes in UK immigration and visa rules applicants who do not currently have the right to work in the UK may not be considered unless an alternative right to work solution can be provided. Candidates requiring sponsorship should review the eligibility criteria on GOV.UK before applying: Prove your right to work to an employer: Overview - GOV.UK
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.
Documents to download
* Deputy Chief Nursing Officer - job description (PDF, 380.2KB)
* Deputy CNO - Candidate pack (PDF, 561.5KB)
* Join the RUH (PDF, 1.3MB)
Further details / informal visits
Name: Jason Lugg
Job title: Deputy Chief Nursing Officer (CNO Designate)
Email address: j.lugg@nhs.net
Additional information
Name: Jason Lugg
Job title: Deputy Chief Nursing Officer (Chief Nursing Officer Designate)
Email address: j.lugg@nhs.net
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