Ward Manager/Team Leader
The closing date is 04 May 2026
Job Summary
In this role, you will lead the daily operational management of the DSU Stepdown area, ensuring the service runs safely, smoothly, and efficiently. As the senior clinical leader, you will provide visible leadership, expert clinical oversight, and professional guidance to nursing and support staff. Working closely with theatres, anaesthetics, surgical teams, recovery, and bed management, you will help maintain seamless patient flow and uphold high standards of post‑operative care. You will coordinate the Stepdown team, supporting staff to deliver safe, high‑quality care. This includes overseeing patient assessment, monitoring, and discharge, ensuring protocols are followed and concerns escalated appropriately. You will promote strong clinical governance through incident management, shared learning, and continuous quality improvement.
Main Duties of the Job
* Provide visible clinical leadership within the DSU Stepdown area, ensuring safe, high‑quality post‑operative care.
* Coordinate daily operations, managing patient flow from theatres to discharge.
* Oversee staffing, including rota management, allocation, supervision, and supporting staff development.
* Act as the senior clinical decision‑maker, supporting escalation and ensuring adherence to clinical standards.
* Lead on incident reporting, governance, audits, and quality improvement initiatives.
* Ensure compliance with infection control, medicines management, safeguarding, and Trust policies.
* Maintain effective communication with theatres, recovery, anaesthetics, surgical teams, and bed management.
* Support service development, contributing to pathway improvements and operational efficiency.
Person Specification
Essential Skills & Abilities
* Teaching, assessing and development of junior staff and students.
* Strong clinical leadership qualities including team working and team building.
* Commitment to providing a quality service and quality improvement.
* Ability to manage and prioritise own workload and delegate effectively.
Desirable Skills & Abilities
* Experience of working with an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system
* Working towards a Masters.
Essential Education & Qualifications
* NMC Registered Nurse level 1 or HCPC Registered ODP.
* Teaching/ Assessing/ Mentoring qualification.
Desirable Education & Qualifications
* Advanced degrees (e.g., Masters).
Essential Experience
* Significant experience within the specialty as a senior nurse/ODP (band 6).
* Management of a ward/department.
* Handling safeguarding issues according to Trust Policies and Procedures.
* Evidence of managing staff and dealing with difficult issues e.g., performance management of staff and management of sickness.
* Understanding of resource management, health and safety, clinical risk, and quality issues.
* Understanding of audits and research methodologies.
Desirable Experience
* Previous experience of involvement in audits and research.
* Benchmarking and monitoring experience.
Essential Knowledge
* Understanding of clinical governance and risk assessment.
* Up to date knowledge of current clinical and professional issues.
* Understanding of research and evidence base practice.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is 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.
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