Job Summary
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.
Key competencies include significant senior nursing leadership experience at divisional or organisation level across acute and community settings, experience leading large teams, managing budgets, delivering organisational change, deep understanding of quality governance, patient safety, risk and assurance frameworks, and strong communication, influencing and relationship building skills.
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.
* 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.
Leadership and Professional Responsibilities
* Promote a culture focused on high quality, compassionate, safe and effective care and continuous improvement.
* Lead the Trust’s team of nurses and midwives to ensure systems and processes are in place to ensure nursing and midwifery workforce planning, governance, education, practice development and policy development.
* Work in partnership with professional and managerial colleagues to improve patient care and safety.
* Develop and implement systems to assure and improve the quality of nursing and midwifery care, monitoring quality and outcomes.
* Maintain systems to monitor registration of nurses and midwives and be the Trust contact for all NMC issues.
* Identify and address unsafe and poor quality practice of nurses and midwives.
* Provide professional advice, guidance and support to ICUS directors and Service Managers through the Associate Directors of Nursing and Midwifery.
* Lead the modernisation of nursing and midwifery roles and practice, ensuring value for money.
* Provide professional leadership to the Trust’s Consultant Nurses and Midwives in their appraisal process.
* Take an active role in developing partnership working across patient pathways with local organisations and agencies.
* Produce appropriate reports on monitoring of quality and outcome measures of care.
* Embed quality improvement methodology into nursing, midwifery and AHP practice.
* Leadership to staff in ICUS to listen to and learn from patient and client views and experiences.
* Develop partnerships with Health Watch groups and other community groups.
* Provide regular reports to ICUS boards and the Trust Board via the Quality Assurance Committee.
* Develop and monitor action plans from complaints, PALs and claims at ICUS level and identify Trust-wide learning opportunities.
* Participate in the Gold on Call Rota as the senior responsible officer out of hours for unexpected issues.
Financial Management
* Manage services within control to ensure budgets are adhered to and end‑of‑year targets met.
* Lead on the management of non‑medical bank and agency spend.
* Ensure expenditure provides value for money and meets financial targets.
* Contribute to cost‑improvement plans whilst maintaining safe high‑quality services.
* Provide clear strategic leadership with ADON/M to ensure an appropriate skilled and motivated nursing and midwifery workforce.
* Participate in contract and service level negotiations on quality issues.
Quality Governance
* Contribute to Trust’s corporate and quality governance processes, implementing the integrated governance framework.
* Support the ADON/M to develop quality governance assurance processes for clinical care and professional standards.
* Develop and establish processes and systems for ward/team to board assurance on patient care, experience and safety.
* Ensure statutory nursing and midwifery requirements are met.
* Ensure nursing and midwifery policies are evidence‑based, relevant and current.
* Develop policies for effective management of agency and bank nursing across the Trust.
* Further develop the nursing and midwifery quality indicators dashboard to encourage ownership, accountability and responsibility.
About Us
Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. We aim to employ a workforce that is as representative as possible of this population and are open to differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief.
Pay and Contract
Band: Band 8d
Salary: £99,808 to £113,803 a year inclusive of HCAs pro‑rata.
Contract: Fixed term – 12 months, Full‑time.
Date posted: 16 March 2026
Pay scheme: Agenda for change.
Person Specification
Qualifications – Essential
* 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 or professional qualification.
Qualifications – Desirable
* Registered midwife.
* Post‑graduate management qualification.
Experience – Essential
* Significant period of senior nurse management in a health care environment, with divisional or equivalent level experience across hospital and community settings.
* Experience managing a team and budgets.
* Experience of multi‑agency working.
* Experience of working with patients or service users to improve their experience.
* Experience implementing safety, quality initiatives and service improvement projects.
* Experience of effective workforce planning.
* Experience carrying out complex internal investigations.
* Experience producing and presenting papers for the Trust Board and external committees.
Experience – Desirable
* Experience implementing and leading significant change projects at corporate level.
* Experience providing advice on complex professional issues to executive or non‑executive colleagues and external stakeholders.
* Experience offering senior guidance on an on‑call basis.
Skills – Essential
* 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 clinical and professional staff.
* Understanding of quality governance issues and the broader risk management agenda.
* Able to demonstrate sound judgement.
* Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
* Ability to understand complex clinical environments.
* Able to build sound working relationships with external agencies and organisations.
* Ability to understand long‑term or widespread implications of decisions in managing others, with an inclusive and developmental approach.
* Ability to grasp critical issues and distil them into clear, manageable priorities, weighing costs and benefits.
* Clear and concise written and oral expression.
* Experience involving local people, staff and other agencies in shaping the health modernisation agenda.
* Communicates vision and brings it alive, describing future needs for service and quality improvement.
* Self‑management under pressure, creating time for reflection and support for self and others.
Skills – Desirable
* Uses a range of influencing strategies to bring about change and modernisation of services.
Qualities and Knowledge – Essential
* Commitment to the highest ethical and professional values and 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 engagement and satisfaction.
Qualities and Knowledge – Desirable
* Advanced knowledge of nursing theory.
Additional Information
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and therefore a submission for Disclosure to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) is required to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Certificate of Sponsorship
Applications from job seekers who require current skilled‑worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website.
From 6 April 2017, skilled‑worker applicants applying for entry clearance to the UK must present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement.
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see the NHS Careers website.
Employer Details
Employer name: Whittington Hospital NHS Trust
Address: Whittington Hospital, Magdala Avenue, Archway, N19 5NF
Website: https://www.whittington.nhs.uk/
#J-18808-Ljbffr