Job overview
Are you a visionary nursing leader ready to shape the future of heart and lung care? Guys & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is seeking a Head of Nursing for Harefield Hospital to provide strategic and operational leadership within our Heart, Lung, and Critical Care Clinical Group. This is a prestigious opportunity to join one of the UK’s largest and most successful foundation trusts during a transformative era following our merger with Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals.
As the Head of Nursing, you will be a pivotal member of the Senior Nurse Team, providing high-profile leadership across Harefield Hospital. You will be accountable for the delivery of safe, high-quality, and cost-effective patient care within a complex specialist environment. This role requires a "Board to Ward" presence, bridging the gap between executive strategy and frontline clinical excellence.
You will work closely with the Hospital Director and Director of Nursing to ensure the Clinical Group meets its ambitious objectives. Beyond operational management, you will play a key role in the King’s Health Partners Clinical Academic Groups, helping to drive the strategy for nursing research, education, and practice innovation. We are looking for an ambitious leader who embodies our values of being Caring, Ambitious, and Inclusive.
HLCC is a developing clinical group, and this will include a process of reviewing the structure of the senior nursing team. There may be some changes to the role responsibilities in the future.
Main duties of the job
Main Duties of the Job
The primary focus of this role is to provide expert professional leadership and ensure sustained improvements in clinical services. Your main responsibilities will include:
Strategic Leadership: Developing and implementing nursing strategies that align with the Trust’s vision and national NHS requirements.
Operational Performance: Holding service teams to account for delivery targets and maintaining high standards of nursing productivity.
Clinical Excellence: Functioning as a visible role model by working regularly in clinical areas to monitor standards and maintain professional credibility.
Financial Stewardship: Managing the Harefield nursing budget, ensuring financial balance and the delivery of cost-improvement programmes.
Workforce Development: Overseeing recruitment, retention, and the professional development of a diverse nursing and AHP workforce.
Safety and Governance: Leading on infection control, patient safety initiatives, and the resolution of complex complaints or incidents.
Working for our organisation
Join Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, one of the UK’s busiest and most successful foundation trusts. We are a family of five renowned hospitals—Guy’s, St Thomas’, Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Royal Brompton, and Harefield—with a long and proud history of high-quality care, clinical excellence, research, and innovation.
Our values are at the heart of our culture and guide how we work:
Caring: We put patients first.
Ambitious: We innovate and strive for excellence.
Inclusive: We respect each other and work collaboratively.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The Head of Nursing carries a broad portfolio of responsibilities categorized into five key domains:
1. Leadership and Change Management You will lead complex change management programmes, identifying new opportunities for service innovation while navigating the challenges of a multifaceted healthcare environment. You will formally deputize for the Deputy Director of Nursing as required.
2. Quality and Patient Safety You are responsible for embedding key quality principles, including patient privacy, dignity, and reducing patient harm. You will lead root cause analyses for adverse incidents and ensure that clinical audit findings result in tangible practice improvements.
3. Workforce and Staff Management You will line manage the Harefield Senior Nursing teams and Matrons, fostering an organizational culture that is positive about change. You must ensure all staff are fit to practice, receive annual appraisals, and have access to ongoing educational opportunities.
4. Financial and Resource Management In partnership with the Director of Nursing, you will ensure the clinical group operates within defined budget parameters and complies with Standing Financial Instructions. You will use acuity models to determine appropriate staffing levels and skill mixes.
5. Research and Education You will promote a culture of professional academic publication and lead the nursing research agenda across King’s Health Partners. You will ensure clinical learning environments meet the standards set by the NMC and partner universities.
Person specification
Qualifications/experience
Essential criteria
6. RN1/ RN2/ RN12 or RN Child Registered Nurse on the NMC register. (To hold the appropriate level for the area of speciality.)
7. Relevant Masters/MBA qualification or equivalent experience.
8. Demonstrate a successful track record of delivering effective nursing services as a senior nurse/manager or a deputy director in a large, multifaceted healthcare environment including staff management, financial management and change management.
9. Evidence of delivering successful nursing strategic and operational performance management and clearly demonstrating improvement in the quality of nursing care delivered at a strategic level.
10. Experience of managing a large, complex professional workforce and associated budgets.
11. Experience of working and delivering Trust-wide professional nursing objectives.
12. Evidence of delivering operational performance across a range of non professional services
13. Experience of quality and risk management, to include experience in analysing and resolving complex complaints and incidents.
Professional Leadership
Essential criteria
14. Able to articulate a clear vision for nursing which will enable the Directorate to meet all of its objectives.
15. A strong track record of managing complexity and risk whilst maintaining high standards of nursing care.
16. A comprehensive understanding of the changing NHS environment and the challenges it faces and the role and contribution nurses can make.
Setting Direction
Essential criteria
17. Ability to be intellectually flexible and to look beyond existing structures, ways of working, boundaries and organisations to produce more effective and innovative service delivery and partnerships.
18. A commitment to improving patient services through an ability to sustain a clear performance focus on achieving demanding goals.
19. Ability to successfully deliver change and performance with and through teams, through effective engagement, support and development of team members.
Guy’s and St Thomas’ celebrates, respects and values the diversity of its staff and patients. We review our policies, procedures and practices to ensure that all employees, patients and carers are treated equitable according to their needs. We are actively committed to ensuring that no one who applies for a job, works or study’s at the Trust, or accesses our services is discriminated against on the grounds of race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, religion or belief, age, gender identity, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity/paternity, or marital/civil partnership.