Assistant Director of High Secure Redevelopment Planning (Bank)
This is a senior and highly specialised leadership role requiring a strong clinical background and substantial experience of working at a senior level within a High Secure environment. As Assistant Director of High Secure Redevelopment Planning, you will bring expert clinical insight to the strategic leadership of one of the NHS's most complex and nationally significant redevelopment programmes. Your deep understanding of high secure mental health care, risk management, quality and safety, and workforce challenges will be essential to shaping clinically credible, safe and effective service models that meet national standards and commissioning expectations. Working closely with executive leaders, clinicians, NHS England and the National High Secure Network, you will lead transformation that improves patient outcomes, experience and safety, while ensuring the redevelopment is deliverable, sustainable and grounded in real-world high secure practice. This role offers a unique opportunity for an experienced senior clinician to influence national direction, drive innovation and leave a lasting impact on high secure mental health services.
Main duties of the job
Provide senior clinical leadership to the High Secure Redevelopment Programme, using extensive senior‑level experience within a High Secure environment to ensure all redevelopment decisions are clinically credible, safe and aligned with national standards.
Lead the strategic, clinical, quality and operational development of the redevelopment, translating national policy, commissioning requirements and best practice into deliverable service models.
Oversee quality, safety, care coordination and risk management to improve patient outcomes and experience, supported by advanced clinical knowledge of high secure mental health. Develop and deliver workforce strategies that are clinically appropriate, sustainable and responsive to the complexity of the High Secure population.
Lead large‑scale transformation and innovation, including digital and data‑led approaches, ensuring safe implementation in clinical settings.
Maintain executive‑level engagement with NHS England, the Department of Health and national partners, acting as a senior clinical voice for Mersey Care, while holding responsibility for complex budgets and business case delivery to ensure financial sustainability without compromising quality or safety.
This role requires a registered clinician with substantial senior leadership experience in High Secure services, capable of balancing strategic transformation with the realities and risks of delivering safe, high‑quality care in the most complex clinical environments.
About us
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Job responsibilities
The Assistant Director of High Secure Redevelopment Planning (Band 8c) is a senior clinical leadership role with responsibility for shaping and delivering one of Mersey Cares most complex and strategically significant transformation programmes. The postholder will provide expert clinical leadership to the High Secure Redevelopment Programme, ensuring that all aspects of service redesign, workforce development and innovation are clinically credible, safe and aligned with national High Secure standards and commissioning expectations.
Working at executive and system level, the role leads the strategic, clinical, quality and operational planning for the redevelopment, translating national policy and NHS England requirements into deliverable local solutions. The postholder will oversee quality and safety workstreams, care coordination models and risk management approaches, drawing on extensive experience of working in a High Secure environment at a senior level to safeguard patient outcomes and experience.
The role is responsible for developing and delivering workforce strategies and complex business plans within agreed funding envelopes, providing assurance on financial sustainability, value for money and programme delivery. It also leads large‑scale transformation and innovation, including the use of digital dashboards, data‑led decision making and research partnerships to support continuous improvement.
As a key senior clinical voice for Mersey Care, the postholder will maintain strong relationships with NHS England, the Department of Health, the National High Secure Network and academic partners, strengthening the Trusts reputation as a national leader in high secure mental health care and ensuring the successful delivery of the redevelopment programme.
At Mersey Care we strive to continually build on our values and beliefs that will allow all our workforce to develop their potential and bring their whole self into the organisation. In order to strengthen our inclusivity and diversity, we recognise the need to ensure we become more representative of the communities we serve.
This is recognised in the NHS England EDI Workforce Improvement Plan 2023 and NHS Workplace Race Equality Standard that in senior NHS Leadership positions, there is an underrepresentation of Black and Asian Minority colleagues (BME).
As an organisation we are committed to our Perfect Care Goal on Anti‑racism and so are employing positive action where we know there is underrepresentation and for this position therefore, we encourage applications from people who are from BME communities. The Equality Act (2010) permits Mersey Care as a defined public authority, to take steps to address inequity and underrepresentation as positive action, and this includes our approach for this position.
Person Specification
Qualifications
* Educated to master's level or equivalent level of experience of working at a senior level in the role of a registered clinician relating to, quality, safety and innovation within High Secure Mental Health services.
Experience
* Extensive knowledge of risk algorithms, mental health quality and safety indicators, care coordination acquired through post graduate diploma or equivalent experience or training plus further specialist knowledge or experience to master's level equivalent.
* Evidence of continuing professional development
* Must have an understanding of the background to and aims of current healthcare policy High Secure Services and appreciate the implications of this on engagement.
* Should have an appreciation of the relationship between the Department of Health, NHS England and individual provider and specialised commissioning organisation.
* Experience of delivering large scale programmes of work within a dashboard environment within the NHS.
* Experience of leading and managing significant strategic & transformational change
* Experience of developing and establishing teams and services
* Responsible for a budget, involved in budget setting and working knowledge of financial processes
* Member of relevant professional body
Knowledge
* Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Office including Excel, Visio, Project Word and PowerPoint.
* Good working knowledge of a range of Trust IT systems such as RADAR, Financial system including SBS and Expenses and ESR.
* Demonstrates knowledge and understanding of equality of opportunity and diversity taking into account and being aware of how individual actions contribute to and make a difference to the equality agenda.
* Ensures staff for whom the post holder has line management responsibility.
* Sound knowledge, experience and understanding of health care governance standards and requirements.
* Demonstrates knowledge and understanding of equality of opportunity and diversity.
Skills
* Provide and receive highly complex, sensitive and contentious information, negotiate with senior stakeholders on difficult and controversial issues, and present complex and sensitive information to large and influential groups.
* Persuade board and senior managers of the respective merits of different options, innovation and new market opportunities.
* Negotiate on difficult and very complex and detailed issues.
* Problem solving skills and ability to respond to sudden unexpected demands.
* Highly developed analytical skills – Ability to analyse complex facts and situations and formulate a range of options.
* Takes decisions on difficult and contentious issues where there may be a number of courses of action.
* Strategic thinking – ability to anticipate and resolve problems before they arise.
* Able to manage a complex and multi‑faceted workload, balancing competing demands in flexible manner.
* Inputs to strategic plans across NHS and within the specific teams.
* Works with Stakeholders to develop performance improvement plans and to develop plans for innovation and opening up the market.
* Good use of available information sources to enable efficient and effective planning.
* Ability to work under pressure and to tight and often changing deadlines.
* Demonstrable experience of leading and managing teams.
* Skills for direct line management and job management.
* Skills for delivering results through managing through others and using a range of levers in the absence of direct line management responsibility.
* Skills for managing relationships with a range of different stakeholders.
* Good keyboard skills and extensive periods working with Visual Display Units conducting online meetings and working remotely.
* Ability to travel across region, nationally and further for meetings, conferences, networking and promoting the Trust and Service
* Manages team within the constraints of Trust strategic and operational plan.
* Ability to work on own initiative and organise workload, allocating work as necessary.
* Ability to make decisions autonomously, when required, on difficult issues.
* Ability to carry out procurements for highly detailed, high value contracts that require analysis, comparison and assessment
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.
Associate Director of Nursing & Patient Experience
£79,504 to £91,609 a year pro rata per annum
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