Salary: £40,000 – £45,000 per year
Hours: 37.5 hours per week
Location: Hybrid with an office base in Ashford
Closing Date: 10th of June 2026
Please quote job reference: ABL 883
One You Kent Service overview
One You Kent is Kent’s free, countywide lifestyle and wellbeing service, supporting adults to make positive, sustainable changes to improve their health and reduce the risk of long-term conditions. The service provides evidence-based support including smoking cessation (whole of Kent), weight management, physical activity and healthy lifestyle interventions (East Kent only), delivered through a strengths-based, person-centred approach. Working closely with GP practices, Primary Care Networks, local authorities and community and voluntary sector partners, One You Kent is embedded within local communities to ensure support is accessible, inclusive and responsive to local need. The service plays a key role in reducing health inequalities across Kent through partnership working, community engagement and flexible delivery models.
Role Purpose
The Deputy Head of Service – Stop Smoking provides technical, operational and pathway leadership for the smoking cessation element of the One You Kent Service.
The postholder is accountable for the day-to-day operational performance, quality, workforce leadership and delivery of smoking cessation services, ensuring they are safe, evidence-based, outcome-focused and aligned with national guidance and local commissioning priorities.
Working in partnership with the Head of Service, this role translates strategic direction into high-quality operational delivery, providing subject-matter expertise in smoking cessation, overseeing performance against KPIs and line-managing some of the Operational Team Leads while ensuring each lead across the service embed excellent smoking cessation pathways and clinics. The Deputy Head plays a key role in service development, pathway improvement and partnership working, particularly across primary care, secondary care, maternity and mental health settings.
Key Duties and Responsibilities
As Deputy Head of Service, you will provide technical, clinical, and operational leadership for smoking cessation services across Kent, ensuring delivery aligns with national guidance, evidence-based practice, and wider tobacco control strategies. You will oversee treatment models, practitioner competence, quality assurance, and workforce development, while leading day-to-day operational delivery and driving performance against key pathway KPIs, including referrals, engagement, quit rates, and retention. The role involves using performance data and service insight to identify risks, trends, and opportunities for continuous improvement, alongside producing monthly and quarterly reports in line with commissioner expectations and supporting the development of annual impact reporting. You will line manage Operational Team Leads, providing leadership, supervision, coaching, and performance management, while embedding consistent standards and ways of working across teams. The successful candidate will play a key role in shaping and evolving the smoking cessation service model, leading or contributing to service improvement initiatives, pathway redesign, innovation activity, and the mobilisation of new delivery approaches or priority population projects. You will also build and maintain strong relationships with healthcare professionals and external partners across primary care, secondary care, maternity, mental health, and VCSE organisations to strengthen referral pathways and collaborative working. In addition, you will ensure compliance with information governance, safeguarding, health and safety, and clinical governance requirements, contribute to audits and assurance processes, represent the pathway at stakeholder meetings, and deputise for the Head of Service when required to maintain continuity of service delivery.
Are you someone who
* Is an experienced senior leader within a community health, public health or integrated care environment, with accountability for service performance and outcomes.
* Has a proven ability to set clear strategic direction, plan and deliver complex services, manage priorities, anticipate risk and remove barriers to delivery.
* Is an accomplished people leader, with experience of building high-performing teams, developing talent and creating a positive, inclusive and accountable culture.
* Is a values-driven, visible leader who motivates and inspires teams and partners to deliver high-quality, person-centred outcomes.
* Thinks strategically and system-wide, able to identify opportunities, solve problems and lead change in complex environments.
* Is a highly effective communicator, able to influence, negotiate and tailor messages confidently across commissioners, senior stakeholders, partners, communities and staff.
* Has a strong track record of building trusted relationships with commissioners, system partners, community leaders and stakeholders to achieve shared goals.
* Is curious, adaptable and solutions-focused, open to new ideas and committed to innovation and continuous improvement.
Employee Benefits
* Birthday Day off
* Flexible Annual Leave scheme
* Employee Referral scheme
* 37.5 hours working week
* Flu jabs
* Blue Light Card
* Cycle to work scheme
* Leadership and staff away days
* Training and Development
Please note that we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role
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