Chief Operating Officer

Chief Operating Officer Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust (GOSH) is seeking an exceptional Chief Operating Officer to join its Executive Team and lead excellence in operational delivery at one of the world's leading centres for babies, children and young people with rare, complex and difficult-to-treat conditions.

As Chief Operating Officer, you will be a Board-level Executive Director and the senior accountable officer for the delivery, performance and productivity of GOSH's services. Reporting to the Chief Executive, Karl Munslow Ong, and working in close partnership with the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Nurse and your executive colleagues, you will be a convening, partnering leader, influencing every part of GOSH: NHS services, research, private and international care, education and corporate teams. You will be Senior Responsible Officer for the cancer transformation programme, Lead Director for Emergency Planning Resilience and Response, and Senior Information Risk Owner for the Trust.

This is a role for a leader who builds capability, followership and energy. As GOSH develops a more distributed model of leadership, you will grow the leadership capacity of our care groups, devolve real decision-making, and create the conditions in which operational and clinical leaders take accountability for improvement themselves.

Main duties of the job

You will put in place a performance framework that informs and empowers rather than simply polices, and you will bring an outward, horizon-scanning perspective and a curiosity around innovation and adaptation, anticipating how shifts in demand, technology, workforce and the wider system will shape children's healthcare, and positioning GOSH to meet that future rather than react to it.

You will also help navigate a genuine tension: a growing national emphasis on community-based care that does not always align neatly with GOSH's role as a specialist tertiary children's hospital.

We are looking for an accomplished, credible and values-led operational leader with significant senior management experience in an NHS Trust, and a track record of leading improvement and change in operational health services of real complexity, through cross-organisational working, under pressure. You will bring demonstrable success in developing clinical operations leadership teams, and the ability to sustain improvement through periods of significant disruption, such as a major capital project. You will combine strong operational grip and a determination to deliver the best possible services for patients with a nuanced leadership style that flexes to circumstance, and you will lead through influence, partnership and collaboration with world-class colleagues, in clinical specialties and across the organisation.

GOSH is committed to recruiting the best person for the job, based solely on their ability and individual merit as measured against the criteria for the role; through a process that is fair, open, consistent and free from bias and discrimination.

We are committed to being a diverse and inclusive employer and foster a culture where all staff are valued, respected and acknowledged. All applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, age, disability status or length of time spent unemployed.

We particularly welcome applications from BAME communities, people with disabilities and/or long-term health conditions and LGBT+ community members.

We have policies and procedures in place to ensure that all applicants and employees are treated fairly and consistently. We are proud to be accredited as a Disability Confident Employer, a member of Business Disability Forum and a Stonewall Diversity Champion.

We have active and Executive supported BAME, LGBT+ and Allies, Disability and Long-Term Health Conditions and Women's staff networks. Staff networks are employee-led groups formed around interests, issues and a common bond or background. Staff network members create a positive and inclusive work environment at Great Ormond Street Hospital by actively contributing to the Trust's mission, values and efforts specific to inclusion. All of our staff networks are open to any employee.