Job summary
Drive Excellence in Patient Care - 9 Month Leadership Opportunity
Are you a dynamic, values-led nursing leader ready to deliver a focused and high-impact programme of work?
We are recruiting a Director of Nursingfor a 9 month fixed-termrole at Salford Royal Hospital, part of the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust. This is a senior leadership opportunity across a large, complex care organisation, requiring a strategic and purposeful approach to improvement.
We're looking for someone who can:
- Lead a targeted transformation in patient safety, harm reduction, and fundamental standards of care
- Provide visible, compassionate leadership across nursing, midwifery, and AHP services, inspiring teams and driving performance
- Strengthen quality assurance and governance, ensuring robust systems and regulatory compliance
- Shape and support workforce development, including education, wellbeing, and inclusive leadership
- Champion patient experience, co-production, and equity in care delivery
You'll be supported by a dynamic and forward-thinking Chief Nursing Officer, committed to enabling bold leadership, innovation, and compassionate care across the organisation.
This is a unique opportunity to make a tangible difference in a short timeframe, influencing outcomes for patients and staff across Salford Care Organisation. If you're ready to lead with integrity, focus, and ambition, we welcome your application.
Main duties of the job
As a senior leader within the Salford Care Organisation triumvirate, you will role model the principles of CLM, servant leadership and the NCA's leadership behaviours to shape culture and service direction. You will secure commitment, lead with integrity, inclusivity, and transparency, and promote collaboration, equity, and psychological safety. Focused on patient-centred care, you will link performance data to goals, break cross-specialty barriers, and align strategies with Trust and ICB priorities to reduce inequalities and improve outcomes.
About us
The Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust (NCA) provides hospital and integrated health and social care services to over one million people living across Greater Manchester. Our 20,000 colleagues care for people in hospital and in the community, working across Bury, Rochdale, Oldham and Salford, to save and improve lives.
As a large NHS trust we are committed to enhancing the health of our local population by delivering consistently high standards of care and working closely with local authorities and key partners. We believe in our power and potential to make a difference and we're always looking for people who demonstrate our three core values - care, appreciate and inspire - to join our team.
In return, we can offer you a job role with purpose and flexibility. The size and scale of the NCA means we can provide more challenge and opportunities so your career can always be moving in the right direction. By joining us you can also access a competitive benefits package, including, a fantastic annual leave allowance, flexible working opportunities and protected hours for health and wellbeing activities, helping you to achieve more personal downtime and a better work-life balance.
Learn more about us in our Candidate Information Pack (opens in existing window)
Job description
Job responsibilities
Provide clinical leadership, and strategic direction to ensure high-quality, safe, and patient-centred care, while driving the transition to CLM with ambition and professional authority to deliver the highest standards of care.Share accountability for the strategic direction, performance, and financial sustainability, empowering leaders to implement Trust strategies and drive transformational change.Act as the nursing, midwifery and AHP subject matter expert, advising the Board and Care Organisation leadership with insights grounded in patient and staff experience.Be accountable for clinical governance, ensuring robust systems for quality assurance, regulatory compliance, and continuous improvement.Champion cross-specialty collaboration, removing barriers and prioritising patient outcomes in all decisions.Drive quality improvement and reduce inequalities, fostering inclusive, equity-focused leadership across services.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Provide clinical leadership, and strategic direction to ensure high-quality, safe, and patient-centred care, while driving the transition to CLM with ambition and professional authority to deliver the highest standards of care.Share accountability for the strategic direction, performance, and financial sustainability, empowering leaders to implement Trust strategies and drive transformational change.Act as the nursing, midwifery and AHP subject matter expert, advising the Board and Care Organisation leadership with insights grounded in patient and staff experience.Be accountable for clinical governance, ensuring robust systems for quality assurance, regulatory compliance, and continuous improvement.Champion cross-specialty collaboration, removing barriers and prioritising patient outcomes in all decisions.Drive quality improvement and reduce inequalities, fostering inclusive, equity-focused leadership across services.
Person Specification
Qualifcations and Training
Essential
- Registered Nurse with current NMC registration
- Master's level education or equivalent professional qualification in nursing
- Evidence of continuous professional development
Desirable
- Formal management or leadership qualification
Skills, Knowledge and Experience
Essential
- Significant senior leadership experience in a complex healthcare setting, ideally across multiple sites or systems
- Extensive leadership experience, at a senior level, across a range of services and systems and with multi-professional teams
- Successful track record of developing an organisational culture that promotes clinical engagement in decision making
- Significant experience of effectively managing performance and initiating improvements, taking into account the diverse needs of patients, service users and colleagues
- Significant experience of utilising data, financial models and management tools to manage performance and service improvement
- Skilled in leading transformational change across multi-disciplinary teams and complex systems
- Comprehensive knowledge of clinical governance, regulatory compliance, and quality assurance frameworks
- Ability to drive change while aligning with Trust strategy and the broader strategic landscape
- Extensive leadership experience in driving measurable improvements in the quality and delivery of care standards across complex healthcare settings
- High-level analytical and judgement skills to interpret complex data and drive evidence-based improvements
Person Specification
Qualifcations and Training
Essential
- Registered Nurse with current NMC registration
- Master's level education or equivalent professional qualification in nursing
- Evidence of continuous professional development
Desirable
- Formal management or leadership qualification
Skills, Knowledge and Experience
Essential
- Significant senior leadership experience in a complex healthcare setting, ideally across multiple sites or systems
- Extensive leadership experience, at a senior level, across a range of services and systems and with multi-professional teams
- Successful track record of developing an organisational culture that promotes clinical engagement in decision making
- Significant experience of effectively managing performance and initiating improvements, taking into account the diverse needs of patients, service users and colleagues
- Significant experience of utilising data, financial models and management tools to manage performance and service improvement
- Skilled in leading transformational change across multi-disciplinary teams and complex systems
- Comprehensive knowledge of clinical governance, regulatory compliance, and quality assurance frameworks
- Ability to drive change while aligning with Trust strategy and the broader strategic landscape
- Extensive leadership experience in driving measurable improvements in the quality and delivery of care standards across complex healthcare settings
- High-level analytical and judgement skills to interpret complex data and drive evidence-based improvements
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.
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 (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to 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. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Additional information
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.
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 (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to 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. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).