Director of Midwifery & Neonatal Services

Job summary

South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust (SWFT) and George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust (GEH) work together as part of an innovative and ambitious Group model, underpinned by our shared commitment to ‘Helping people to live healthier, happier lives’. With a joint Group Board and unified strategic direction now in place, we are focused on delivering high-quality, equitable, and sustainable healthcare services for our population of nearly one million people living across Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Coventry, and Solihull.

We are seeking to appoint a new Director of Midwifery & Neonatal Services, as our current postholder retires in September. This is a rare and exciting opportunity to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of maternity and neonatal services across our Group. Reporting to the Chief Nurse, you will provide professional leadership and strategic direction for maternity and neonatal services across both hospital sites and community services across both North and South Warwickshire. You will lead the development and delivery of a shared vision for maternity and neonatal care, one that drives measurable improvements in quality, safety, equity, and outcomes, whilst embedding robust governance and assurance frameworks.

Main duties of the job

The Director of Midwifery and Neonatal Service’s is a critical role in the senior leadership team and is responsible for providing clinical strategic and professional leadership for maternity and neonatal services for the population served by South Warwickshire Foundation Trust (SWFT) and George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust (GEH).

The post holder will provide senior professional leadership across both hospital sites and community services to make an important contribution to the strategic development of these services and be responsible for ensuring safe delivery of care where women, children and families reflect a positive experience of the services. This includes working collaboratively with the Divisional teams and patients and the public to develop and deliver a long-term vision that addresses the health inequalities within the local population and enables the delivery of sustainable and high-quality services.

The Director of Midwifery and Neonatal Services is responsible for the professional and clinical leadership of the Midwifery, Nursing and AHP workforce within Maternity and Neonatal services. They will have responsibility for ensuring the workforce is developed and supported to strive for excellence, delivering the very best outcomes for service users, providing personalised and compassionate care at all times.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• First level Registered Midwife with current NMC Registration
• Educated to master’s level or equivalent.
• Evidence of continuous professional development (completion of postgraduate course/qualification relevant to the role).
• Evidence of Postgraduate qualification or Executive/Leadership Development or substantial and credible worked experience at senior level.

Desirable

• First level Registered Sick Children’s Nurse and/or Registered Health Visitor.

Experience

Essential

• Recent and significant senior clinical and management experience at Associate Director of Midwifery level or equivalent in an NHS environment.
• Significant experience of working at or exposure to Board level or equivalent.
• Evidence of recent midwifery clinical practice and delivering transformational change
• Evidence of a track record of delivery of performance objectives and service improvements.
• Evidence of delivering compassionate, patient-focused and women and family centered care.
• In-depth understanding of the Risk and Governance agenda with extensive experience of quality governance and assurance systems and processes and delivering sustainable improvements in patient safety, quality and patient experience.
• A broad and highly developed understanding of nursing and midwifery policy and their implications for the workforce and future health care delivery.
• Demonstrable experience of working successfully across functional boundaries and at a Strategic level.
• Experience of working across other NHS organisations (or beyond) for benchmarking purposes or to identify best practice /areas for improvement.
• Demonstrable experience of overseeing Trust- wide initiatives; leading successful change management; service redesign processes; leading cost improvement programmes.
• Experience of leading large multidisciplinary teams and effective staff engagement.
• Proven experience of building effective partnerships and alliances across different organisations eg. Commissioning, Acute Trusts, Mental Health
• A strong grasp of health inequalities and understanding of diversity and equality issues and how these impacts and translates into service delivery and leadership.
• Evidence of leading cultural change across multidisciplinary and complex services

Desirable

• Detailed knowledge of NHS practices, policies and procedures and experience of implementing new policies, procedures, and guidelines across multiple services.
• An in-depth understanding of Workforce, Education, Standards, and research issues within the NHS.

Personal Qualities

Essential

• Role model and have a strong commitment to openness, honesty and integrity.
• Highly visible leader with the ability to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines.
• Drive, energy, enthusiasm and resilience.
• Role model who understands own impact on others and high levels of self-awareness.
• Ability to work in a climate of rapid change and uncertainty.
• Innovative thinker who is able to cut through the barriers for change.

Skills

Essential

• Evidence of managing competing priorities, complexity and highly sensitive situations, and of delivering to tight timeframes
• Highly developed analytical and problem-solving skills; capable of interpreting and evaluating complex, multi-faceted information; ability to summarise complex information; ability to make judgements and advise on the best course of action.
• Ability to present highly complex/controversial information to a wide range of audiences, with differing levels of understanding, in a suitable format and with appropriate explanation.
• Ability to produce and present reports/papers at a sophisticated level that are suitable to be presented to a Board of Directors and/or outside of the Trust.
• Highly developed leadership and influencing skills. Ability to integrate, collaborate, influence and motivate a wide range clinical and non- clinical staff and other stakeholders across range of organisations to achieve successful partnership working
• Demonstrate passion for and commitment for the development of midwifery and neonatal services; provide a clear vision for change which is a source of inspiration and motivation for others. Skilled in all aspects of managing change, including supporting staff
• Ability to monitor and act to improve and deliver performance and establish high levels of quality and to hold others to account for delivery
• Be able to articulate the evolving strategy and vision for the future of midwifery and neonatal services; demonstrate the opportunities this will provide.
• Politically astute and able to interpret national policies. Sound political judgement and astuteness in understanding and working with diverse groups and common sense in knowing when to ‘brief up the line’
• Highly developed communication skills to resolve complex, high- impact situations in highly complex environments and to work confidently in areas of uncertainty.
• High level of work organisation, self- motivation, drive for performance improvement and flexibility in approach.
• Uncompromising and passionate about providing excellent patient care, staff engagement and well-being.

Other

Essential

• Frequent travel between multiple Trust sites (and occasional travel further afield)
• To be proactive and flexible, able to identify and take forward opportunities and work effectively in partnership with others.
• Deep pragmatism with a positive and can-do attitude, willing to roll their sleeves up to get into details where necessary.
• The resilience to thrive when operating in complexity and uncertainty and under high degrees of pressure.
• The political intelligence to be able to navigate a complex social and political eco-system and remain focussed on the shared vision for the future.
• Participate in the Director on call rota.

Closing Date: 27 July 2026