Programme Director – UEC Improvement and Transformation: Sponsorship Available

Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Job summary

The Programme Director for UEC Improvement and Transformation will provide the senior delivery leadership required to accelerate one of HHFT’s highest-priority programmes. Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, with dotted-line accountability to the Director of Transformation, the postholder will strengthen delivery grip, align cross-cutting workstreams and provide executive assurance that improvement is translating into safer care, better flow, improved staff experience, productivity and sustainable financial recovery.

The successful candidate will be expected to bring senior operational judgement, compassionate leadership and disciplined delivery focus to a complex and high-impact programme where sustained progress will make a direct difference to patients, staff and the wider Trust.

Main duties of the job

Working directly to the Chief Operating Officer, the postholder will align operational performance, clinical pathway redesign, patient flow, workforce productivity, digital and data-enabled improvement, and financial recovery into a single, coherent delivery programme.

The postholder will be expected to operate with the authority, pace and judgement of a senior operational director, working across clinical, nursing, operational, corporate and system partners to deliver tangible improvements for patients, staff and the Trust.

The programme is focused on improving front-door access, ambulance handover, admission avoidance, non-admitted pathways, acute assessment, frailty, SDEC, discharge and ward flow, while delivering safe productivity and financial recovery benefits.

The programme operates in a complex environment where day-to-day operational pressures, transformation delivery, capital and estate constraints, digital dependencies, workforce capacity and system-wide discharge challenges all intersect. The postholder will provide senior leadership to align these workstreams, strengthen accountability, resolve barriers and ensure that agreed improvement priorities translate into sustained operational and patient benefits.

The secondment provides focused capacity to accelerate delivery during a critical phase of the UEC programme, ensuring visible leadership, clear decision routes, disciplined benefits tracking and credible assurance to Executive and Board-level forums.

Person Specification

Experience

Essential

  • Significant experience operating at senior level in the NHS
  • Excellent understanding, evidenced with proven delivery in UEC care pathways, patient flow, acute assessment, admission avoidance,dischargeand operational performance standards
  • Proven track record of delivering complex operational improvement, recovery or transformation across cross-divisional, multi-professional and system-wide environments.
  • Ability to connect quality, safety, performance, workforce, finance and patient experience into a coherent delivery plan and to support safe productivity and financial recovery

Desirable

  • Experience of delivering financial recovery, productivity or CIP schemes in a clinically sensitive environment
  • Experience working with ICB, community, ambulance, social care or urgent care partners to deliver whole-system pathway change
  • Formal training or demonstrable experience in quality improvement, Lean, programme delivery, change leadership or organisational development

Skills

Essential

  • Excellent communication, negotiation and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to explain complex risks, trade-offs and decisions clearly.
  • Strong analytical capability, with confidence using performance, workforce, finance and operational data to drive decisions, evidence progress and track benefits.

Other

Essential

  • Evidence of leading teams through ambiguity, operational pressure and change while maintaining a compassionate, inclusive and improvement-focused leadership style aligned to HHFT’s values

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

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).

Closing Date: 23 August 2026

To apply for this job please visit apps.trac.jobs.