Programme Manager

Job summary

It is an exciting time to join the Family Health Operations Team as we continue to drive improvements across maternity, neonatal, paediatric and women's services, supporting the delivery of safe, effective and compassionate care for women, babies, children and families. This role will play a key part in leading and supporting the delivery of the Perinatal Improvement Programme across the Group, working collaboratively with clinical, operational and corporate teams to deliver sustainable improvements in quality, safety, patient experience and performance.

The Family Health Operations Team is responsible for leading service improvement, programme delivery, operational performance and transformational change across Family Health services. Working in partnership with clinical leaders and multidisciplinary teams, the post holder will support the development and delivery of key improvement initiatives arising from national guidance, regulatory requirements, clinical strategies and local priorities. The Perinatal Improvement Programme Manager will play a pivotal role in coordinating and delivering complex improvement workstreams, ensuring that transformation opportunities are identified, implemented and embedded to improve outcomes for women, babies and families across our counties

Main duties of the job

This fixed-term opportunity will support the delivery of the Perinatal Improvement Programme across University Hospitals of Northamptonshire. Working with maternity, neonatal, paediatric and women's health services, the post holder will drive improvements to enhance safety, quality, patient experience and operational performance for women, babies and families.

Working alongside the Head of Perinatal Clinical Governance & Quality Improvement, the post holder will coordinate improvement projects and transformation programmes across Family Health services. They will support implementation of national and local priorities, maternity and neonatal safety initiatives, regulatory requirements and quality improvement activities.

The role involves developing effective relationships with clinical and operational leaders to secure engagement and support sustainable change. The post holder will provide programme and change management expertise, helping teams deliver service improvements, pathway redesign and innovation.

Responsibilities include monitoring progress against objectives, managing risks and dependencies, overseeing programme governance, and producing reports and presentations for Trust committees and stakeholders. The post holder will work collaboratively across the organisation to support strategic objectives and improve outcomes for women, babies and families.

About us

Please submit your application as soon as possible, as we reserve the right to close adverts once sufficient applications have been received.

We recognise that AI tools can support application writing; however, candidates are asked to keep their use to a minimum. Responses should reflect your own experience, skills and knowledge, as over-reliance on AI-generated content may result in generic answers that do not accurately represent your abilities.

University Hospitals of Northamptonshire (UHN) brings together Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust. As a group, we are committed to improving services for our communities through collaboration, modernising care delivery and striving for excellence. Working together enables us to share expertise, strengthen services and create greater opportunities, and there may be a requirement to work across sites depending on service needs.

Our Excellence Values are Compassion, Accountability, Respect, Integrity and Courage.

UHN welcomes applications from all backgrounds and is committed to an inclusive working environment. We are proud signatories of the Armed Forces Covenant and hold the Gold Award under the Employer Recognition Scheme. Candidates who identify as members of the Armed Forces community and meet the essential criteria will be guaranteed an interview.

Job responsibilities

For the detailed job description and main responsibilities, please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Masters level qualification in general or healthcare management, or relevant equivalent experience.
• Evidence of continuous professional development.

Desirable

• Further specialist training relevant to the role, e.g. change management or project management qualification

Key Competencies/Personal Qualities and Attributes

Essential

• Passionate and committed to bring our Dedicated to Excellence values to life, improving the way we work with each other, particularly focusing on empowerment, equality diversity and inclusion of our staff, patients and service users.
• Able to withstand frequent demands for support from colleagues who are emotionally impacted by change.
• Deliver effectively: o Be proactive, forward thinking and comfortable working on own initiative. o Share creative and innovative ways of doing things with colleagues. o Understand the impact of own actions on the Group and others in the transformation team.
• Demonstrate accountability: o Exhibit the necessary level of drive, independence and objectivity required to perform the role effectively. o Be open to constructive challenge and look for ways to continually improve own performance, and that of others. o Flexible attitude and approach to work; willing, conscientious and adaptable.
• Display integrity: o Encourage trust through own actions. o Professional and positive approach. o Enthusiastic self-starter with a positive, committed and determined approach. o Be honest in dealings with others.

Skills

Essential

• Demonstrate effective analytical and problem solving skills. Ability to analyse complex facts and situations and develop a range of options, coupled with the ability to respond to sudden unexpected demands.
• Able to empathise and build rapport with clinicians, front-line staff, managers and others, to influence, motivate and engage them into adopting new ways of working to improve service delivery.
• Demonstrates authoritative and democratic leadership encompassing energy and involvement in planning and managing change.
• Able to receive, process, summarise, interpret and communicate highly complex, sensitive and contentious information where there are barriers to acceptance and resistance to change.
• Strength of character to constructively challenge project leads and project managers where areas are not delivering against key milestones and project deadlines.
• Effective and adaptable interpersonal and influencing strategies including the ability to persuade others with personal conviction and facts.
• Communicate effectively to a range of groups and individuals in both verbal and written form. Excellent facilitation and presentation skills, with ability to manage varying levels of understanding.
• Accurate and advanced IT/keyboard skills including producing high level reports and presentations, with significant VDU use
• Proven ability to deliver sustainable transformational change rather than just undertaking incremental change.

Desirable

• Knowledge and clear understanding of the background to, and aims of current healthcare policy in the NHS, with experience of interpreting and applying national guidance across the local health economy.

Experience & Knowledge

Essential

• Significant experience in managing major transformational change programmes and projects within the NHS or a comparable large organisation, preferably in a service related environment.
• Must have experience of managing internal and external stakeholder engagement, including managing relationships and coordinating work between cross-functional teams and third parties.
• Experience of leading and motivating teams to deliver to a high standard whilst under pressure and when facing changing circumstances.
• Experience supporting teams through a process of change, sensitively managing complex issues and managing where performance has not been met, including where that is unwelcome news
• Proven collaborative relationship engagement skills with both internal and external stakeholders at a senior level, including managing relationships and encouraging collaborative working between cross-functional teams, and with third parties.
• Experience of analysing areas of highly complex and multifaceted activity in relation to current performance to drive opportunities for future improvement.
• Demonstrable specialist knowledge and practical application of various best practice tools and techniques in project, programme and change management, service redesign, facilitation and service improvement.