Job overview

Join Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust as Deputy Chief Nursing Officer and help shape the future of nursing, midwifery, and allied health professional services across one of the UK’s largest NHS organisations. Reporting to the Chief Nursing Officer, you will contribute to strategic planning and drive continuous improvement in patient care standards.

With over 16,500 NMAHPs across multiple sites, you will champion clinical quality, patient safety, and professional excellence. With strong insight into integrated care and NHS policy, your leadership will ensure services are safe, compassionate, inclusive, and responsive to our communities.

Overseeing safeguarding, quality assurance, compliance, and professional standards, you will work with ambitious colleagues to deliver sustainable innovation. It goes without saying that as a role model for professionalism and improvement, you will influence healthcare agendas and embody our Trust’s values.

This is a rare opportunity for a values-led, politically astute leader with senior nursing experience in complex settings and we would leave it hear from your skillset matches. If you are passionate about improvement and system-wide impact, take the next best step in your career.

Main duties of the job

• You will provide high-level executive leadership across nursing, midwifery, and AHP services, deputising for the Chief Nursing Officer and acting as a professional ambassador across the Trust and wider system.
• You will lead strategic change, drawing on senior experience in acute or integrated settings to deliver transformational outcomes.
• Driving professional excellence and leading the Trust’s nursing and midwifery strategy, you will align care models with national and local priorities, overseeing initiatives in safeguarding, quality governance, and professional standards.
• You will offer expert professional advice, using your knowledge of NHS policy, research, and innovation, and represent the Trust with bodies like the CQC, NMC, and NHS England whilst driving regulatory compliance, and advancing new roles, alongside mentoring senior clinical leaders through inclusive, values-led leadership.
• You will champion equity, diversity, and inclusion, addressing inequalities and supporting staff progression whilst using your political insight and system leadership skills to ensure high-quality, collaborative delivery of care.
• You will possess high-level political and organisational awareness to guide you in managing competing priorities, engaging stakeholders, and leading system-wide collaboration that enhances care quality and patient outcomes.

Working for our organisation

MFT is one of the largest NHS Trusts in England with a turnover of £3.0bn & is on a different scale than most other NHS Trusts. We’re creating an exceptional integrated health & social care system for the 1 million patients who rely on our services every year. 

Bringing together 10 hospitals & community services from across Manchester, Trafford & beyond, we champion collaborative working & transformation, encouraging our 30,000 workforce to pursue their most ambitious goals. We set standards that other Trusts seek to emulate so you’ll benefit from a scale of opportunity that is nothing short of extraordinary. 

We’ve also created a digitally enabled organisation to improve clinical quality, patient & staff experience, operational effectiveness & driving research, and innovation through the introduction of Hive; our Electronic Patient Record system which launched in September 2022. 

We’re proud to be a major academic Research Centre & Education provider, providing you with a robust infrastructure to encourage and facilitate high-quality research programmes. What’s more, we’re excited to be embarking on our Green Plan which sets out how MFT continues to play its part in making healthcare more sustainable. 
 
At MFT, we create and foster a culture of inclusion and belonging, provide equal opportunities for career development that are fair, open, and transparent, protecting your health and wellbeing and shaping the future of our organisation together.