Job summary
- Main area
- Deputy Chief Operating Officer
- Grade
- Band 9
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 380-SS0843
- Employer
- Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Littlebrook Hospital
- Town
- Dartford
- Salary
- £112,782 - £129,783 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 24/11/2026 23:59
- Interview date
- 15/12/2026
Employer heading
Deputy Chief Operating Officer
Band 9
We are the Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust. We offer a range of ongoing benefits to our valued workforce. From an active health and wellbeing programme to regular recognition events, we work hard to provide varied benefits that make a difference to your work-life balance.
Here are some clips of our Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust staff, speaking about their role and why they enjoy working for us
Would you like to work flexibly? In the NHS, we are reminded every day of how important life is. As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us, for our patients and for you.
Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Job overview
The Deputy Chief Operating Officer will contribute to delivery of the Trust's strategic plan, by working in partnership with the Executive team, Directorate teams and external organisations to achieve the Trust's corporate objectives and to make a positive contribution to the provision of mental health services across the local health economy.
As a key member of the Trust Senior Management Team the post holder is responsible for the visibility of leadership and responsible for upholding the values, behaviours and standards expected of all employees in the Trust The postholder will be required to work across the health and social care economy of Kent and Medway which will involve deputising for the Chief Operating Officer at meetings with key stakeholders.
Working under the delegated authority of the Chief Operating Officer, the Deputy Chief Operating Officer will provide Trust-wide operational leadership and hold directorates to account for the delivery of agreed quality, access, performance, workforce and financial objectives.
The post holder must hold a full, valid, UK driving licence and have access to a car/vehicle to use for business purposes (unless you have a disability as defined by the Equality Act 2010).
Main duties of the job
Act as Senior Responsible Owner for designated transformation programmes, ensuring clear governance, benefits realisation, delivery against agreed milestones, effective management of interdependencies, risks and resources, and safe transition into business-as-usual arrangements.
- Ensure operational decisions are informed by quality, safety, patient experience, workforce and financial considerations, with appropriate clinical leadership and governance applied to service change, performance recovery and capacity decisions.
- Work with stakeholders including strategic delivery partners to ensure transformation programmes are realised.
- Ensure effective joint working and relationships with stakeholders across the system.
- Participate and represent the Trust as required at forums which will include KMMH contribution to system-wide integrated delivery and development of integrated neighbourhoods.
- Lead and enable staff to deliver high-quality services that demonstrate the trust values.
- Enable the meaningful involvement of service users and carers in the development, delivery and monitoring of services.
- Support the service Directorates to operate in a culture to promote social inclusion and support for people experiencing mental health issues considering the characteristics of the local community.
Working for our organisation
We are Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust. We care for the mental health and wellbeing of people across Kent and Medway.
Our teams support children, young people and adults with a wide range of mental health needs. We also provide specialist services, including all-age eating disorder services and neurodevelopmental assessments for children and young people, such as autism and ADHD.
Because we work across the whole county and across hospital and community settings, we can make care more joined up and easier to access for the people we serve.
Our vision is simple: we are here to help communities not just live with mental illness, but live well. It’s why we’re passionate about working with communities to make mental health care better for everyone. Everything we do is guided by our values: caring, inclusive, curious and confident.
Join us if you share our passion for better mental health care and want to be part of a team that’s working well together.
We are serious about diversity and inclusion, and we are working hard to build this into our DNA. We warmly welcome applications for any of our roles from people from diverse backgrounds, and we are proactively encouraging applications from under-represented communities for our more senior roles, like this one.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of the main responsibilities and requirements of the role.
Please note: Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- First Degree
- Masters degree/ MBA or equivalent level postgraduate qualification
- Evidence of recent continued professional development
Desirable criteria
- Clinical background
- Postgraduate qualifications/ research to Doctorate level
Experience
Essential criteria
- A demonstrable record of delivering sustained improvement in quality, access, operational performance and productivity across complex services.
- Experience of leading organisation-wide performance recovery and managing significant operational risk
- Experience of working with clinical leaders to make safe, evidence-based operational decisions.
- Demonstrable experience of managing complex patient flow, capacity and demand across organisational boundaries
- Experience of delivering measurable transformation benefits and successfully transitioning programmes into operational services.
- Experience of leading during operational escalation, major incidents or significant service disruption.
- Significant and senior level experience of NHS, social care, local authorities and more broadly across the government, private and voluntary sector providers.
- Experience of working in partnership with other mental health/ NHS Trusts / primary care services / voluntary sector.
- Significant experience of managing and motivating diverse and multi-professional teams, transforming cultures.
Knowledge and Skills
Essential criteria
- Excellent experience of successful management of multiple stakeholders with competing interests, and of operating in a complex political environment.
- Strong leadership, interpersonal skills and authority; able to successfully foster and manage inter-relationships between own organisation and differing professions including executive and non-executive.
- Advanced skills in negotiation and influencing at the most senior levels across all disciplines including executives.
- Lucid, fluent, logical speaker, able to enthuse and hold the attention of the listener; able to influence a variety of audiences at a variety of levels of seniority (including unfamiliar and potentially antagonistic audiences).
- Excellent ability to negotiate and influence others in a positive manner with the confidence to manage differing views to achieve change and improvement.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Donna Hayward-Sussex
- Job title
- Chief Operating Officer & Deputy CEO
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07796048536
List jobs with Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust in Administrative Services or all sectors