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Job summary

Main area
Patient Experience
Grade
NHS AfC: Band 8c
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
644-CE010
Employer
Central East Integrated Care Board
Employer type
NHS
Site
Central East ICB
Town
Central East ICB
Salary
£79,504 - £91,609 per annum
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
23/06/2026 23:59

Employer heading

Central East Integrated Care Board logo

Head of Patient Experience

NHS AfC: Band 8c

We are Central East ICB, the new organisation entrusted with serving more than 3.5 million people across Bedfordshire, Luton, Milton Keynes, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and Hertfordshire.

We are responsible for making sure that the NHS can continue to support our community – now, and in the future. Everything we do will be guided by our core purpose: to do what best serves the population of this area.

  We promise to focus on what makes the biggest difference to people’s lives – acting earlier to help prevent illness and detect disease and making it easier for our community to get the health care they need, closer to home, whenever that’s possible.

If you need support with the application process, please contact our People Team at [email protected].

Read about our priorities in our strategy document, Our Way.

Job overview

The Head of Patient Experience will lead the transformation of the ICB's  complaints and Patient Experience  function into a proactive, insight-driven service that informs commissioning and service
improvement. Reporting to the Chief of Staff, the postholder will ensure compliance with statutory complaints processes while embedding a culture of learning from patient feedback. They will oversee Freedom of Information responses and work closely with engagement teams to strengthen public involvement in ICB decision-making.
The role will champion patient voice, ensuring experiences shape policy and practice, and will develop systems to monitor and report on trends, driving continuous improvement across the organisation.

Main duties of the job

• Provide strategic leadership for the patient experience function, ensuring statutory compliance with complaints responses and embedding a culture of learning from feedback to drive continuous improvement across the ICB and wider system.


• Oversee complaints and Freedom of Information functions, delivering
transparent, timely resolution and using insights to strengthen organisational accountability and inform board-level decisions.


• Harness patient experience intelligence to shape commissioning and service transformation, ensuring lived experience drives improvements in quality, equity, and outcomes.


• Collaborate with engagement teams and system partners to deliver meaningful consultations and co-production, fostering public trust and ensuring patient voice influences policy and strategic priorities.


• Develop and implement advanced reporting and analytics frameworks to monitor trends, identify risks, and influence strategic decisions, while representing the ICB in regional and national forums to share best practice and align with NHS priorities

Working for our organisation

We are committed to promoting equal opportunities to achieve equity of access, experience and outcomes and to recognising and valuing people’s differences. We are passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity; we see this as a strength and part of our founding mission, values and behaviours. We know through experience that different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative work environment that delivers patient outcomes.

We are committed to creating the best place to work, where your contribution is valued, your wellbeing is supported and all our colleagues can reach their full potential. We welcome and encourage applications from all areas of the community, who meet the criteria for the role, regardless of their protected characteristic. We work to ensure that our recruitment processes are as inclusive as possible to everyone, including making adjustments for people who have a disability or long-term condition and support with the recruitment process for people with lived experience.

We are happy to discuss flexible working options for all roles.

We operate a Carer friendly working environment that is supportive and inclusive. We actively encourage Carers to self-identify themselves.

We are a Disability Confident Employer and commit to shortlisting suitable applicants who meet the essential criteria for an interview. Please inform us of any adjustments you may require.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For further information on this role please see the job description and person specification attached.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • Educated to Masters level or extensive equivalent experience in a relevant field (e.g. health, care, public services, management, or related discipline).
  • Evidence of continuous professional development, with a track record of keeping skills and knowledge current.

Knowledge and Experience

Essential criteria
  • Significant experience at Senior Management within the NHS, public sector, or a comparable complex system
  • Expert in the statutory and regulatory responsibilities of correspondence, complaints and FOI handlings
  • Leadership experience in a complex, multi-agency environment, ideally within health and care commissioning.
  • Demonstrable success in delivering organisational change, transformation, and integration at scale.
  • Strong track record in delivery of strategic planning, commissioning, and/or system-wide service redesign to improve outcomes and value for money.
  • Experience of leading in a politically sensitive environment and balancing competing demands with diplomacy and sound judgement.

Skills

Essential criteria
  • Strong relationship-building and partnership-working capabilities, able to develop trust and credibility quickly across organisational boundaries
  • Highly developed analytical skills and the ability to interpret highly complex data to inform strategy, decision-making, and performance improvement.
  • Skilled in managing complexity and ambiguity, making sound decisions under pressure, and maintaining focus on long-term goals while managing immediate challenges

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Apprenticeships logoNo smoking policyMenopause Friendly EmployerPositive about disabled peopleAge positiveWorking towards the lived experience charter, career matters.Mindful employer.  Being positive about mental health.Disability confident employerHappy to Talk Flexible Working

Applicant requirements

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Dominic Woodward-Lebihan
Job title
Chief of Staff
Email address
[email protected]
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