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Job summary

Main area
Finance
Grade
Band 8c
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Flexible working available)
Job ref
318-26-T0197
Employer
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Riverside House
Town
Cheltenham
Salary
£76,965 - £88,682 (pa pro rata if part-time)
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
08/04/2026 23:59
Interview date
23/04/2026

Employer heading

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust logo

Associate Director of Planning, Productivity & Costing, Band 8c

Band 8c

At Gloucestershire Hospitals, our people are at the heart of everything we do. As the county’s largest employer, we are proud to provide high-quality acute, elective, and specialist services to more than 650,000 people across our county. Our care is delivered across Gloucestershire Royal, Cheltenham General and Stroud Maternity Hospital.

With over 9,000 employees representing more than 95 nationalities, bringing together a mix of cultures and experiences to the care that we deliver. Whether you’re beginning your NHS journey or looking to take the next step in your career, this is an exciting time to join us. We’re investing heavily in innovation, research, and transformation, with more than 100 active clinical studies and major developments underway across our hospitals.

We take pride in working as one team, driven by a shared ambition to grow, develop, and continually improve. Every contribution is valued and by combining our collective strengths, we support not only our diverse communities but one another. You can expect a warm, supportive culture and colleagues who are passionate about teamwork, professional development and delivering exceptional care. We offer structured development programmes, mentoring and leadership opportunities to help you progress in your career.

We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where everyone feels they belong. By joining our Trust, you will benefit from a comprehensive package that includes flexible working opportunities, generous annual leave, the NHS pension scheme, competitive bank rates, local discounts, access to on-site nurseries, reduced public transport costs, reward and recognition schemes and a wide range of health and wellbeing initiatives.

Be part of Gloucestershire Hospitals, explore your future with us today.

Job overview

The primary purpose of this role is to provide effective support to the Trust in delivering financial sustainability and in the provision of accurate, timely, engaging information around financial sustainability and productivity.

This is an exciting, fast-paced role within a small productivity and efficiency team within finance. The team provides the assurance of the savings programme, alignment of savings targets, monitoring of the programme, provision of benchmarking tools and design and communication of up-to-date productivity information at all levels within the organisation, as well as providing the business planning rigour for the Trust.

The role is also responsible for the costing function of the Trusts ensuring that annual returns are accurately completed and using the outputs to support the development and usage of Service Line Reporting to help inform decision making across the Trust

Additional working pattern details: Flexible working available

The proposed interview date is: 23rd April 

Main duties of the job

Productivity and efficiency

The post holder’s primary focus will be on identifying areas for improvement and implementing best practices to achieve cost efficiencies without compromising the quality of patient care. The post holder will collaborate closely with senior leadership, service leads, and stakeholders to develop and execute comprehensive action plans that address financial, operational, and cultural challenges.


Planning

The post holder will lead the business planning process for the Trust, they will work across the professional leads to ensure all elements of the organisation proactively participates in the process.  The post holder will present updates and the final plan to the programme board and where necessary to sub committees of the Board and to the Trust Board. 

The post holder will be the key point of contact across the health system to ensure the Trust is proactively engaging in the system wide planning process.


Costing

The post holder will oversee the costing process for the Trust, working with the Head of Costing  to fulfil the annual costing returns and the use of Patient Level Costing information to develop and implement Service Line Reporting (SLR) across the Trust. They will work with operational professional leads to support understanding and use of costing and SLR information to support decision making. The post holder will present updates on costing and SLR to the Finance & Resources Committee as needed. 

Working for our organisation

We take pride in placing people at the centre of everything we do, working together as a united team. Driven by a shared ambition to continually grow, develop, and learn, we recognise and value every contribution. By combining our experience and skills, we not only support our vibrant, diverse communities, but also support one another.
With a team of over 9,000 employees, we are proud to be the largest employer in Gloucestershire and rank among the top 10 largest Trusts in the South West region. By joining our Trust, you will benefit from an excellent package that includes exclusive benefits, flexible working opportunities and the chance to gain valuable experience in one or both of our innovative hospitals.

As well as generous annual leave allowance, you will have access to the excellent NHS pension scheme, competitive bank rates, discounts at local shops and restaurants, access to two on-site nurseries, discounted public transport, reward and recognition and a range of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

1. Key Responsibilities

The post holder will take specific responsibility for day-to-day oversight of business planning

Day-to-day oversight of the Financial Sustainability Programme from a financial point of view.

Ensure the Trust has access to benchmarking, GIRFT and any other tools to help generate efficiency plans

Facilitate effective clinical and professional dialogue ensuring change is based on evidence and strong professional leadership

Lead the team to identify opportunities to enhance productivity and optimise operational efficiency across the organisation.

Develop the costing and SLR approach across the organisation ensuring that the outputs are used to inform decision making

Collaborate with divisional and directorate leads to identify opportunities for productivity improvement, performance and operational efficiencies across all areas of the Trust. This will include supporting colleagues to refine existing transformation and change plans to consolidate opportunities into robust plans, establishing and/or translating metrics and improvement analytics to add value and link with Trust established performance monitoring systems.

Lead the team and support Directors, General Managers, Clinical Leads and other colleagues with the development and implementation of initiatives that relate/contribute to productivity, efficiency and cost reduction

Collaborate with divisional leadership teams, directorate leads, clinicians, and other stakeholders to identify areas of inefficiency and waste and develop plans to deliver improvement opportunities.

Provide regular updates and reports to the Executive Team on the progress of the service change, productivity and efficiency plan, highlighting achievements, challenges, and recommended adjustments as needed

 

2. Professional Development, Education and Training

Professional knowledge acquired through degree or equivalent experience

Specialist knowledge acquired through post – graduate courses and/or experience to masters level

Leadership qualification or equivalent experience

Project management qualification or equivalent experience

Highly analytical and numerate

Evidence of continuing professional development

Member of a professional accountancy body e.g. ACA, CIMA, ACCA is essential

Proven experience in leading quality improvement initiatives   within healthcare settings

Formal training or certification in Quality Improvement   Methodologies e.g. IHI Model for Improvement, Lean, Six Sigma, or NHS Improvement QI training

 

3. Management and Leadership

Act as a senior role model for compassionate, inclusive and improvement-focused leadership.

Promote a culture that values learning, reflection, and the continuous pursuit of excellence.

Leverage external networks, partnerships and thought leadership to inform local innovation.

Work flexibly across the hospital and wider group to ensure resource is targeted where it can have greatest impact.

Lead with integrity and empathy, encouraging ownership, accountability, and professional growth.

Provide clear direction and day-to-day support to transformation team members and programme staff.

Line management responsibility for a multidisciplinary team, with a strong focus on individual development and performance.

Support staff development through coaching, structured feedback, and regular appraisals, tailored to individual needs.

Ensure that team members feel empowered to lead and innovate, with access to ongoing learning and professional development opportunities.

Promote a psychologically safe, inclusive and equitable working environment that supports wellbeing and fosters a culture of trust and collaboration.

Champion continuous improvement within the team, modelling curiosity, learning, and positive challenge.

Significant evidence of chairing and leading successful meetings

 
4. Planning and Organisation

Lead and support in the translation of national / local external planning requirements into GHFs annual plan

Lead the team to work across corporate services and divisions to ensure a signal and unified planning process encompassing finance, people, activity, operational and change / improvement elements

Proactively project-manage the design production of the Annual Plan by analysing the requirement and setting out and publicising the timeline for what needs to be done by whom and when.

Responsible for ensuring project documentation is of high quality and accurately recorded on relevant systems

Secure the input of senior staff from across the organisation into the planning process and make clear to them their expected contributions and the format they will be made in.

Analysis of highly complex and conflicting contributions to plans into a clear written style for the intended audience – Board, Executive team or commissioners.

Responsible for identifying any risks or issues ensuring mitigations are in place to monitor and resolve.

Ensure the Director for Finance and Planning who is the executive sponsor for plans, is briefed on progress and any difficulties. Ensure he or she signs off plans before submission.

With advice from the trust’s communications team to design active dissemination, providing written material and contributing directly to communications.

Present the planning process and plans verbally and in writing to various audiences including senior staff, other staff and service users.

Be aware of developing best practice in business planning across the NHS and social care.

Evaluate success of business planning process and content and make changes for future plans

 

5. Communications and Working Relationships

Lead, present and manage highly complex, sensitive and challenging and often contentious information to the organisation, where there may be significant barriers to acceptance/understanding.

Communicates service-related information to senior managers, staff, external agencies

Lead the development of the business planning programme to include workshops, seminars etc

Present confidently to large groups and public consultations/forums.

Demonstrate excellent report writing skills

Demonstrate the ability to persuade and negotiate when conflicting views need to be brought to a conclusion to achieve appropriate outcomes

 

6. Other

Analyse and interpret a range of highly complex qualitative and quantitative information gained from a wide range of sources such as performance metrics, financial reports and a range of other business intelligence

Able to create and utilise highly developed and complex analysis and judgement especially where opinion may be inconsistent.

Ability to consider qualitative and quantitative information to inform decision making

Provide timely, accurate and strategic reports on programme delivery to hospital leadership and Trust boards.

Manage a broad and complex workload effectively, adapting priorities in response to organisational needs.

Champion innovation, sustainability and high-value care in all areas of responsibility.

Contribute to personal and team development by sharing knowledge, mentoring others, and identifying learning opportunities.

Person specification

Qualifications, Knowledge and Experience

Essential criteria
  • Fully registered with accountancy body
  • NHS experience
  • Involvement in the planning cycle
  • Involvement in costing and SLR
  • Significant post qualification experience
  • Line management experience
Desirable criteria
  • NHS operational experience
  • Experience of leading programmes / initiatives
  • Leadership qualification or postgraduate qualification or equivalent including project mgt and process redesign
  • Use of productivity and benchmarking info
  • Experience of reporting and presenting to committees and large groups

Employer certification / accreditation badges

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Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Steve Perkins
Job title
Director of Operational Finance
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
07968 694581
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