Job overview

Are you a dynamic and experienced healthcare leader ready to make a significant impact? Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust is seeking an exceptional an experienced outcome focused operational leader with good knowledge of acute healthcare services, who can demonstrate leadership skill within Cancer & Diagnostics and deliver improvements in elective care performance to support better patient outcomes and experience.   

In this pivotal role, you will work closely with the Divisional Director for Cancer & Diagnostics, leading the operational delivery of elective and cancer care standards, diagnostics, and outpatient services. You will also deputise for the Divisional Director and represent the Trust at internal and external forums, including ICS and national meetings.

Main duties of the job

Key Responsibilities and outcomes include:

• Lead and manage the Trust’s Referall to Treatment (RTT), Cancer Elective Access and Outpatient Booking teams.

• Drive Trust-wide performance improvement across elective and cancer pathways.

• Support strategic planning and transformation aligned with Trust objectives.

• Oversee delivery of national access standards and performance frameworks.

• Collaborate with clinical and corporate teams to enhance service quality and efficiency.

• Champion innovation, continuous improvement, and patient-centred care.

The successful candidate will posess and be able to demontrate:

• Master’s degree or equivalent experience.
• Significant senior NHS management experience.
• Proven leadership in RTT and non-RTT pathways.
• Strong financial, operational, and performance management skills.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and stakeholder engagement abilities.

Working for our organisation

We provide emergency and non-emergency services to East Surrey, North-East West Sussex, and South Croydon residents, including the major towns of Crawley, Horsham, Reigate and Redhill, a community of over 535,000 people. We provide acute and complex services and outpatient and diagnostic services. In addition, Crawley Hospital and Horsham in West Sussex and Caterham Dene Hospital and Oxted Health Centre in Surrey provide less complex planned services. In 2019 the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated our services as ‘Outstanding’, and we are one of the best-performing Trusts in England:

• Winners of Health Service Journal Acute Trust of the year award 2021
• National Patient Safety Awards winner and strive to be a beacon for safety in all we do.
• We are in the top 20% nationally for staff recommending the Trust as a place to work or receive treatment.
• Our staff rate us the best in the country among comparable acute trusts when asked if they would recommend the Trust as a place to work and whether patient care is the organisation’s top priority.
• Our workforce is amongst the most motivated in the country; we achieved the top acute hospital score in the country for staff engagement in the last national staff survey.