Chief Nursing Officer

at  NHS Shropshire Telford and Wrekin Integrated Care Board

The Chief Nursing Officer will be the most senior nursing leader in the local health and care system. They will work collaboratively with system partners to deliver our Pledges and as part of the ICB Unitary Board will make a significant contribution to achieving the four main aims of the ICS.
This is an exciting opportunity to join our compassionate, inclusive, and values-driven organisation. As a key member of the Integrated Care Board and as part of our Executive team, you’ll have the opportunity to lead the clinical and professional community with a central focus on improving outcomes for the population that we serve.
NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin is going through a period of change as an organisation to ensure that we are fit for purpose and able to respond to the local challenges. As a leader in the organisation, you will support putting in place the new Operating Model and driving the creation of a workplace where everyone’s unique perspectives and talents are celebrated, and where compassion guides our actions every step of the way.
If you’re passionate about making a difference to local people, working in partnership to drive change and want to be part of a team that truly cares, apply now, and join us in shaping a health and care system that we can all be proud of.
This is an exceptional opportunity for an enthusiastic, energetic, compassionate, and inclusive Chief Nursing Officer to join our Integrated Care Board (ICB) leadership team. As the most senior nursing leader in the local health and care system, you will collaborate with system partners across both organisational and professional boundaries to lead and support delivery of the four ICS aims. Working closely with our Chief Medical Officer you will form a strong and unified clinical and professional team.
Leading our nursing, quality, safety, safeguarding, infection prevention control, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), continuing healthcare, and local maternity and neonatal system (LMNS) teams; you will support the development and delivery of our Joint Forward Plan.
The successful candidate will ensure that services and programmes reflect and support our partners at system, place, and neighbourhood levels. We are seeking an enthusiastic; strategic leader who is a champion for reducing inequalities with substantial experience within a Board or significant senior leadership experience within a regulatory environment. Confident and credible in leading highly complex and sometimes contentious quality improvement and transformation at scale, your clear and inspiring communication style will empower our system’s multi-professional workforce to transform our health and care landscape, improving the health and wellbeing of our populations now and the future.
Our Integrated Care System (ICS) footprint covers a large geographical area of 1,347 square miles and covers a population of around 500,000 people across the area of Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin. The ICS boundaries are coterminous with our two Local Authority footprints of Shropshire County Council and Telford and Wrekin Council. We have two acute hospitals, with services delivered by one acute trust, The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH). We also have a specialist orthopaedic hospital, Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (RJAH). Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust (SCHT) provide our community services, and mental health services are provided by Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (MPUFT) which covers Shropshire and Staffordshire. The region is served by the West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust (WMAS). Alongside this, our partnership includes our 51 GP Practices, social care services, and our diverse voluntary, community, and social enterprise sector.
The Chief Nursing Officer will take the lead in overseeing the quality of health services within the ICS including sharing intelligence and working with other key partners and regulators across and outside their system to improve quality of care and outcomes. They will be supported in this by the Chief Medical Officer and the wider senior clinical team. They will be the lead Director for the ICB Quality and Safety Committee and will be supported by senior clinical leads. The Chief Nursing Officer will attend NHS England Oversight meetings.
The Chief Nursing Officer is accountable for all matters relating to the relevant professional colleagues across the clinical and care workforce employed by the ICB. This includes designated accountability for statutory and non-statutory functions that the ICB will need to perform. This will include quality assurance and safeguarding.
The Chief Nursing Officer will provide system leadership for the Local Maternity System, with the Chief Medical Officer chairing the LMNS Board. The Chief Nursing Officer will have specific responsibility for the development of maternity services across STW in response to the independent maternity services review, with providers to drive quality and safety and improve outcomes.
The Chief Nursing Officer will, along with the Chief Medical Officer, have an influential executive role and shared accountability for the development and delivery of the long-term clinical strategy of the ICB, ensuring this reflects and integrates the strategies of all relevant partner organisations within the ICS.
The Chief Nursing Officer will, along with the Chief Medical Officer, will be accountable for providing high quality clinical and professional leadership of the ICB’s activities. This includes ensuring that clinical and care professional leadership is embedded at all levels of the ICS as set out in the Clinical and Care Professional Leadership Guidance.
The Chief Nursing Officer will be responsible for building partnerships and working with provider collaboratives, public health, local government, other partners, and local people to deliver better access, improvements in life outcomes and reductions in health inequity. Working closely with the Chief Medical Officer, the Chief Nursing Officer will be accountable for securing professional clinical and care leadership in delivery of the ICB’s objectives and form part of the wider network of clinical and care leaders in the region and nationally. With the ICB board, ensuring that population health management, innovation and research support continuous improvements in patient services including digitally enabled clinical and care transformation and the clinical and care elements of a sustainable People Plan for the ICS workforce.
Influencing and working collaboratively as part of a wider system to create opportunities to make sustainable long-term improvements to population health with key partners. This may include developing approaches which are non-traditional in nature, ambitious and wide reaching in areas which incorporate the wider determinants that have an impact on improving clinical outcomes, better life outcomes and reducing health inequalities for the population of the ICS.
Professionally accountable to the Regional Chief Nurse, the Chief Nursing Officer may from time-to-time be formally requested to act on behalf of NHS England on key performance, monitoring and accountability matters. This will include the identification of performance risks and issues related to the quality and safety of patient care and working with relevant providers and partners to enable solutions, and taking accountability for own practice, conduct and continuing professional development as a registered professional.
Our Opportunities and Challenges
Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin is a beautiful place to live and work, but there is more that we can do to improve people’s lives, tackle inequalities, and address the cause of loneliness, poverty and obesity. As a system we are committed to working ‘together as one’ to seek opportunities to work differently to join services up, maximise the opportunities of innovation and digital technology and ensure our environments are fit for our staff to deliver world-class modern-day health and care services. We are working in partnership across statutory and non-statutory health and care providers, through open and compassionate relationships; organising teams as locally as possible, and working with our communities, volunteers, and staff, to enable our populations to live healthier lives. Equally, our size enables us to be agile and fleet of foot in terms of decision making and delivery. However, there is a lot to do and there are some significant challenges for us to respond to.

We value and promote diversity and are committed to equality of opportunity for all and appointments made on merit. We particularly welcome applications from people who are from groups which are underrepresented at senior levels in the NHS and wider society, and we are a Disability Confident Employer.

• Stakeholder Panel Interviews for this role are scheduled for w/c 20 May but date to be confirmed
• Interviews for this role are scheduled for 23 May 2024

For a confidential discussion with Simon Whitehouse, Chief Executive Officer before applying for this role, please contact Claire Turner via claire.turner31@nhs.ne

Please refer the Job description for details