General Manager

Job description

Job responsibilities

Main Duties and Responsibilities

To provide leadership and direction to the Diagnostic and Clinical Support Care Group, ensuring policies and procedures are developed and implemented to deliver clinical standards safely and effectively, ensuring performance targets are achieved within the allocated financial resources.

Accountable for the Care Group, working closely with the Clinical and Service Managers to ensure the service objectives are achieved.

Represent the Care Group at regional and partnership forums ensuring services are routinely benchmarked with the network.

Develop Care Group plans that ensures the service is delivered in line with the Trusts and Divisional Strategy and supports the Trusts strategy for High Performing Services

Communication

Communicate and receive highly complex, highly sensitive and at times contentious information, ensuring where there are barriers to understanding, information is provided in a format that supports understanding, is empathetic whilst maintaining the intention and context of the message.

As a member of the Divisional management team, attends and participates in divisional meetings, providing assurance with regards to the effective delivery of Diagnostic and Clinical Support services, acting as a conduit between the Care Group and the Divisional Directors and Senior Managers.

Communicate formally as and when required on behalf of the Care Group to the Division and Executive colleagues.

Communicates regularly with clinical and operational teams, ensuring their collective voice is heard and that concerns, ideas and suggestions are represented fairly and clearly.

Works collaboratively with the Service Managers, Clinical Director, Specialty Directors, Heads of Service and Clinical Service Managers, to ensure that services have a clear operational plan, communicated to all members of the Care Group.

Adapts appropriate communication skills, using persuasive and negotiating skills to achieve strategic objectives and to plan operational developments, including leading organisational change within the service.

Act as a patient/ staff advocate through the application of ethical, legal, and professional knowledge and skills. Provide support, empathy, and reassurance in the delivery of patient care.

Contributes to a supportive working environment in the interest of staff morale and patient care.

Develop external professional networks, which promote both the professions and the organisation.

Strategic

Develop strategic operational plans for the Care Group in collaboration with the Service Managers, Clinical Director, Specialty Directors, Heads of Service and Clinical Service Managers and clinical teams, ensuring consistency with the Trust Strategy.

Lead the annual planning round for the Care Group, overseeing the development of service plans and business cases that may be required, alongside the Service Managers, Clinical Director, Specialty Directors, Heads of Service and Clinical Service Managers.

Lead the implementation of service developments and service level agreements with the support of the Service Managers, Clinical Director, Specialty Directors, Heads of Service and Clinical Service Managers.

Planning and Organising Skills

Lead on service improvement projects or initiatives for the Care Group, overseeing the development of project plans, and delivery of individual projects, delegating to senior leads when appropriate.

Responsible for the interpretation, development and implementation of clinical and non-clinical policies pertaining to the Care Group, liaising with other agencies as appropriate.

Receive, manage, and analyse and interpret highly complex data, communicating findings to the Care Group and the Division.

Responsibility for patient/client care

Ensure the Care Group has a strategy for ensuring best use of clinical practice across all areas, ensuring that all clinical practice adheres to current legislation.

Ensure the Care Group has a policy to ensure continuous improvement and review of quality standards and has the competence to respond with appropriate plans when services fail to meet them consistently.

Ensure the Care Group has robust governance systems in place, with supporting programmes established within the team to monitor and deliver clinically effective high-quality services

Responsibility for policy/service development

Responsible for the identification and delivery of service development opportunities in order to achieve standards of best practice within the Care Group.

Ensure that research and development is facilitated within the Care Group.

Maintain personal familiarisation with national and local policy changes, that have the ability to affect the safe and effective operations within the Care Group.

Responsibility for Financial and Physical Resources

Responsible for Care Group budget, ensuring cost-effective use of resources, identify budget pressures as they arise and develop actions to address them which results in the delivery of a balanced budget.

Oversee the development of business cases within the Care Group to support the development or reconfiguration of services as and when required.

Responsible for ensuring the Care Group delivers its cost improvement programme alongside the Service Managers, Clinical Director, Specialty Directors, Heads of Service and Clinical Service Managers.

Authorised signatory for all claim sheets e.g., overtime, expenses, and general orders etc.

Responsible for advising the Division regarding the procurement of equipment, ensuring value for money, whilst ensuring the equipment meets the needs of services.

Responsibility for Human Resources

Provide effective leadership and management within the Care Group.

Ensure that departmental objectives and targets are achieved, acting where standards fail below the acceptable, enacting appropriate HR policies and procedures as required.

Responsible as per delegated responsibility for the investigation, case management and hearing of Employee Relation cases

Create a collaborative and positive workforce across the Care Group through effective engagement and objective setting.

Ensure that all staff are managed and developed within the Trusts HR Polices and procedures

To assess the implications of national initiatives affecting the workforce, such as Working Time Directive, and to develop and implement action plans which will ensure compliance with New Deal and Working Time Regulations.

To participate in developing the Trusts Strategy for Workforce Planning for the future and implementation of initiatives arising from it.

Implement innovative measures required to both retain and recruit staff in the short medium and long term.

Responsible for ensuring the Care Group achieves the Trusts Peoples measures in relation to sickness, recruitment, retention, and personal development reviews, taking corrective action where standards fall short of effective.

Responsible for ensuring the Care Group meets its obligations in relation to equality and diversity.

Responsible for ensuring all staff across the Care Group have effective annual performance reviews and corresponding personal development plans.

Responsible for risk management within the department ensuring the identification, reporting and action planning of risks and incidents, developing plans to minimize their impact on staff.

Responsibility for Information Resources

Responsible for ensuring the Care Group has effective policies and procedures to support the safe use and management of data and associated information resources, ensuring the principles of GDPR are embedded in Care Group practice; taking corrective action where standards fall short of effective.

Person Specification

Qualifications, Experience and Knowledge

Essential

• Education to degree level or equivalent
• Knowledge and understanding of a range of issues across the NHS and NHS patient agenda.
• Higher professional or management degree (Masters Level) or equivalent knowledge acquired by experience.
• Evidence of continuing professional development including regular attendance on internal and external study programmes.
• Extensive experience working at a senior management level in a large complex organisation preferably within the NHS.
• Previous experience of effective workforce planning and service developments
• Exposure to solving issues within a complex healthcare environment
• Recent experience of internal/external partnership working at a senior level
• Proven experience of effectively managing policy implementation and demonstrable service development work
• Experience of managing and developing multi- disciplinary teams
• Demonstrable experience at a senior management level, with clear evidence of responsibility for supporting operational delivery including clinical quality, people management, budget responsibility and successful delivery of performance targets within strict financial controls.
• Understanding and appreciation of diversity
• Key issues and pace of change facing the NHS nationally and locally, assess and describe impact on services.
• Principles and impact of the NHS Constitution
• Knowledge and understanding of computerised financial, management, budgetary management, and workforce information systems

Desirable

• Project Management experience
• Knowledge and understanding of governance arrangements and standards in the NHS and the wider health and social care economy

Skills

Essential

• Coaching & values led leadership style, encouraging engagement and empowerment amongst staff and stakeholders, and in developing high performing teams
• A high level of communication skills, to include but not exclusively, mediation, negotiation, consultation, facilitation, presentation, training and coaching skills using well developed interpersonal skills to influence, inform, reconcile differences and resolve conflicts.
• Solve problems, using a solution focused approach demonstrating competent persuasive and influencing skills
• Analyse detailed data and information, including preparing responses to issues, weighing risks and forming judgements often within tight timescales.
• Support business planning processes on behalf of the Care Group
• Coordinate Care Group activity to meet challenging performance targets within tight financial controls
• Implement agreed policy on behalf of the Care Group and ensure successful implementation
• IT literate and able to use standard office software and bespoke systems.
• Imaginative and innovative in developing new ways of working in meeting patient care and service needs
• Cope with competing priorities and a demanding workload
• Deal with uncertainty and complexity in a political environment
• Work in an environment with frequent interruptions, and within stressful, unpredictable situations including responding to and solving urgent and emergency situations day to day.

Desirable

• Demonstrate competent project management skills

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

Employer details

Employer name

Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Alder Hey Children's Hospital

Prescot

L145AB

Employer's website

https://alderhey.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)