Strategy Manager

Job responsibilities

The post-holder will have the following responsibilities aligned to seven key domains: leadership capabilities; staff development and wellbeing; programme management and delivery; strategic acumen; health sector knowledge and experience; technical skills; and relationships and stakeholder engagement:

Leadership capabilities

Support regular team briefings on ICS strategies and priorities ensuring all staff know how they contribute to the business.

Contribute to the development of a highly effective strategy team that is focused on developing high-quality strategies that support the ICBs and ICS key objectives.

Liaise effectively with wider ICS stakeholders and act as an ambassador for the ICB strategy team.

Use open communication and provide constructive feedback to colleagues at all levels and support the building of strong relationships and effective teams.

Staff development and wellbeing

Support, motivate and inspire team members, and invest time in two-way coaching.

Complete statutory and mandatory training required for this specific role, within the mandated timeframe.

Contribute to mechanisms to support and improve the health and wellbeing of the strategy team.

Develop and continually refine career development objectives aligned to the responsibilities of the strategy team.

Programme management and delivery

Provide high-quality project management and support to ensure that the assigned project(s), tasks and activities are led, planned, managed and delivered effectively through the use of processes such as: delivery plan, risk and issue management, governance, reporting, change management, and dependency management.

Prepare detailed programme and project plans and undertake accurate and timely reporting of progress against plan.

Produce and update key documents including programme plans, programme risk and issue logs, preparing risk reports, progress reports, and dependency logs.

Attend and coordinate team meetings, supporting forward agenda planning, coordinating contributions to papers, preparing papers and presentations, and ensure that minutes and actions are noted and tracked as appropriate.

Organise, curate and regularly updated a central repository of policy information, research, reports, data, tools, etc. that the strategy team can use on a day-to-day basis to undertake their responsibilities.

Support annual and longer-term planning processes, in line with the strategy teams four key responsibilities.

Manage the teams financial activities (e.g. contracting, payment of invoices to suppliers, etc.) and ensure compliance with standing orders and standing financial instructions in the discharge of this responsibility.

Develop systems and frameworks to effectively monitor programme delivery and to support future strategic developments.

Support the development and tracking of a suite of KPIs, and associated targets and trajectories to track progress and support the ICS in the delivery of its four objectives. KPIs should track productivity and value for money, impact on inequalities, care quality and access, and outcomes.

Strategic acumen

Support the strategy team to develop strategies, as required.

Employ robust strategic frameworks developed by the strategy team.

Support the strategy team in the development of robust evidence-bases for each strategy.

Research and gather quantitative and qualitative information from a variety of internal and external sources.

Collate qualitative and quantitative information and data from a broad array of sources that are often conflicting.

Support the strategy team perform their financial responsibilities, including assessing the current value for money of services, assessing the effectiveness of current spend, and developing proposals for how money could be spent more effectively.

Critically interrogate the validity, suitability and limitations of information.

Synthesise detailed information into clear, useful, and robust insights.

Health sector knowledge and experience

Support the strategy team in research & development (R&D) activities, including monitoring services and their under/over-performance, and proposing new models of care.

Undertake research related to national and international health policy, health economics, good practice and academic research.

Maintain awareness of good practice and development across the NHS, for example, by participating in share and learn activities.

Promote the adoption of best practice to support the delivery of service transformation in line with ICS thinking.

Keep up-to-date with NHS and wider relevant policies and guidelines, summarising these as appropriate for a wider audience.

Technical skills

Interrogate and interpret data and information with a critical eye, simplify analyses, and provide key, easily digestible insights to suit a wide audience.

Support the analysis of data and leverage strong quantitative skills to produce strategic analyses such as benchmarks against peers, forecasts, and analysis of historic trends and patterns.

Develop and implement data collection systems and processes that will provide accurate and timely data.

Become familiar with the wide array of health and social care data held internally, by external partners, and in the public domain.

Respond to analytical requests within tight timescales, whilst keeping work to a high standard.

Prepare clear and concise presentations, papers and reports for a wide variety of audiences that include a diverse array of information, including charts, tables, policy information, direct quotes, and other sources of information.

Prepare effective communications (through a mixed-media approach) for senior management, clinical professionals, patients, and the public.

Use Microsoft Office software packages such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and Word to their fullest extent.

In particular, develop slides with clear messages that are reinforced and supported by accompanying data and other evidence.

Synthesise lengthy reports, policies, and similar information into concise key messages to suit a wide range of stakeholders.

Relationships and stakeholder engagement

Participate in relevant internal and external working groups or projects to provide information and analytical advice and expertise.

Work in an integrated manner with programmes, borough-based partnerships, provider collaboratives, corporate functions, and people with lived experience to co-design and transform services thereby building formal and informal networks.

Maintain clear and effective lines of communications with each of these teams at all levels.

Support collaborative working across NWL ICS organisations and with other key organisations, including NHS England and local healthcare providers.

Work closely and effectively with internal and external partners including residents, service users, carers, and providers of services.

Work flexibly within the strategy team and wider and undertake additional duties as appropriate.

Support interviews, focus groups and workshops and communicate effectively with a highly diverse set of stakeholders.

Personal values

Highly motivated - prioritise, plan for and complete tasks proactively, with minimal supervision.

Passionate about improving healthcare services and outcomes for the residents of NWL.

Promote an open, collaborative, and effective working culture that embraces diversity of thought and debate.

Uphold high standards for quality, accuracy, and clarity of message.

Organisational values: Inequalities

Ensure strategies, plans and services are developed and provided in a way that provides equal access and care for all our residents.

Promote co-production approaches where residents views actively shape service and care provision and drive measurable transformation for residents.

Use data and information to actively review and monitor the impact of services and decisions on our diverse population, taking action where necessary to ensure greater equality of impact.

Ensure Equality Health Impact Assessments (EHIA) are proactively undertaken for all service developments.

Promote a culture that embraces equality and strives continuously to reduce inequality in for all NW London residents and staff.

Technical Skills

Essential

• Strong technical ability in analysing strengths and challenges, developing solutions, and relaying messages to diverse audiences.
• The ideal candidate will have:
• Ability to analyse highly complex issues where both qualitative and quantitative information is derived from a broad array of sources and is often conflicting.
• Ability to formulate clear, useful insights by collating, critically interrogating, and effectively combining quantitative and qualitative information.
• Ability to develop written materials that convey complex, technical concepts in a clear, easily-digestible manner to suit a wide range of audiences from residents, to operational staff, to senior healthcare executives.
• Experience in using Microsoft PowerPoint and slides to articulate a strategy telling a story through the use of clear key messages and robust evidence to reinforce and support the story.
• Ability to analyse data and produce strategic analyses, such as (but not limited to) benchmarks against peers, forecasts, and analyses of historic trends.

Personal Values and Alignment to Organisational Values

Essential

• Strong personal motivations to create a sustainable, equitable and high quality health and care system for the residents and communities of North West London.
• The ideal candidate will also have personal values that align to the values of North West London ICB, including:
• Confident and positive approach to work.
• Ability to prioritise tasks, problem solve, and then complete those tasks under minimal supervision.
• Agile, with the ability to adapt as required to re-prioritise and complete other tasks based on wider need.
• Strong commitment to continuous personal development.
• Commitment to high-quality, rigorous outputs, with strong attention to detail.
• Strong emotional intelligence.
• Embodies collaborative spirit in working towards a common goal.
• Inquisitive and willing to explore new ideas and innovation.
• Lives by the values of openness and integrity and has experience supporting cultures where this thrives.
• Strong commitment to equality and diversity

Relationships and Stakeholder Engagement

Essential

• Experience in engaging and building meaningful relationships with a range of internal and external stakeholders.
• The ideal candidate will have:
• Ability to plan for and facilitate workshop events with a large-scale audience (up to 100 people), that includes senior management, clinical professionals, and patients.
• Ability to present and convey complex concepts in an easy-to-understand manner to suit a wide range of audiences from residents, to operational staff, to senior healthcare executives.

Programme Management and Delivery

Essential

• Strong programme management and delivery skills, with the ability to utilise best-practice programme management techniques to plan over short, medium and long-term timeframes, and adjust plans and resource requirements accordingly.
• The ideal candidate will have:
• Experience assessing risks to project delivery, suggesting mitigations to those risks, and escalating as appropriate.
• Experience tracking the implementation and success of change programmes through collating information, and developing and reporting KPIs.
• Experience mapping, tracking, and communicating with stakeholders in a complex landscape with multiple organisations.
• Robust project management training and qualification, with experience putting these skills into practice.
• Experience in planning and managing short-term strategic projects (3 to 6 months), including stakeholder mapping, regular reporting, risk management, and general administrative tasks.
• Experience preparing for and running daily/weekly/monthly progress meetings and strategy development groups, including developing agendas, circulating papers, preparing minutes, recording actions, etc.

Strategic Acumen

Essential

• Strong problem solving and strategic thinking ability.
• The ideal candidate will have:
• Ability to think strategically and see the bigger picture in the context of achieving a particular objective.
• Ability to problem solve and formulate hypotheses in relation to a particular problem.
• Ability to think creatively about solving a particular problem through own analysis / research.
• Ability to work effectively on a combination of strategic and operational projects and activities.

Qualifications

Essential

• Undergraduate degree or equivalent experience in a related field.

Experience

Essential

• Significant experience working in the healthcare sector.
• The ideal candidate will have:
• Strong understanding of the NHS, including how its organised, policy developments, and the wider political and financial environment that it operates in.
• Strong understanding of the wider health industry, including the historic context, and future trends and challenges.

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).