Chief Financial Officer in Plymouth

University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust is the largest acute provider in the south west peninsula, and we are seeking an experienced and credible finance leader to become our new Chief Finance Officer. From Derriford Hospital we provide secondary care to a population of around 450,000 people in Plymouth, west Devon and south east Cornwall, and specialist services, including major trauma, cancer, cardiothoracic surgery, neurosurgery and transplantation, to a peninsula population approaching two million. We are a teaching trust working closely with the University of Plymouth and its medical and dental schools, and one of six centres used by the Defence Medical Services.

As our new Chief Finance Officer, you will join the Board as a voting executive director at a demanding and consequential time for the Trust and for the wider Devon system. We are currently in segment 4 of the NHS Oversight Framework, our recovery requires cost improvement at significant scale, and the credibility of our planning and forecasting is central to restoring confidence in the organisation. You will bring rigour and pace to that work while keeping the quality and safety of care for a population that has no realistic alternative provider as the focus of everything you do.

You will also arrive at a moment of genuine change. We went live with Epic in July 2026, joining Royal Devon and Torbay and South Devon on a single shared electronic patient record for Devon through the One Devon EPR programme, and your immediate priorities will include protecting income capture and clinical coding through stabilisation before turning that investment into measurable productivity. Construction is well underway on the £247 million Emergency Care Building at Derriford, the first Wave 1 scheme in the national New Hospital Programme to begin main construction and due to open in 2028/29, with the Programme Director for our Future Hospital reporting to you. The £22 million Plymouth Community Diagnostic Centre opens this year in one of the most deprived wards in the country.

You will hold executive accountability for financial strategy, long term planning, income and contracting, cost improvement, capital investment and audit, and also for procurement and commercial strategy, business intelligence and corporate assurance, and our site services portfolio covering estates, facilities, security, portering, catering and waste. Your ability to make finance a trusted partner to clinical and operational colleagues is as important as your technical experience.

Beyond the Trust, you will play a significant system leadership role, working with NHS Devon ICB, Royal Devon, Torbay and South Devon, Livewell Southwest and wider partners on shared financial planning and on the financial case for how services across the peninsula are configured.

We are seeking a qualified accountant with a strong track record at, or immediately below, board level in a large and complex organisation, and we are genuinely open about where you come from. You may be a group or site finance director in a large NHS trust, a deputy chief finance officer ready for a first statutory board appointment, a serving chief finance officer seeking a broader and more complex remit, or a senior finance leader from another heavily regulated sector. We are most interested in your judgement under scrutiny, your confidence in giving the Board an honest account when it is unwelcome, and a personal commitment to the values and purpose of the NHS.

This is a high profile and influential appointment. In joining University Hospitals Plymouth you will work alongside a committed Board and executive team, and you will have the opportunity to make a lasting and positive difference to the health of people across Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall.

We are committed to increasing the diversity of our Board to reflect the communities we serve. We therefore particularly welcome applications from groups currently underrepresented at Board level, and we are happy to discuss reasonable adjustments at any stage of the process.

If you are interested in this important appointment, Alumni Global is supporting the Trust on the process. For a confidential discussion please get in touch with Thomas Patterson, Managing Director, on 07970 339 151 or thomas.patterson@alumniglobal.com.