Head of System Child Health

We are Central East ICB, the new organisation entrusted with serving more than 3.5 million people across Bedfordshire, Luton, Milton Keynes, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and Hertfordshire. We are responsible for making sure that the NHS can continue to support our community – now, and in the future. Everything we do will be guided by our core purpose: to do what best serves the population of this area. We promise to focus on what makes the biggest difference to people’s lives – acting earlier to help prevent illness and detect disease and making it easier for our community to get the health care they need, closer to home, whenever that’s possible.

The Complex Care Team provides strategic oversight to ensure the Integrated Care Board (ICB) meets its statutory responsibilities for non-commissioned packages of care, including Section 117 aftercare. The team ensures compliance with relevant legislation, delivers effective governance and case management, and works with partners to provide safe, lawful and person-centred care for individuals with complex needs, while maintaining oversight of quality, risk, outcomes and expenditure.

The Senior Lead for Children’s Complex Care provides operational leadership and governance for children’s complex care services across the ICB. The postholder ensures compliance with statutory and NHS requirements, translates strategic priorities into operational delivery, and oversees performance, quality, risk and service improvement. Working with health, local authority, education and voluntary sector partners, the role strengthens integrated working, supports transition planning into adulthood, contributes to commissioning activity and leads senior staff. The postholder acts as the key link between strategy and delivery, ensuring high-quality, equitable and sustainable services for children and young people with complex needs.

Main duties of the job:

• Lead, manage, and coordinate a portfolio of services or programmes, ensuring effective delivery against agreed priorities.
• Support the Associate Director and Director in implementing strategies that improve outcomes, quality, and efficiency.
• Provide visible and inclusive leadership, promoting a culture of collaboration, improvement, and accountability across teams and partners.
• Communicate effectively with a wide variety of stakeholders and teams, including highly complex and sensitive information, and respond to scrutiny of plans.
• Contribute to system integration and transformation by working across organisational boundaries and supporting the development of sustainable, person-centred services.
• Provide senior operational leadership for all children’s complex care pathways.
• Ensure compliance with Children’s Continuing Care, SEND Code, Children Act and MCA (16–17).
• Oversee governance, quality, risk, and performance for children’s complex care.
• Provide expert oversight for high-risk or legally complex cases and decisions.
• Lead service development, improvement programmes and pathway redesign.
• Manage and support senior staff (8B/7) and drive workforce capability.
• Lead partnership working with local authorities, education, and health providers.
• Support commissioning and market-shaping for specialist children’s care.
• Provide senior oversight for transitions into adulthood.
• Produce high-quality operational and assurance reports for senior committees.

We are committed to promoting equal opportunities to achieve equity of access, experience and outcomes and to recognising and valuing people’s differences. We are passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity; we see this as a strength and part of our founding mission, values and behaviours. We know through experience that different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative work environment that delivers patient outcomes.

We are committed to creating the best place to work, where your contribution is valued, your wellbeing is supported and all our colleagues can reach their full potential. We welcome and encourage applications from all areas of the community, who meet the criteria for the role, regardless of their protected characteristic. We work to ensure that our recruitment processes are as inclusive as possible to everyone, including making adjustments for people who have a disability or long-term condition and support with the recruitment process for people with lived experience. We are happy to discuss flexible working options for all roles. We operate a Carer friendly working environment that is supportive and inclusive. We actively encourage Carers to self-identify themselves. We are a Disability Confident Employer and commit to shortlisting suitable applicants who meet the essential criteria for an interview. Please inform us of any adjustments you may require.

Person specification:

• Leadership experience in a complex, multi-agency environment, ideally within health and care commissioning.
• Demonstrable success in delivering organisational change, transformation, and integration at scale.
• Clear and effective communication and influencing skills, with the ability to convey complex issues clearly and persuasively to diverse audiences.
• Strong relationship-building and partnership-working capabilities, able to develop trust and credibility quickly across organisational boundaries.
• Educated to Masters level or extensive equivalent level of experience in a relevant field (e.g. health, care, public services, management, or related discipline).
• Evidence of continuous professional development, with a track record of keeping skills and knowledge current.
• Significant experience at Senior Management (sub board) within the NHS, public sector, or a comparable complex system.
• Registered Health or Social Care Professional and/or relevant commissioning experience within complex care.
• Strong track record in delivery of strategic planning, commissioning, and/or system wide service redesign to improve outcomes and value for money.
• Experience of leading in a politically sensitive environment and balancing competing demands with diplomacy and sound judgement.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults, and expect all staff to undertake this commitment. Applicants will be subject to robust safer recruitment processes. All eligible staff will need to have gained clearance through a standard/enhanced DBS check prior to working. All posts are subject to a probationary period.