Associate Director of Nursing and Quality in Manchester

Associate Director of Nursing and Quality

Band 8d

Main area Mental Health Grade Band 8d Contract Permanent Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week Job ref 437-8245230

Site Knowsley Building Town Manchester Salary £94,356 - £108,814 per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 07/09/2026 23:59

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join GMMH as an ADNQ. This post covers the portfolio for specialist services which comprises Children and Young People inpatient and community services, Perinatal Services, Early Intervention Teams, Homelessness and Addiction services as well as Talking Therapies, GM University, Deaf Mental Health, Specialist Psychology and Eating Disorder Services.

As Associate Director of Nursing and Quality (ADNQ) you will work in partnership with the Associate Director of Operations (ADO) and Associate Medical Director (MDO). Together you will ensure the effective leadership to support the requirements of the Care Group. You will need to be a strong leader with a mental health or learning disability nursing background who understands the challenges and strengths of working in these very specialist services to deliver care. You will have gravitas and demonstrate strong influencing and facilitation skills. As a senior leader for the profession, you will advocate for nursing and ensure the inclusion of clinical professions in the work of the care group trio. Strong relationships and inclusion of psychology and allied health professionals is a core requirement. You will need to be creative and flexible and participate in the future development of the Trust.

Main duties of the job

Please note that interviews will take place in person in Manchester.

As a member of the leadership team, the post holder is responsible for ensuring services within the Care Group comply with CQC registration requirements, national and local performance targets, annual business plan priorities and internal governance processes.
Working with the Chief Nurse and the leadership teams within the other CareGroups, the post holder will ensure people with lived experience and their carers have a strong voice in decision making and service development and will embed continuous improvement throughout all services to ensure service users and carers experience the best possible care.
The post holder is responsible for ensuring mechanisms are in place for employee involvement and engagement across the Care Group in order to develop an open and inclusive culture with a focus on employee health and wellbeing, equality and diversity.
The post holder is also jointly responsible for maximising the use of resources within the Care Group by leading on transformation priorities, service improvements, quality improvements and efficiency programmes.
Ensuring accountability and governance is in place within the Care Group and support delivery of the GMMH strategic objectives and statutory requirements.
The post holder will be a member of the GMMH Gold on-call rota.

Working for our organisation

Greater Manchester Mental Health (GMMH) Foundation Trust employs over 7000 members of staff, who deliver services from more than 122 locations.

We provide inpatient and community-based mental health care for people living in Bolton, the city of Manchester, Salford, Trafford and the borough of Wigan, and a wide range of specialist mental health and substance misuse services across Greater Manchester, the north west of England and beyond.

Greater Manchester is one of the world's most innovative, original and exciting places to live and work. From the beauty of the surrounding countryside to the heart of the vibrant inner city with great shopping, entertainment and dining options.

Wherever you go you will experience a great northern welcome with people famed for their warmth, humour and generosity.

Our people enjoy their work, have opportunities to learn and develop their skills and are encouraged to generate new ideas that improve care for our service users.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see attached job description and person specification

• 27 days annual leave plus bank holidays rising to 29 after 5 years and 33 days after 10 years

Person specification

Education / Qualifications

• Current RMN or RNLD Nursing
• Master’s degree in relevant subject
• Post graduate qualification in leadership and management or equivalent portfolio of experience
• Post graduate qualification in specialist nursing practice or equivalent experience
• Teaching qualification

Experience

• Extensive senior clinical management/professional leadership experience in a large complex NHS organisation.
• Evidence of success in the management of change in a multi-agency context.
• Evidence of delivering high quality clinical and nursing services.
• Experience of working in a multi-culturally sensitive clinical practice.
• Ability to lead/develop policies and procedures.
• Experience of managing organization-wide programmes of quality risk/service improvement.
• Ability to interpret national policy and design and implement complex strategies.
• Experience of leading development and implementation of governance assurance processes.
• Demonstrable record of successfully delivering valuer improvement programmes.
• Evidence of national presentations and publications.

Knowledge

• Advance knowledge of priorities in Health Care, quality and current clinical/professional issues.
• Understanding of National Strategies and their application for Nursing and Therapies.
• Expert knowledge of compliance, clinical governance, risk management, improving patient safety, experience and clinical effectiveness.
• Well-developed leadership and management skills.
• Excellent presentation skills.
• Ability to work across professional and organisational boundaries and experience of working with commissioners.
• Ability to work in partnership with a range of people including people who access our services and carers.

Skills and Abilities

• Ability to manage complex situations and provide a solution.
• Proven ability to consistently achieve results and challenging targets.
• Excellent report writing and data analysis skills.
• Proven ability to consistently achieve results and challenging targets.
• Excellent report writing and data analysis skills.
• Proven ability to lead improvement and audit activity through staff and service user/carer participation.
• Ability to hold others to account and manage demanding programmes of work.
• Values driven and self-aware.
• Proven leadership, influencing and negotiating skills with an open participative style.
• Ability motivate others and work under pressure and to tight deadlines.
• Able to deal both with multi-tasking in a complex environment as well as able to focus intense concentration on single issues for periods.
• Able to manage highly distressing or emotionally difficult information and situations and manage own emotions and be resilient.
• Professional and personal credibility.
• Strong team player willing to work flexibly.
• High effective interpersonal skills (able to communicate at any level of the organisation).
• Commitment to equal opportunity, fair access and people who access service carer empowerment.
• Ability to present complex information to different audiences.
• Ability to deal with highly sensitive situations a compassionate and caring manner.

Important Information about working for GMMH:All positions within the Trust are subject to satisfactory pre-employment checks, for further information on the checks required please visit the NHS Employers website www.nhsemployers.org

The Trust mandates all post holders who require a DBS for their role to subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £16 per year and maintain registration throughout your employment with GMMH.

Applicants are encouraged to apply for posts at Greater Manchester Mental Health who have direct experience of mental health, learning disability or drug and alcohol services either as a service user or a carer.

The Trust is also committed to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults and requires all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

We are aspiring to ensure our workforce is representative of the diverse communities that we serve, and we are strongly committed to removing barriers to employment for candidates from under-represented groups, for example BAME, Disabled and LGBT+ communities. If you would like to have an informal chat about the recruitment process for this role or would value some additional support, we’d love to hear from you.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) when writing job applications

A candidate may utilise the help of AI when writing job application.The assessment of an application is made on its entirety and most times AI-generated content does not fully grasp the context and requirements of the job one applies for thus producing inaccurate and misleading information, especially in the supporting statement section of an application that can lack real life examples of one’s achievements, success and challenges.

We have added a disclaimer to our application process advising that the use of AI is monitored. GMMH reserves the right to follow up with a candidate at the interview on specific responses and those examples used in the supporting statement to explore it further.

Sponsorship

We are proud to be an approved sponsor for the Skilled Worker visa. Applications from individuals who require sponsorship will be considered alongside all other applications. Please be aware that not all roles are eligible for sponsorship. You can review the list of eligible roles and salary requirements on the UK Government’s website – clickhere .

If you are offered a role with us and you require sponsorship, we will check your eligibility in line with the information on the above website. Your offer of employment could be withdrawn if the role is not eligible for sponsorship, and you are not otherwise able to evidence your right to work in the UK.

The Home Office introduces new changes from 22/07/2025 that impact the health and care sector, you may wish to familiarise with it here .

Do you have experience outside the NHS?

We want to attract and retain people with diverse skills and experience, to deliver inclusive healthcare services to our communities.

We will consider relevant experience outside the NHS to calculate your salary on appointment. Please contact our Recruitment Team for more information.

Please note, this vacancy may be closed at any time if sufficient applications have been received

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Name Hayley McGowan Job title Associate Director of Nursing and Quality Email address Hayley.Mcgowan@gmmh.nhs.uk Additional information

Salli Midgley

Chief Nurse

Salli.Midgley@gmmh.nhs.uk

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