Associate Director of Operations in Manchester

The Associate Director of Operations for the specialist care group will work alongside an Associate Medical Director and an Associate Director of Nursing and Quality as a Trio to deliver safe and effective services. The Trio works closely with the leads for psychological professions and allied health professionals. The specialist care group covers services for:

• Children & Adolescent
• Inpatient & Community
• Early intervention services
• University services
• Addictions & Homelessness
• Deaf Mental Health
• Neurodiversity and LD
• Talking therapies
• Military Veterans
• Specialist psychology
• Eating disorders
• Perinatal

Main duties of the job include ensuring financial stability and robust performance management to meet national and local targets, while supporting the Trust’s strategic and business plans. The role involves contributing to continuous improvement, service development across Greater Manchester, and deputising for the Chief Operating Officer where required. Strategic responsibilities focus on implementing service redesigns, developing business cases, and identifying opportunities for new or expanded services in line with Trust priorities. The postholder also leads or contributes to service reviews and major projects, utilising specialist knowledge and analytical skills.

The role requires effective communication and positive collaboration with internal and external stakeholders, ensuring policies and procedures are followed, and representing the Trust at external forums. The Associate Director is also responsible for promoting service user, carer, and staff involvement in service development, and for ensuring strong on-call and escalation arrangements.

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.

Staff benefits include:

• 27 days annual leave plus bank holidays rising to 29 after 5 years and 33 days after 10 years
• Excellent pension
• Cycle to work scheme
• Salary sacrifice car scheme
• Wellbeing programme
• fuelGenie Fuel Cards (for applicable roles)

Essential criteria include a relevant health or social care qualification at degree level or relevant/ equivalent experience, significant track record of employment at a senior operational level delivering mental health services, considerable experience in operational leadership roles, and evidence of leading service change with colleagues. Desirable criteria include experience of working in partnerships with other organisations to deliver services with a wide range of stakeholder working partnerships.

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.