Assistant General Manager (XN09) in Leeds

The Urgent Care Clinical Service Unit (CSU) at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is looking to appoint a highly motivated individual to the post of Deputy General Manager 8B. We are looking for an energetic, passionate and well-motivated individual with excellent organisational and interpersonal skills to join the Urgent Care CSU Management Team as a Deputy General Manager, managing multiple specialties.

Main duties of the job

In partnership with the Clinical Director and Head/Deputy Head of Nursing, the post-holder will be responsible for supporting the General Manager to provide operational and strategic business planning and leadership for the CSU and Trust. In partnership with the triumvirate team, the post-holder will support the performance of operational targets, local and national standards, as well as budgetary control across services within the CSU. As Deputy General Manager, the post-holder will be accountable to the General Manager and will be line manager to and responsible for a team of designated staff.

If you are looking for the opportunity to progress your career in operational management, this post offers you the opportunity to increase responsibilities in a varied role. You must be an experienced operational manager with excellent leadership skills and the ability to manage conflicting demands. You will have experience of financial management gained in an NHS setting, strong analytical skills and the ability to communicate confidently and effectively with staff at all levels. The successful post-holder will report to the General Manager.

Job responsibilities

The Deputy General Manager is a senior leader within the CSU. Their purpose is to plan and organise a broad range of complex activities or programmes, and other targets as determined by the triumvirate team. These programmes of work require the formulation and adjustment of plans or strategies that impact across multiple services throughout the CSU and in other CSUs and organisations.

The Deputy General Manager will support the General Manager, the Head of Nursing and the Clinical Director by providing a senior general management resource, capable of co-ordinating CSU-wide projects and initiatives, delivery of business, workforce and financial planning across the CSU as well as handling ad hoc issues delegated by the CSU triumvirate team. They will make judgements involving highly complex facts or situations, which require the analysis, interpretation and comparison of a range of options.

The Urgent Care CSU functions as one of the more complex units in Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and the CSU encompasses Leeds General Infirmary Emergency Department, Paediatric Emergency Department, St James Hospital Emergency Department, Same Day Emergency Care service, Acute Medicine services, Remote Monitoring Virtual Ward, Primary Care Access Line and Bed Board services. The CSU employs over 800 WTE members of staffing ranging from medical, nursing, business & other admin staff and AHPs. The CSU has an expenditure budget of £60 million and income budget of £74 million.

Working to uphold The Leeds Way the post holder will:

• Be accountable for leading and managing the management teams of the CSU, developing and implementing local strategic plans and ensuring achievement of performance objectives.
• Work with the Triumvirate Team to provide operational business management and planning support across all specialties within the CSU in order that the CSU contributes its part to the Trust's ambition and contributes to the delivery of Trust objectives.
• Deputise for members of the CSU triumvirate team as appropriate.

Financial and resource management

• Management of pay and non-pay budgets, ensuring a balanced financial position.
• Responsible for ensuring robust processes are in place to record and code activity within the CSU, ensuring income is received.
• Operationally manage the income and expenditure systems of the services including ensuring activity is recorded and day to day expenditure is managed.
• Lead the CSU Waste Reduction Programme.
• Support the Service and Business Managers in ensuring the CSU delivers a financial performance in line with the Trust's agreed financial plan and to actively explore and implement opportunities for cost improvement and waste reduction.
• Lead the management of the CSU's provider to provider service contracts, ensuring that activity is reported in a timely and accurate way, that systems are in place to record service performance, that contract variations are appropriately documented and authorised and that payments are signed off.
• Provide regular reports to the CSU General Manager / Clinical Director with assurance that appropriate follow up actions will be completed.
• Identify performance objectives, develop and operate effective reporting arrangements with the CSU to accurately record and monitor performance against local and national targets and to pro-actively manage any variances, developing action plans and ensuring compliance.
• Work with the Management Leads and Clinical Leads to rectify any blockages to performance especially where this impacts other CSUs or health care delivery.

Planning and strategy

• Develop challenging service development strategies for / within the CSU.
• Leads the development of business cases whether for changes to service, new equipment or new posts.
• Lead the production of the CSU's annual business plan and longer term strategic plan, engaging with Clinical Leads, senior managers and staff, as appropriate.
• Challenge existing practices, ensuring that progressive solutions, which take into account models of best practice, are incorporated into service plans.
• Ensure that all income required to support delivery of the service is identified and secured.
• Responsible for ensuring that local and national policies are properly and consistently interpreted and implemented within the CSU.
• Negotiate Service Level Agreements with external agencies.
• Work with Service and Business Managers to identify business development opportunities, arising from changes in the internal/external environment or innovation. Pursue and secure contractual agreements to underpin these.
• Work closely with other CSUs/corporate services in the Trust to ensure delivery plans are compatible and to maximise opportunities for more efficient ways of working across the wider organisation.
• Support clinicians to deliver service re-design projects; to deliver improved clinical outcomes for patients, reduced waiting times and more efficient use of resources and expenditure.
• Support the Service and Business Managers in the development and preparation of business cases and cases of need.
• Identify a positive marketing strategy plan and evaluate other external communication that represents the CSU.
• Provide coaching and support to Service and Business Managers, supporting appraisal.
• Co-ordinate bids against the Trust's annual Capital Programme, including those for medical and surgical equipment, IT etc.
• Leads the production and regular review of the CSU's Major Incident Plan, Business Continuity Plan and Winter Plan.
• Promote a culture where health and safety, governance and risk management are seen to be everyone's responsibility.
• Help ensure that patient safety is at the centre of service planning, analysis and delivery.
• Promote clinical information for benchmarking and audit to improve patient experience, sharing with teams and supporting actions arising from this information.

Programme management

The post holder will manage a number of complex projects which involve all of the departments and functions of the CSU. This will entail the creation and management of project teams, the development of project initiation documents and project plans, the maintenance of a project risks and issues log, the regular reporting of progress to the CSU senior management team and Trust Directors and the on-going liaison with and co-ordination of CSU Service and Business Managers regarding implementation.

Staff management

• Deputise for the General Manager, as directed.
• Line management of the CSU Service and Business Managers.
• Oversee and enable the functioning of strong specialty triumvirate management teams.
• Ensure regular and effective appraisal and personal development planning for managed CSU staff.
• Develop management capability within the team, providing supervision, coaching and mentorship to others and supporting managers in this process.
• Responsible for ensuring that conduct, poor performance/capability/staff attendance and grievance issues are addressed within the CSU in line with Trust policy.
• Regularly support review of non-clinical administrative workforce of the Services, with service leads, to ensure the right numbers and the right level of knowledge skill and expertise to deliver services in the most effective and efficient way.
• Promote a culture where staff feel empowered and accountable for service improvement at local level.
• Working with HR Business Partners and training teams, ensure that all managed staff in the CSU receive appropriate training and on-going development to enable them to competently and safely fulfil their roles.
• Promote learning opportunities in a wide range of formats to improve multi-disciplinary and flexible working, including staff who work at night.
• Ensure that all managed staff meet their statutory and mandatory training requirements.
• Support the Services in providing opportunities for talent to be developed to ensure the Services continue to improve.
• Promote a culture of lifelong learning, engagement and success.

Policy development and implementation

The post holder will be responsible for developing policies and procedures that are applicable to the whole CSU. These will include, for example, policies on HR, Health and Safety, Major Incident response and Business Continuity. To comply with all Trust policies, procedures and practices and to be responsible for keeping up to date with any changes to these.

Information

The post holder will regularly write reports and papers for the CSU senior management team. These may require the querying of corporate databases such as PAS, PPM, Theatre Pro, Datix and Informatics Reports for statistics.

Research and development

Help the cost-effective implementation of the Trust's Research Strategy, provide support to clinical and other service audits. Ensure teaching, training and development of research and development are supported in business plans. The post holder will agree with the General Manager a series of key results but will have a significant degree of discretion in deciding how to achieve those objectives. The post holder will work to the objectives specified in their Standard Work, and work with the General Manager and Service Managers to keep this Standard Work relevant and up to date. They will be guided by NHS and Trust principles, and Trust and CSU policies as well as the Urgent Care Strategy. Guidance will be provided on request by the General Manager and other members of the CSU triumvirate.

Person Specification

Experience

• Significant experience of successful leadership skills.
• Understanding and application of service improvement techniques.
• A range of management disciplines and legislation relevant to job e.g. H&S, HR.
• Successful operational management at a middle/senior management level.
• Personal resilience and ability to prioritise work to meet challenging deadlines.
• Managing multi-stranded situations where there may be conflicts of opinions involving a wide range of stakeholders.
• Ability to make judgements and decisions leading to resolution through effective negotiation/problem solving.
• Strong analytical skills; literacy, IT and numeracy skills with the ability to produce a range of documents or presentations for a wide variety of audiences.
• Sound understanding of NHS priorities, including National, Local and Trust Targets.
• Sound financial management.
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills.

Skills & Behaviours

• Maintain and promote positive working relationships with others.
• Takes decisions in a transparent and inclusive way.
• Promotes a culture of equality, mutual respect and diversity.
• Ability to use Microsoft Office.
• Advanced report writing skills.
• Developed communication and facilitation skills.

Qualifications

• Educated to Masters level e.g. professional health service qualification or equivalent experience.
• Managerial qualification to diploma level or equivalent experience.
• Evidence of on-going professional development.
• Willingness to undertake training and development as identified through the Personal Development Planning process.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.