Head of Healthcare Planning

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The NHS offers many different roles, in different settings, with different ways of working, within hundreds of organisations.

This creates a unique opportunity for people who want a varied, flexible and challenging career within a world-class culture.

Job overview

As the Head of Healthcare Planning, you will assist the Transformation Integration Director in the design and build of a team of subject matter experts, which has flexibility and relevance for the life of the programme. Together with the Transformation Integration Director, you will develop a learning culture in the team to enable iterative plan development to enhance the patient environment in the New Hospital Programme.

The post holder will oversee and contribute to a wide range of Healthcare Planning (HCP) activities, with a particular focus on demand and capacity (D&C) planning. This role requires a background in a numerate field, ideally with skills in IT or informatics to support the analytical demands of the position.

Main duties of the job

As the Head of Healthcare Planning, you will oversee a broad spectrum of Healthcare Planning (HCP) activities, with a primary focus on demand and capacity (D&C) planning. Leveraging your expertise in a numerate field, ideally with IT or informatics skills, you will drive the analytical rigor required to support strategic healthcare planning and inform key decision-making processes.

Strategic Design and Development Oversight

In this role, you will lead design integration across healthcare projects, ensuring that all Healthcare Planning activities align with overarching project goals. You will spearhead collaborative planning to meet clinical and operational needs, optimizing design efficiency and compliance with healthcare standards.

Technical and Portfolio Oversight

• Provide strategic leadership across key workstreams within the NHP portfolio, ensuring projects deliver safe, patient-centered, and purpose-fit designs.
• Partner with technical assurance and EFM teams to drive design efficiencies, affordability, and adherence to project briefs.
• Coordinate with internal and external task teams, including contractors, architects, suppliers, and clinical groups, to streamline the design and approval process.

Health Planning Development and Strategic Review

• Evaluate scheme designs and layouts for adherence to best practices, including Hospital 2.0 and relevant international standards

Person specification

Qualifications

• A relevant degree in IT, healthcare informatics, or a related field.
• Educated to master’s level and equivalent experience of working at a senior operational level in relevant specialist area.

Knowledge and Experience

• Significant experience in healthcare planning and analytics, preferably within the NHS or a similar healthcare setting.
• Experience in infrastructure and major transformation projects.
• Involvement in hospital design and responsibility for operational readiness and or cutover.
• Extensive knowledge of quality standards including the KLOE and fundamental standards set out by the CQC and how to translate this into practice and patient environment.

Skills, Capabilities and Attributes

• Relationship builder in a complex environment – comfortable building strong relationships at all levels internally and externally.
• Demonstrable leadership, vision, strategic thinking, and planning with highly developed political skills.
• Recognised credible leader who can form and manage high-performance, output-driven teams.
• Knowledge of healthcare databases and patient activity systems.

Our commitments to you

We are passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity. We know that different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative work environment that delivers better patient outcomes. We strive to ensure our people feel trusted, valued and empowered. We’re passionate about nurturing and developing people. When you join us, we want you to grow and excel, and we offer many opportunities for you to do that.

We welcome applications from disabled candidates. If you meet all the essential criteria, you will be guaranteed an interview.

Applications from job seekers who require sponsorship to work in the UK under the Skilled Worker route are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications.

If applying for this role on a secondment basis, please make sure you have obtained prior agreement from your current line manager to apply for this position.

Please note that we currently do not accept applications via recruitment agencies.

The NHS Business Services Authority is responsible for the processing of your application; a privacy notice is attached to advise you on how we will process your personal data.

If you have applied via NHS Jobs, your submitted application will be imported into our preferred third-party recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs.

NHS England

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