Strategy Manager

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond. We are committed to providing high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for our care and treatment. The Care Quality Commission rates our services as ‘good’. We launched our five-year strategy, Aiming High; Changing Lives in 2021 together with Our Care Improvement System as our quality management system methodology to make a positive impact on patient care, outcomes and staff experience.

By joining SLaM, all staff will get the opportunity to be part of this exciting improvement journey supported with learning and development to harness everyone’s potential as change makers. The trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role. We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust.

Our Values

• We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I’m going to do is at the heart of everything we do.
• When you join us, you’ll be part of something special.
• As a Trust, we are happy to talk flexible working.

Job overview

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust is looking to recruit an experienced and motivated Strategy Manager to join our Strategy and Transformation Directorate. This is an exciting opportunity to play a key role in shaping and delivering the Trust’s strategic priorities, supporting organisation-wide planning, and leading high-profile projects that improve outcomes for our communities. Working closely with senior leaders, partners, and people with lived experience, you will help ensure we are inclusive and responsive to the changing NHS landscape.

We are looking for someone who has proven experience in the NHS (or similar environment) and strong project management expertise. Someone who can build effective relationships and influence at senior levels. The post-holder must be confident analysing complex information and translating it into clear strategic advice, be an excellent communicator, have strong written and interpersonal skills, and a collaborative approach. This is a rewarding role for someone passionate about improving mental health services, offering the chance to develop your career within a leading Trust known for innovation, research, and high-quality care.

Main duties of the job

Key duties will include:

• Provide strategy planning expertise and leadership across the Trust: Designing, implementing, and overseeing effective processes for strategic planning, strategic prioritisation and resource allocation, liaising with functional and subject matter experts.
• Lead the project management of Trust wide Strategy development and annual strategic planning for the Trust.
• Lead engagement and partnership work with service users, carers and community representatives using a range of involvement methods to ensure their voices are central to the Trust’s strategic work.
• Maintain awareness of the external NHS environment by assessing new policies and guidance and advising the Trust of impact and actions required.
• Act as part of a team, seeking out intelligence and disseminating important, appropriate and required information.

Working for our organisation

We provide the widest range of NHS mental health services in the UK and aim to be a leader in improving health and wellbeing–locally, nationally and globally. We serve a local population of 1.3 million people in south London, as well as specialist services for children and adults across the UK and beyond. Each year we provide inpatient care for over 5,000 people, and treat more than 40,000 patients in the community in Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham and Croydon.

As a Trust, we are dedicated to delivering care according to our five key commitments:

• I will be caring, kind and polite.
• I will be prompt and value your time.
• I will take time to listen to you.
• I will be honest and direct with you.
• I will do what I say I am going to do.

These commitments sit alongside our values: Kindness, Respect, Together. We have created a framework to set out the behaviours we want to see under each of these values and the behaviours that our service users and their carers should hold us accountable to.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage the strategic planning frameworks within the Trust, including leading their development, design and implementation.
• Work closely with the Trust Operational Directorates to identify, evaluate and coordinate specific developments, which reflect and further augment the Trust's strategic direction.
• Ensure that strategic planning processes and objectives are actively monitored and delivered to plan, and mitigations planned where required.
• Provide strategic expertise to Trust functions to develop enabling strategies aligned to the Trust Strategy.
• Develop and produce reports and presentations to present complex information to senior managers within the organisation and at Board level.
• Identify and implement opportunities to involve service users, carers and community members in strategic planning.
• Analyse and interpret complex information, including performance, quality and financial data.
• Lead key project and system redesign work, under direction of members of the Executive Team, that will help modernise service delivery, and enhance its quality, efficiency and efficacy.
• Lead the project management for the Trust wide strategy refresh.
• Implement the project management of annual Trustwide strategic planning.
• Resolve highly complicated and/or conflicting issues and initiate corrective or appropriate action.
• Identify and manage project risk and issues.
• Co-ordinate minutes, agendas and papers for distribution in preparation for meetings, ensuring this is done in a timely manner.
• Exercise autonomy in decision making and problem solving in contentious situations to facilitate the successful delivery of projects.
• Build links between the different areas of the team programmes in order to enhance strategic planning and delivery.

Policy and Strategy Horizon Scanning

Conduct regular policy and strategy horizon scanning, preparing briefing documents and facilitating discussion on these with colleagues. Prepare briefings for the Trust Chair, CEO, Board and Executive Leadership Team on relevant topics. Conduct needs analysis and benchmarking exercises.

Other

Working with the Head of Strategy and PPI, and the Deputy Head of Strategy, support the strategic work on carers for the Trust, including the governance, and work around Triangle of Care. Act as a senior manager in the Strategic Planning and Equalities Team, with the ability to influence and produce executive ideas that may shape and benefit the organisation as a whole. This includes writing papers for the Executive Team and demonstrating excellent interpersonal skills in order to undertake change management where required. Work under limited supervision, setting own work priorities on a day-to-day basis. Line management and/or supervision of staff or graduate trainees [no current direct reports but there may be in future]. Deputise for team members when required.

The post holder will have considerable freedom to act, influence and shape future Trust policy within these areas, in support of the Executive Team. As such, the post holder must work effectively with a wide range of senior managers in a credible way that develops a successful image for the team whilst adhering to tight deadlines.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Educated to degree level or equivalent.
• Evidence of continuous professional development.
• Considerable postgraduate work experience to reflect the complexity and nature of the work the team gets involved in within the Trust.
• Qualification in project management, Prince2 or equivalent.

Experience

• An ability to build effective working relationships at all levels and with partner organisations in a sensitive and diplomatic manner.
• Substantial project management experience and/or evidence of overseeing a service review to completion.
• Experience of analysing and producing policy advice to make recommendations for senior managers.
• Evidence of budgetary management and knowledge of NHS financial systems and procedures.
• Experience of public speaking.

Skills

• An ability to develop effective relationships and a matrix style of working in a sensitive and diplomatic manner.
• Ability to problem solve and use initiative to deal with issues.
• Excellent communication skills, and an ability to engage people from a wide range of backgrounds, using influence and persuasion skills at all levels of an organisation.

Knowledge

• Able to express complex issues both orally and in writing for a range of audiences. This includes writing reports, presentations and conducting meetings.
• Intermediate knowledge of MS Office (Word, Excel and PowerPoint).

Personal Qualities

• Team player willing to be flexible and support others to get tasks done to deadlines.
• Able to solve and recommend solutions for the team on one's own initiative.

The Trust is committed to providing services which embrace diversity and that promote equality of opportunity. We are a Disability Confident Employer, we welcome applicants from all sections of the community and people of all protected characteristics. We provide reasonable adjustments for candidates with a disability and are committed to treating people fairly with compassion, respect and dignity and in promoting equality and human rights.

We aim to put this commitment into practice by:

• Embedding our commitment to tackling inequality, eliminating discrimination and harassment; promoting equality of opportunity and fostering good relations in our everyday practice.
• Ensuring that all our services and all staff understand and support our commitment.
• We believe that people who use our services, their carers and our staff, should be treated with compassion, respect and dignity.

SLaM is a Stonewall Diversity Champion. The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.