Group Clinical Director

We are seeking an exceptional Group Clinical Director to help lead the delivery of our ambitious UHL-UHN Group Clinical Strategy () which is a once in a generation opportunity to transform care for nearly 1.9 million people.

Together, University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) and University Hospitals of Northamptonshire (UHN) operate five acute hospitals, 19 community sites, and employ around 30,000 colleagues, with a combined annual spend of £2.9bn. Our scale gives us a unique platform to standardise care, accelerate innovation, and deliver population-level impact.

As Group Clinical Director, you will unite clinicians across UHL and UHN to deliver safer, more equitable, digitally enabled care at scale. You will help lead and deliver one of the most ambitious clinical transformations in the NHS.

In this role, you will play a pivotal role in translating strategy into real-world impact, aligning clinical, operational and digital transformation across our Group, and provide visible, credible clinical leadership to drive delivery across our strategic focus areas.

Main duties of the job

We are recruiting a Group Clinical Director to work alongside a program lead. We are looking for someone with clinical visibility, a system minded leadership approach and drive to implement the Group Clinical Strategy (GCS) across our six focus areas:

• Working together across UHL-UHN to ensure services are safe and sustainable (clinical networks, common policies, digital integration)
• Changing how we care for people with frailty and long term conditions (anticipatory care, remote monitoring, SDEC)
• Delivering care in communities and neighbourhoods (community beds, UTC capacity, one stop diagnostics, virtual models)
• Giving children the best start in life (maternity & neonatal safety/quality, equitable paediatrics)
• Strengthening cancer services (earlier diagnosis, expanded CDCs, integrated SACT at home, sustainable equipment plans)
• Improving access and reducing waiting times (shared PTLs, elective hubs, protect elective capacity, digital pre op)

You will help lead teams across UHL and UHN to align clinical, operational and digital programmes, translate strategy into measurable outcomes, and ensure benefits are realised for patients and staff-anchored in our three key principles.

Job responsibilities Key responsibilities:

• Clinical leadership & change: Act as a unifying clinical leader across UHL & UHN, building high trust networks of clinicians to co design and implement standardised, evidence based pathways and shared clinical policies.
• Shift care into communities and digital platforms. Empower clinical teams to redesign pathways so more patients are managed closer to home and embed digital tools such as EPR, virtual care and remote monitoring.
• Strengthen cross system clinical partnerships. Engage with external stakeholders to build integrated working with primary care, community teams and social care, ensuring pathways are coordinated and co produced with patients.
• Improve productivity, efficiency and value through innovation and workforce leadership. Work with digital leads to drive the adoption of AI, new workforce models and streamlined processes to increase capacity and reduce waste.
• Inclusive leadership; champion interventions to reduce inequalities in access, outcomes and experience, working with inclusion health, public health and community partners.

What you'll lead on:

There are several key workstreams already in action, and you will coordinate leads to ensure ongoing action in the workstreams and centralised reporting of progress for these existing workstreams:

• Safety & sustainability: Identify fragile services and lead mitigations (networking, consolidation or virtual models) ensuring safe, sustainable configuration across our five acute sites and community facilities.
• Advancing frailty transformation through shared interventions, workshops and workforce mapping.
• Improving cancer care across the group through uniformed pathways.
• Addressing city wide neighbourhood demand through data analysis, behavioural insight surveys and cross sector workshop.
• Reshaping maternity, neonatal and CYP services via modelling, clinician engagement and co produced configuration plans; strengthening cancer services through a three year plan, improved cross site working and upcoming oncology and strategy events; improving access by aligning outpatient transformation priorities and defining digital, AI and pathway redesign opportunities; and establishing enabling functions by forming corporate support structures, drafting governance and coordinating cross workstream requirements.

You are not expected to be a clinical expert in areas outlined and would not directly deliver on KPI for the workstreams. You will enable colleagues across UHL and UHN to work together in the focus areas tapping into the four enablers.

• Colleagues: Help build a skilled, supported and inclusive workforce that can deliver safe, standardised and transformed care. Enables the culture, leadership and wellbeing needed for teams to adopt new ways of working.
• Digital, Data and Technology: Provides the digital tools and data needed to redesign pathways, enhance efficiency and support community based care. Enables interoperability, AI driven insight and the shared EPR that underpin consistent, proactive clinical practice.
• Education, Research and Innovation: Ensures staff are trained for future models of care and enables rapid adoption of evidence based improvements. Embeds research and innovation into routine practice to improve outcomes and support continuous development.
• Partnerships: Connects clinical teams with primary care, community services, mental health, social care and voluntary partners to deliver integrated pathways. Strengthens co production with patients and reduces fragmentation across the system.

Reporting & Relationships

You will work closely with UHL/UHN clinical executives, CMG leadership teams and One Digital colleagues; partner with ICs across LLR and Northamptonshire; and engage with regional/national networks (e.g., East Midlands Cancer Alliance). You will provide assurance to our Executives via an agreed governance process.

Person Specification Education, Training & Professional Development

• Up to date and valid job appraisal covering the last 12 months.
• No conduct or capability concerns/investigations within the last 24 months.

Commitment to Trust Values and Behaviours

• Must be able to demonstrate behaviours consistent with the Trust's Values and Behaviours.

Knowledge & Experience

• Demonstrable track record of successful clinical leadership in a complex healthcare organisation.
• Experience of overseeing and delivering Quality Improvement programmes within clinical services.
• Evidence of working across organisational boundaries at a service level to deliver transformational change.
• Experience of effective collaborative working across the professions, the healthcare system, and external stakeholders.
• Experience of leading service and/or transformational change.
• Evidence of designing delivery plans with clear metrics/benefits and providing assurance to board level governance.
• Experience of the management of complex projects.

Leadership & Management Style

• Has personal and professional credibility and commands the respect of fellow clinicians.
• Is supportive and approachable, inspiring confidence and encouraging potential.
• Able to make decisions and take charge of the event through a performance management approach.
• Strong influencing skills with the ability to shape development across the health and social care system.

Equality and Diversity

• Able to demonstrate a commitment to and understanding of the importance of treating all individuals with dignity and respect appropriate to their individual needs.

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.

£61,542 to £145,478 a year (pro rated)