Go back Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Divisional Director of Nursing and Midwifery

The closing date is 30 September 2025

Due to the successful secondment of our current Divisional Director of Nursing and Midwifery into the Deputy Chief Midwife for England post, I as Chief Nursing Officer, I am seeking an exceptional clinical leader who brings both experience and vision to the role of Divisional Director of Nursing and Midwifery. This is a 12-month secondment and a unique opportunity for someone who is transformational and inclusive in their leadership style--able to inspire teams, champion women-centred care, and shape services that place the life course of women at the heart of everything we do.

The successful candidate will have a deep understanding of the maternity and neonatal landscape and will be passionate about advancing services that deliver safe, high-quality, and compassionate care. Alongside maternity and neonatal care, this portfolio also spans HIV, sexual and gender health, dermatology, and private patients--providing a breadth of opportunity to influence services that matter profoundly to our communities. You will be joining a high-performing, supportive organisation that values innovation, collaboration, and the people who work within it. We are looking for a leader who can bring inspiration and expertise in equal measure, driving forward our ambitions while nurturing teams to deliver their very best.

Main duties of the job

The purpose of this role is to provide senior strategic Nursing and Midwifery leadership in order to ensure and consistently develop a high quality, cost effective nursing service for patients. The post holder will support the Chief Nurse leading the development of the nursing and midwifery agenda within the Trust.

The post holder will provide senior professional leadership to all nurses and midwives within the division and will develop the clinical leadership capability of nursing and midwifery. They will lead on the development of education and research (non-medical) including a formal academic link with the Trust's key academic partners.

The individual will lead local projects to both promote and develop nursing and midwifery at the Trust, and will be responsible for aspects of clinical governance (in conjunction with the divisional medical director, divisional director of operations, deputy directors of nursing and midwifery and general managers), patient quality and safety and improving the patient experience.

The Divisional Director for nursing and midwifery will have objectives jointly agreed by the Chief Nurse and the Divisional Director of Operations and will work closely with the Deputy Directors of Nursing and Midwifery, Directorate General Managers, and Clinical Directors to jointly work to achieve the Division's vision and objectives.

The post holder will lead on a minimum of two central corporate nursing and midwifery projects

About us

ust is one of England's top-performing and safest trusts. We operate two main acute hospital sites--Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and West Middlesex University Hospital--along with award-winning clinics across North West London.

Our nearly 7,500 staff care for a diverse population of 1.5m, providing full clinical services including maternity, A&E and children's services, plus specialist HIV and sexual health care. The CQC rates us Good in safety, effectiveness, care and responsiveness, and Outstanding in leadership and resource use.

We continually invest in our facilities, including a £30m expansion of critical care at Chelsea and an £80m Ambulatory Diagnostic Centre at West Mid.

We are delivering sustainable healthcare through our Green Plan. In line with Greener NHS ambitions, we aim for net zero carbon emissions by 2045. Achieving this requires collective effort. We encourage staff to reduce their impact on carbon, waste and pollution wherever possible. Every action counts to create a healthier, more sustainable future.

We are committed to equal opportunities and believe diversity drives innovation and excellence. We welcome applications from the global majority, veterans and underrepresented communities, valuing the perspectives they bring.

If you haven't heard from us within 3 weeks of the closing date, your application was likely unsuccessful. Employment is subject to a six-month probation. Some roles may require weekend shifts at multiple sites.

Job responsibilities

Professional Leadership

• To work in accordance with the NMC Code of Professional Conduct: standards for conduct, performance and ethics.
• To be responsible for the professional leadership of nursing and midwifery services within the division, including devising, implementing and reviewing strategies for the development of clinical practice, education, and management and quality issues.
• To provide clear clinical leadership to the division, ensuring that all professional staff are appropriately managed and developed and that they are therefore efficient, engaged, and highly motivated.
• To provide management, leadership and direction to the Lead Nurses, Deputy Director of Nursing & Midwifery and Matrons and in collaboration with the Lead Nurses, Assistant Directors of Nursing & Midwifery and Matrons, ensure that nursing / midwifery staff comply with Trust standards and take corrective action where required.
• With the Divisional Director of Operations and relevant leads, ensure systems are in place to provide professional development through the appraisal system.
• To develop leadership capability at all levels through role modelling transformational leadership
• To participate as a key member of the Chief Nurses Cabinet whose role is to provide leadership and direction to the profession with the Chief Nurse
• Ensure that the Chief Nurse is kept appropriately updated on all professional issues within the maternity service
• Work with London ambulance service in managing capacity and demand where there is potential for unit closure, ensuring the safety of patients and staff

Patient Quality, Safety and Improving the Patient Experience

• To provide visible senior clinical leadership through back to the floor
• To be accountable for the direct delivery of clinical care services within the Division on all sites
• To work with the divisional management team and divisional leads to develop a safety culture that continually improves quality.
• To ensure processes and systems are in place to monitor and improve quality across clinical areas.
• To lead the divisional teams in ensuring that all aspects of risk and clinical governance are robustly and effectively managed, by:
• Overseeing the implementation of systems, control processes and risk management arrangements to support monitoring of compliance with internal and external governance and best practice requirements with a particular focus on infection control, integrated care pathways, discharge planning and length of stay.
• Lead on the compliance with the Care Quality Commissions Essential standards of quality and safety including compliance with the Hygiene Code within the Division, and to take a lead on outcomes as required for each area managed, working closely with corporate leads for governance and risk management

Strategy and Service Improvement

• Collaborate with the Divisional Medical Director & Divisional Director of Operations, as well as with Deputy Directors of Nursing and Midwifery, General Managers and Clinical Directors, in developing the Divisions strategy, and business plan.
• Working with the Divisional Medical Director & Divisional Director of Operations, as well as Deputy Directors of Nursing and Midwifery, General Managers and Clinical Directors, in the Divisions service improvement projects or development programmes that contribute to the modernisation of patient services, providing both professional and clinical advice as necessary.
• Where required, to work collaboratively with external partners at senior level in the development of patient pathways and services in relation to the services provided by the Division.
• Responsible for proposing and developing service/departmental policies including the implementation of policies developed
• Lead the implementation of a midwifery strategy that supports midwifery-led care, supports the concept of choice, safe and personalised care and continuity of care for all women and birthing people

Performance Management

• Lead relevant aspects of the development and implementation of the Divisions delivery plan by providing direction to the service and business strategy, including:
  • Cross divisional and external partnership working.
  • Focussing on clinical quality standards.
  • Supporting the Divisional Director of Operations in delivering all agreed outputs for the Division.
  • Providing a professional nursing and midwifery perspective on corrective plans where necessary.
  • Ensuring effective action is taken where nursing and midwifery performance is at risk of falling below expected levels (e.g., coaching nursing and midwifery teams and developing corrective plans).
  • Lead on the development of the patient and public involvement (PPI) strategy for maternity via the Maternity Voices Partnership (MVP) and other service user groups to achieve sustained, effective dialogue with service users and ensure that their feedback is integral to all service planning and improvement
  • Represent the Trust internally and externally in matters relating specifically to maternity, to include LMNS and ICS
  • To be responsible and accountable for the delivery of financial, quality, performance, human resource management and productivity targets relevant to their areas of responsibility, as agreed as part of the annual business planning Process.

Research and Development, Education and Training

• To lead and undertake the development of the Nursing and Midwifery research and development programme and increase multi-professional research in conjunction with CLAHRC.
• To coordinate the development of nursing research at divisional level, providing support and advice as required.
• To work with the Director of Nursing and Executive Director of HR and Organisational Development, taking a divisional lead for pre and post-registration commissioning and workforce design.
• To oversee that training needs analyses are carried out across the division in order to inform the commissioning process & optimise the development of the divisional teams.
• To lead in the development and implementation of divisional education and training programmes, and undertaking teaching to staff within the division and corporately as required

Communication

• To develop and maintain excellent communication across the division ensuring that staff are informed and consulted and can contribute their views whilst applying professional challenge where appropriate
• To network closely with clinical leaders within the division, across divisions, corporately and externally.
• To contribute to strategy formation and senior organisational decisions, and interpret and explain these to appropriate individuals and teams.
• To communicate distressing or highly distressing and/or emotional/unwelcome news/ unexpected deaths providing clinical analysis, writing high level reports for internal and external stakeholders
• Ensure all communication, which may be highly complex, highly contentious or highly sensitive, is undertaken in a responsive and inclusive manner, focusing on improvement and ways to move forward.

Personal and People Management and Development

• To participate in appropriate professional development activities. The post holder is expected to take responsibility for continuing self-development of competence.
• To line manage and develop Divisional Lead Nurses and Midwives (plus any other senior staff direct reports) and undertake their appraisals including setting and monitoring of objectives and PDPs.
• To identify personal and professional development needs though regular and annual review plus 360 review to ensure that skills such as facilitation, leadership, supervision, people management, presentation, coaching and mentoring are developed.
• To work strategically with the Chief Nurse to meet the national nursing and midwifery agenda and professional guidelines. This includes cross-working with other Trust Divisional nurses in addition to your own Divisional team
• To oversee that an effective recruitment and retention strategy is in place, supporting initiatives to improve the quality of working lives and staff wellbeing
• Lead divisional staff to implement methods, processes and systems for recruiting, deploying and managing people which support the organisations vision, values, strategies and objectives and comply with legislation, policies and procedures
• The post holder will be required to participate in the senior manager/midwifery on-call rota, with responsibility for ensuring the safe running of the hospital out of hour

Information Collection and Analysis

• To lead and advise staff in how they gather, analyse, interpret and present relevant data and information.
• To lead and use research enquiry to plan, implement and evaluate concepts and strategies leading to improvement.
• To ensure the appropriate contribution of nursing to the continuing development of the Electronic Patient Record and other relevant data systems.
• To use knowledge and understanding of research, evidence based practice and audit to influence nursing midwifery practice across the Division.
• To take responsibility for the Divisional nursing and midwifery budget, (which includes multiple services across multiple sites) establishing, maintaining and monitoring financial controls to ensure the most cost effective use of the budget and achievement of cost improvement targets/ CIPs.
• To ensure that managers (ward and Matrons) and those with responsibility for budgets understand SFIs, the financial system and how to monitor and manage all budgetary resources with particular emphasis on the management of bank and agency staff and overseeing of safe cost effective rostering.
• To oversee all resources to ensure these are deployed to achieve best outcome with reference to the performance contract and business planning.

Please see attached job description and person specification to this advert for further details.

Person Specification

Education and Qualifications

• Registered Midwife
• Leadership / management qualification or proven track record in professional leadership/management role
• First degree in nursing/midwifery or health related subject, supplemented by specialist training and experience to Masters or equivalent level
• Willing to work towards a Masters in nursing/midwifery or health related subject
• Specialist experience to doctorate level

Experience

• Demonstrable consolidated experience in nursing/midwifery senior roles
• Proven extensive track record in a professional leadership / management role
• Experience of identifying and responding to safeguarding issues (vulnerable adults and children)
• Experience of budget management

Skills and knowledge

• Planning and organisational skills -of maternity services across the childbirth continuum demonstrating an ability to manage and facilitate complex activities which require the formulation and adjustment of the maternity services strategy internal and its impact on external stakeholders
• Advanced theoretical and practical Midwifery and maternity services knowledge of acuity, demand, risk, workforce, interdependencies across the primary and secondary care sections. Including interventional radiology and neonatology
• Experience of effectively managing staff performance, capability and conduct issues
• Experience of equality and diversity policies and procedures
• Able to set standards of care and monitor delivery against standards
• Knowledge and experience of risk and clinical governance processes
• Excellent honed people management and customer service skills
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills -Verbal, written, presentation and listening skills
• Excellent facilitation, influencing and negotiating skills
• Able to develop and maintain constructive multi professional relationships
• Able to analyse complex clinical issues and problem solve using innovation and original thinking
• Able to think and plan strategically, tactically and creatively and skills in strategy and policy development
• Knowledge of quality improvement tools and techniques and experience of managing quality improvement programmes within a multi-professional environment
• Competent in use of Outlook. Excel, Word & PowerPoint
• Able to provide formal teaching to colleagues
• Knowledge of the educational commissioning process
• Knowledge of research principles and practice
• Skills and experience in project management
• Skills in planning, prioritising, delegating and meeting deadlines.
• Able to synthesise complex issues and deal with highly charged distressing or emotional circumstances.
• Ability to develop and implement divisional/departmental policies
• Experience in educational procurement and commissioning process
• Experience in conducting research / implementing findings
• Experience of quality improvement and/ or change management

Personal Qualities

• Credible leadership role model
• Enthusiastic and motivated
• Flexible & approachable
• Openness, honesty & personal integrity in undertaking the role
• Commitment to developing others

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.

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Cross Site - Chelsea & Westminster NHS Trust

£117,645 to £134,103 a yearpro rata per annum including HCAS

Contract

Fixed term

Duration

12 months

Working pattern

Full-time

Reference number

289-SC-159

Job locations

Cross Site - Chelsea & Westminster NHS Trust