Deputy Head of Nursing – Surgical Specialities

Deputy Head of Nursing - Surgical Specialities

The closing date is 01 March 2026

An exciting opportunity for an enthusiastic, committed and experienced senior nurse to join our surgical nursing leadership team. Covering Critical Care, Gastroenterology, General Surgery, Colorectal, Urology, Trauma and Orthopaedics and Vascular Surgery this is a fast paced, dynamic and highly varied role.

With a supportive and compassionate leadership style, you will oversee a variety of inpatient and outpatient services in delivering excellent quality care and patient experience.

You will work collaboratively with the Head of Nursing, General Managers and Clinical Directors for each of our service line specialties to assist in the development of strategy, goals and objectives to enable our teams to deliver effective and efficient care.

• Ensure the smooth and safe day-to-day operation of nursing services within the group, maintaining high standards of staff and patient experience.
• Provide visible operational leadership, offering guidance, support, and direction to staff across the group.
• Collaborate with the Head of Nursing to implement patient pathways with clinical staff, ensuring best practice is followed and progress is made toward achieving access standards and required milestones.
• Work closely with colleagues to address complaints and incidents in a timely and appropriate manner. Ensure that the lessons learned are embedded, and that necessary safety actions are taken across clinical service lines.
• Partner with the Head of Nursing and Matrons to ensure budgets are managed in accordance with the Trust's Standing Financial Instructions. Collaborate with the Finance lead, taking corrective actions where necessary to address performance variances and incorporate recommendations from internal and external audits.
• Focus on the continuous improvement of both the performance and financial position of clinical service lines, embedding systems to monitor performance against objectives and quality targets, ensuring that the service continues to strengthen.
• Lead by example, acting as an ambassador for the Trust, championing its values, and upholding the highest standards of behaviour and compassion for colleagues.

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust provides hospital services to a growing population of around 700,000 people living across Bedfordshire and the surrounding areas across two busy hospital sites in Bedford and Luton. Both hospital sites offer key services such as A&E, Obstetrics-led Maternity and Paediatrics. You will be joining a friendly, high performing Trust committed to ensuring the health and wellbeing of staff.

As one of the largest NHS Trusts in our region you will have access to a programme of high quality training and development to help you grow your career. The Trust continues to be committed to delivering the best patient care using the best clinical knowledge and technology available.

Our values

We not only recruit based on qualifications and experience - we recruit individuals who demonstrate the behaviours which underpin our Trusts core values. We achieve this by using values based recruitment. We are dedicated to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible for everyone, we are committed to promoting equality and diversity, and creating a culture that values differences.

• Current NMC Registration
• Education, knowledge and experience to masters level or equivalent
• Evidence of continuous professional development
• Management / leadership qualification or equivalent experience
• Project Management Qualification

• Proven experience of working in a management / leadership role within nursing
• Demonstrable experience of leading changes in practice in a complex environment to improve performance/services.
• Experience of business case development
• Evidence of experience of identifying and interpreting national policy and implementing required changes.

• Understanding of financial procedures including budget setting / knowledge of financial processes
• Business planning/annual planning/long term planning.
• In depth understanding of change…