Director of Midwifery, Band 9

Go back Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The closing date is 18 January 2026

This is your moment to shape the future of maternity care for an entire county. Gloucestershire is undertaking its first full maternity health needs assessment in a decade, and we are seeking an exceptional Director of Midwifery to lead with vision and purpose.

Our maternity teams are skilled, committed and proud of the care they provide. Like many services nationally, we have faced complexity and pressure in recent years. We are looking for a strategic leader who can bring clarity, confidence and renewed momentum as we continue our redesign and improvement.

As Director of Midwifery, you will be the professional voice for safe, effective and responsive care. You will set the strategic direction, guide service transformation and ensure that women, birthing people and families remain central to every decision. You will work closely with the LMNS, the Gloucestershire ICB and wider midwifery networks to turn insight into action and ambition into measurable progress.

This is a genuinely autonomous role, offering the freedom to shape priorities and steer the service through a defining period. It also comes at a key transition point: our Head of Midwifery is retiring, giving the incoming Director the opportunity to appoint their senior team and build a structure that supports long‑term stability and improvement.

If you are motivated by purpose, excited by transformation and ready to lead service into its next chapter, we would be delighted to receive your application.

Inspire shared purpose and ensure the maternity and neonatal strategy is developed with key stakeholders and delivered efficiently with the Divisional Leadership Team. Lead with care and compassion. Provide expert support for sustainable workforce planning, including education and training. Ensure safe staffing with clear escalation and mitigation. Enable staff to raise concerns and ensure accountability for acting on issues. Seek diverse information to generate ideas and make effective plans for improvement.

Lead clinical governance, ensuring the Trust Board has oversight of quality and performance and that lessons from investigations are implemented. Be accountable to the Director of Quality and Chief Nurse for professional midwifery leadership and work with them to provide assurance to the Trust Board on the quality of care. Drive continuous improvement and transformational change. Work closely with the Maternity Voices Partnership, leading experience‑improvement programmes using co‑design.

Understand system working and pathway interdependencies. Provide timely expert maternity, neonatal and midwifery advice to senior leaders and the Executive Team. Support clinical engagement and co‑design across maternity and neonatal services. Contribute to national maternity and neonatal priorities and help develop sustainable workforce solutions aligned to future models of care. Proactively manage key risks within strong clinical governance structures.

Gloucestershire Hospitals provide acute hospital services from two large district general hospitals, Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and Cheltenham General Hospital, as well as maternity services at Stroud Maternity Hospital.

With a team of over 9,000 employees, representing over 95 nationalities, we are proud to be the largest employer in Gloucestershire. Bringing together a mix of cultures and experiences to the care that we deliver. The Trust continues to work closely with partners and local communities to improve health and wellbeing to ensure access to services.

We take pride in placing people at the centre of everything we do, working together as a united team. Driven by a shared ambition to continually grow, develop, and learn, we recognise and value every contribution. By combining our experience and skills, we not only support our vibrant, diverse communities, but also support one another. Our maternity services provide comprehensive, family‑centred care for women and families across the county supporting around 6,000 births a year.

The service…