Deputy Director of Operations

Location: Gwent

- The opportunity to drive benefit realisation across the organisation.

- The chance to drive cross-portfolio collaboration.

Our Client

The Welsh Ambulance Service is supported by more than 4,500 staff and volunteers, and everyone has a role to play in providing a service to patients.

Services include:

- Emergency Medical Service (EMS) - Responsible for responding to all urgent and emergency calls and providing appropriate pre-hospital care.

- Non-Emergency Patient Transport Service - A vital part of what we do involves taking people to and from routine outpatient appointments at clinics, hospitals and day centres.

- EMS Coordination Centres - Receive emergency and urgent calls and are responsible for the emergency dispatch of ambulance crews.

- NHS 111 Wales - Provides health advice and information remotely (telephone and video) and via the website.

- Support Service Departments - Play a vital role in our day-to-day work, from managing our finances and keeping our IT systems working to recruiting new staff and keeping them informed.

We receive more than 500,000 emergency calls and one million 111 calls a year, and transport more than 1.3 million non-emergency patients to more than 200 treatment centres throughout Wales and England. Together, we all play a part in making sure that we can respond to anyone needing our help, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The Deputy Director of Operations provides highly visible, senior leadership for the day-to-day delivery of operational, workforce, planning, quality, and financial performance across the Operations Directorate.

The job description is not exhaustive, and the postholder is expected to fulfil requirements as delegated by the Executive Director of Operations.

The postholder will:

- Act as immediate deputy to the Executive Director of Operations, enabling increased strategic and external engagement.

- Hold directorate accountability for professional standards, culture, and safeguarding, ensuring compliance with statutory requirements and delivery of high-quality, patient-focused services.

- Lead the directorate's financial sustainability agenda, owning budgets, delivering cost improvement plans, and ensuring robust financial stewardship. This includes setting budgets for major areas of activity and holding accountability for several service portfolios.

- Drive cross-portfolio/departmental/directorate integration, system and pathway flow, and continuous improvement, supporting the Trust's strategic objectives.

- Lead major service transformation, improvement programmes, and strategic projects as delegated. This includes organisation-wide policy development and service redesign responsibilities.

- Represent the Trust in internal and external forums, fostering system partnership and stakeholder engagement.

- Lead directorate planning that supports the creation of strategy and the Integrated Medium-Term Plan, and develop plans that translate strategy into measurable outcomes.

- Play a key role in delivering change and transformation, particularly whole-directorate change.

- Work proactively with media outlets (print, radio, and TV) to promote the Trust's profile and communicate key messages. This requires providing and receiving highly complex, sensitive, and contentious information where acceptance is not assured.

- Develop and sustain effective trade union partnerships.

Responsibilities:

Professional Standards, Culture & Safeguarding:

- Set and uphold clinical, operational / performance, financial and behavioural standards across Operations. This includes responsibility for clinical service delivery standards across all operational areas.

- Champion a positive, inclusive culture, embedding Trust behaviours/values and promoting psychological safety.

- Ensure robust safeguarding policies and practices, compliance with Duty of Quality, Duty of Candour, Civil Contingency Act and all other regulatory requirements.

- Lead on culture change programmes and organisational development initiatives.

- Responsible for leading directorate-wide cultural transformation programmes.

Financial Sustainability:

- Own Operations Directorate budgets, lead cost improvement and efficiency plans, ensuring financial governance.

- Deliver financial recovery plans, monitor expenditure, and report on financial performance, risks, and opportunities.

- Ensure value for money and compliance with Trust and NHS Wales financial frameworks.

- Frequent access to Oracle systems to support operational and strategic functions when acting in a deputy capacity for the Executive Director of Operations.

Strategic Leadership & Transformation:

- Lead and integrate the work of all Assistant Directors, aligning portfolios to strategic objectives and operational effectiveness.

- Lead initiatives to enhance system and pathway flow and performance within our organisational remit, while fostering collaboration with external partners to influence broader system outcomes.

- Lead major service transformation, improvement programmes, and strategic…