Head of Nursing; King Edward VII's Hospital

Job Description:

At King Edward VII's Hospital, exceptional patient care starts with exceptional clinical leadership. As our Head of Nursing, you'll play a pivotal role in shaping the future of nursing services, leading with credibility, compassion and a relentless focus on quality.

Reporting to the Chief Nursing Officer, you'll provide senior operational and professional leadership across a diverse nursing portfolio including inpatient wards, outpatient services and pre-operative assessment. This is an outstanding opportunity for an experienced nursing leader to influence standards of care, strengthen workforce capability and drive continuous improvement within one of the UK's most respected independent hospitals.

You'll be at the heart of our commitment to delivering safe, effective and patient-centred care, creating an environment where colleagues can thrive and patients receive the highest standards of service and clinical excellence.

• Provide visible and compassionate leadership across nursing services, ensuring the highest standards of patient care, safety and professional practice.
• Lead and develop senior nursing teams, including matrons, team leaders and practice education functions.
• Drive workforce planning, recruitment, retention and succession planning to ensure sustainable and effective nursing services.
• Champion patient safety, clinical governance and quality improvement initiatives across the organisation.
• Support and enhance regulatory readiness, including CQC compliance and assurance activities.
• Use data, audits, patient feedback and quality metrics to identify opportunities for improvement and deliver meaningful change.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning, professional development and evidence-based practice.
• Work collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams, senior stakeholders and hospital leadership to achieve strategic objectives.
• Lead nursing contributions to service transformation, operational effectiveness and patient experience improvements.
• Deputise for the Chief Nursing Officer on agreed operational and professional matters, providing senior clinical leadership when required.
• Ensure safe staffing, appropriate skill mix and effective deployment of nursing resources across the hospital.
• Promote an open, inclusive and psychologically safe environment where colleagues can deliver their best work every day.

• Registered Nurse with current NMC registration.
• Significant senior nursing leadership experience within an acute hospital, surgical, independent healthcare or comparable clinical environment.
• Demonstrable experience leading both registered and non-registered nursing teams.
• Strong knowledge of clinical governance, patient safety, quality assurance and regulatory compliance.
• Experience of workforce planning, safe staffing, rostering and establishment management.
• Proven track record of leading service improvement, transformation and quality initiatives.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence and collaborate across clinical and non-clinical teams.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret data and use insight to drive performance improvement.
• Outstanding communication skills with experience presenting assurance, risk and performance information to senior leaders.
• Experience supporting recruitment, performance management, talent development and succession planning.

• Master's degree or working towards one.
• Leadership, management or quality improvement qualification.
• Experience with in an independent hospital or private patient environment.
• Experience preparing for CQC inspections or delivering regulatory improvement programmes.
• Experience driving premium patient experience initiatives.
• Experience managing senior operational escalation or on-call responsibilities.
• Experience developing professional standards frameworks, accreditation programmes or nursing assurance models.

At King Edward…