Senior Service Change Partner

National health policy is driving an unprecedented period of service redesign and change aiming to secure both quality improvement and financial sustainability. TheSenior Service Change Partnerwill support Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust to respond to this environment and ensure the organisation is able to deliver its strategic objectives.

This is being offered as a 12 month fixed term contract, or would also be ideal for a secondment opportunity.

The post holder will work with clinical divisions to prepare services to respond effectively to ICS / Commissioner requirements, and the Trust strategic objectives, to deliver ever improving services for local people. This involves the successful design and delivery of service and strategic changes through; effective leadership and project management; facilitation and stakeholder management both within the Trust’s clinical and corporate teams and with external partners such as Commissioners, other NHS providers and patient representatives to identify and take advantage of opportunities in line with the Trust’s Strategy. The post holder will provide expertise and leadership to the team in driving the portfolio of projects forwards working alongside designated Senior Responsible Officers and Project Sponsors. They will understand how to create and drive ownership and accountability and use information to identify problems, create solutions and monitor delivery of change, connecting projects across and within programmes and portfolios tackling project design and delivery issues and risks with energy and passion.

The Development and Partnerships Department supports all Trust services, corporate and operational, to deliver change and improve services. This includes liaising between corporate and operational teams / services, coordinating effort and resources to drive change, problem-solve and as needed lead negotiations. Supporting change and improvement often also requires engagement with external partners such as commissioners and other service providers i.e. local NHS Trusts, Primary Care Networks, Local Authority and the Voluntary Sector.

The post holder will be based in the Development and Partnerships department. Core duties will include:
Delivering the Trust’s Strategy and objectives
- Analysing national and local information to ensure the Trust’s response to policy and opportunities is effective and aligned to the Trust Strategy.
- Supporting the Trust to build effective relationships with commissioners, GPs and partner organisations.
- Supporting the development of commercial, project and improvement skills across the organisation.
- Understand the political environment within and between organisations and ensuring the Trust’s interactions are sensitive to this.
- Using specialist knowledge, experience and an understanding of the health and care landscape and our relative points of differentiation and using this to assess opportunities for service design and redesign.

Project governance and management
- Lead and manage specific high priority projects through the effective use of tools and techniques aligned to service improvement.
- Responsible for the effective end to end management (planning, design, delivery and evaluation) of projects across the Trust portfolio utilising Trust systems, processes and documentation.
- Responsible for the effective management of projects through the Trusts governance process to ensure delivery to time, quality and budget, including compiling and presenting information/ documentation to stakeholders as needed, the quality of project documentation and record keeping.
- Responsible for ensuring that all project and programme tasks and activities are planned, managed and delivered.
- Ensure projects report progress in line with Trust systems and processes ensuring effective liaison with stakeholders.
- Ensure project interdependencies and resultant risks are triangulated and managed.
- Ensure project risk and issues registers are established and regularly updated.
- Ensure that all key stakeholders are identified and communications are managed effectively, this includes with very senior managers both within the Trust and in partners.
- Develop and maintain effective relationships with the relevant internal stakeholders, ensuring roles and responsibilities are agreed.
- Supporting comprehensive project evaluation to capture lessons learned and improves capacity and quality of services and service change.
- Monitor Portfolio budgets (and efficiencies) and expenditure forecasts suggesting actions for improvement where needed.

Designing services
- Undertaking market research, comparative analysis, benchmarking and effectively use and interpret this data, information, policy, guidance and best practice to support the redesign of services to drive outcomes in line with Trust’s Strategy.
- Constructively challenge the current design of services in order to develop robust plans for development and improvement.
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