Associate Director of Therapy Services

The Associate Director of Therapy services offers a fantastic opportunity for an individual to lead a team of highly skilled and dynamic therapists within the Diagnostic, Cancer & Buckland Care Group. The post holder will have strategic, operational & professional responsibility for the Physiotherapists Occupational Therapists, Dietitians & Speech and Language Therapists within the care group. In addition, they will be the professional figurehead for other AHP groups within the care group such as Podiatrists & Orthotists.
The role provides leadership to the therapy teams, working with trust and system colleagues to support positive and effective relationships between the therapy teams and other services, both internally and externally., The post holder will build on the current processes for monitoring, analysing, and managing complex situations to ensure a robust and effective management of capacity is achieved across the three main hospital sites. They will formulate action plans and lead changes to ensure both trust and national performance targets are achieved and maintained.
This role will lead the development of business planning to enable the strategic development of therapy services. They will be accountable for contributing to and delivering the Trust's strategic objectives and ensuring there is effective governance alongside high quality and safe practice across the therapy workforce.
The Associate Director of Therapy services will be responsible for developing a supportive working culture across the therapies services and ensuring that staff are adhering to the Trust values.
For this post, applicants should possess substantial clinical experience as an Allied Health Professional, be able to demonstrate evidence of leadership development and have a proven successful record of leading others and managing organisational change
This post is subject to a six-month probationary period for candidates external to the East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust, · Be a visible leader, responsible for ensuring that therapists have a single point of visibility & accountable professional leadership across the Diagnostic, Cancer & Buckland Care Group (DCB).
· Provide expert advice to senior leaders in the trust regarding the therapy workforce within DCB
· Represent therapists within DCB professionally providing and receiving highly complex information as appropriate on Trust committees and ensure therapy voice is encouraged and heard.
· Provide leadership & support to the trust regarding the identification & maintenance of professional & service standards as well as clinical governance requirements
· Work to enhance relationships & foster multidisciplinary working across East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust (EKHUFT) services to improve patient care, research, development & innovation
· Work with other AHP leads to actively raise the profile of AHPs across the Trust & represent the trust on external groups relating to the therapy workforce, driving forward service improvements and increasing the profile of the work.
· Lead development and celebration days for professional practice, including the support of AHP days
· Co-ordinate and drive complex change through the trust AHP leadership group
· Communicate directly with heads of nursing and other professional groups ensuring that communication reaches those professionals delivering care
· Promote and lead on research development increasing research capacity and capability in partnership with the research team.
· Engage with staff and patients to foster a patient-centred approach to delivery of care
· Promote succession planning and talent management for senior therapy and AHP roles across the trust
· Maintain and enhance relationships with relevant unions
· Be responsible for engagement agenda for the therapies workforce and supporting staff health and wellbeing.
Strategic Responsibility
· Support the therapy services within DCB to actively contribute to the delivery of the Trust's strategic goals, providing complex, sensitive or contentious information as required.
· Be responsible for ensuring that the Trust's AHP ambitions are delivered
· Be active in strategic workforce planning for the DCB care group
· Lead an effective strategy of therapy recruitment and retention including international recruitment within the care group
· Lead the development and implementation of therapy provision across the trust services
· Promote and embed a culture of clinical supervision and clinical support
· Lead on the development and implementation of clinical pathways across trust services
· Promote close collaboration and cohesive working relationships within multidisciplinary teams and maintain effective communication channels
· Be an effective leader for change and support a culture of continuous quality improvement and innovation
· Advise the care group leadership team, Deputy Chief AHP or trust executives on matters of strategic development that have an impact on therapy-delivered services
· Ensure that the role and development of therapists is reflected in care group and trust strategic and operational plans
· Complete and contribute to operational, business planning and relevant business cases or contract negotiations to develop or sustain services in line with the strategic direction of the trust.
· Lead on the development of commercial opportunities within therapy services
· Co-ordinate the trust's involvement in national AHP projects, to include Model Hospital, NHS Benchmarking and National AHP projects, overseeing the data collection and submissions
· Promote clinical leadership training and development for the therapy workforce
· Working with the research team, increase research activity which focuses on enhancing the therapy evidence base and improving the safety, efficacy and/or quality of patient care
· Foster positive relationships with other local, regional and national providers of therapy services
· Encourage the adoption of cost effective and innovative practice across the therapy professions
· Develop and maintain effective working relationships corporately and with AHP leaders around the delivery of therapy services
Operational oversight
· Through analysis and interpretation of data, facts and evidence base, ensure that there is annual therapy establishment, skill mix review and workforce planning within the care group.
· Provide line management to senior therapy managers in Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech and Language Therapy and Dietetics, including annual appraisal and support for their ongoing professional development.
· Oversee the delivery of high quality and safe therapy services across the trust
· Be responsible for ensuring that the performance of therapy services is regularly monitored
· Work with the DCB leadership team to ensure sound financial management of all Therapy services
· Hold responsibility and accountability for therapy resources within the areas of operational oversight, managing the Therapy lead budget in line within agreed standing financial instructions
· Monitor and ensure compliance with mandatory training
· Support therapy managers to ensure that all staff have an identified professional lead, receive appropriate training and support
· Work with therapy managers to support staffing issues, including recruitment and retention, the reduction of use of agency staff and associated costs
· Ensure that all local and national targets relating to therapy services are delivered within a safe, high quality framework
· Take the lead for therapies on the development of major trust-wide initiatives

The ability to converse easily and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for all customer facing roles.
Most positions require a Disclosure and Barring check and will be exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. Posts working regularly or unsupervised with children or vulnerable adults require an enhanced check.
Applicants for eligible roles requiring Tier 2 sponsorship must meet UK Visas and Immigration eligibility criteria.
We operate a no-smoking policy on all our sites and grounds.

We are one of the largest hospital trusts in England, with five hospitals and community clinics serving a local population of around 800,000 people. Our vision is 'great healthcare from great people'. Everything we do is guided by our values: 'People feel cared for, safe, respected and confident that we are making a difference'. We have a new way of working at East Kent Hospitals, called 'We care'. It's about empowering frontline staff to lead improvements day-to-day. We're looking for compassionate people to be part of our improvement journey for the patients, families and carers we care for every day.

Staff and patients from across East Kent Hospitals are the feature of the biggest NHS recruitment drive in its 70 year history. https://www.ekhuft.nhs.uk/patients-and-visitors/work-here/
Filmed in William Harvey and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother hospitals, the 'We are the NHS' campaign highlights the extraordinary work that staff across EKHUFT do every single day. As one of the largest hospital trusts in England, with five hospitals and community clinics serving a population of over one million people, EKHUFT was perfectly placed to demonstrate the care, cutting-edge treatments, research, innovations and life-saving operations that the campaign needed.
There are lots of great opportunities at East Kent Hospitals, where staff are caring and put patients first, innovation flourishes and you can develop your career. We're on an exciting journey of transformation. With a new Medical School at the centre of our community, a focus on research, clinical leadership and making our trust a rewarding and friendly place to work,
there's never been a better time to join us. To find out more about east Kent visit our website at. The Trust fully supports the SAS Doctors Charter and is committed to their development through its CPD Framework.
We'll close this job advert once we've received sufficient applications which may be before the closing date so please apply as soon as possible. We only accept online applications. If you have any difficulty with this please contact our Resourcing Team on who are happy to help.
We have a relocation policy for eligible candidates, parking available at Trust sites but we encourage other options, like car sharing or public transport.