Head of Excellence and Improvement

Head of Excellence and Improvement

Salary: £70,000 - £90,000

Team: Operational Excellence

Location: 30 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf

Hybrid contract with ability to work from home 1-2 days per week

Reports to: Chief Operating Officer

2. Organisational context

✨Join Us at The Centre for ADHD Research and Excellence: Shaping the Future of Accessible Healthcare✨

At CARE ADHD, we're revolutionising healthcare by making ADHD assessments and treatment more affordable and accessible to those who need it. Our client-centred approach, combined with lean methodology and a focus on continuous improvement, drives our commitment to excellence. We embrace an innovative mindset, encouraging rapid learning and adaptation through our 'fail fast' ethos. With ambitious plans to become the largest ADHD service provider outside the NHS within the next five years, we are committed to pushing boundaries and fostering innovation.

Care is at the heart of who we are - in how we support patients, and in how we treat each other as colleagues. We believe the way we show up for each other is just as important as what we do. Skills matter, but it’s our mindset, behaviours and willingness to learn, adapt and improve that protect the supportive culture we’ve built, and help us thrive together.

3. Job purpose

The Head of Excellence and Improvement will serve as the operational counterpart to Product. Product determines what should be built and improved; this role ensures organisational capability, process, systems, training and adoption are aligned to successfully realise those changes at scale.

You will

i.        Own the operational standards that make care consistent and safe

ii.       Enact judgement and expertise, using data and improvement models to fix todays problems whilst ensuring the future products and services are also fixed

iii.       Lead a team of improvement, process and enablement specialists to ensure the whole company understands and implements excellent care

iv.       Shape how Clinical Care, Client Services and Operations are designed and governed through influence, expertise and evidence rather than through formal authority

v.       Build operational readiness into everything we do, supporting new service launch or pathways change.  Ensuring operational infrastructure is ready to go before go-live

vi.       Act as the COO's delegated authority for operational readiness, process excellence and improvement delivery, exercising independent judgement and escalating only where executive decisions are required

vii.       Ensure improvements are successfully delivered, adopted, measured and sustained

Core Duties and Responsibilities (Key Result Areas)

Key responsibilities will include:

Planning & Organising

• Develop and embed the operational frameworks, controls and adoption mechanisms that ensure new products, services and process changes deliver measurable improvements in practice
• Operational design and training that is designed and embedded to ensure success in all of our services
• Planning against our strategic aims for growth, experience and safety for implementing the highest quality processes and systems
• Ensuring any redesign, improvement and new pathways meet the standards required within a regulated environment (healthcare delivery technology) whilst understanding the ambitions for improvement and growth and the governance and safety aspects of the Care Quality Commission (CQC)

Service Improvement

• Partnering with intent with the head of product to identify improvements, as well as new pathways and opportunities, ensure that any changes are well planned, meet the highest standards and are understood by all
• Actively support and co-manage operational risk with peers that are responsible for the day to day management of operational teams. Identify recurring operational issues, address root causes and build sustainable solutions that reduce future demand.
• Own the organisational adoption of change, ensuring improvements deliver sustained benefits rather than successful implementation alone.
• Establish mechanisms to measure adoption, operational impact and realised benefits of change initiatives.
• Lead the operational transformation agenda, identifying opportunities to simplify, automate and digitise processes through effective use of systems, technology and data.

Analysis & Judgment

• Drawing from experience and expertise in other fields and industries, ensures that the organisation benefits from relevant innovations and improvement methodologies.
• Create an environment where experimentation, learning and continuous improvement are embedded into day-to-day operations whilst maintaining appropriate governance and patient safety standards.
• Continuously improve information systems and procedures.  Review systems and processes as necessary ensuring solutions are also identified.
• Undertake project work, analysis and interpretation, assessment of options, initiative and judgement.
• Frequently working with a range of data, facts and situations often requiring analysis and interpretation on a range of options making decisions on the most appropriate approach to develop policies, strategies or business plans.

Communication

• Lead as the expert; integrating systems and managing effective working relationships with the appropriate stakeholders on a range of business sensitive issues.
• Link with managers and members of other initiatives to address inter-dependencies and ensure alignment.
• Employ effective communication, negotiation and influencing skills to enable an effective business management with staff and stakeholders at all levels (including senior management) who may hold differing and contentious views.
• Effective stakeholder management across different departments and at all levels, maintaining relationships with key and high-profile stakeholders, such as key strategic regional and national policy makers.
• Model collaborative and influencing style, negotiating to achieve best outcomes.

People Management

• Lead staff in operational excellence team, ensuring that all are supported in their development and continual learning, building a collaborative working environment and an innovative culture.
• Connect with Global Capability Centre colleagues on programmes of improvement and redesign
• Responsible for the recruitment and development of the team, including undertaking appraisal, staff develop and where appropriate progressing employee relation matters.

Research & Development

• Conduct thorough review and analysis of challenges to develop the optimum approach to improvement.
• Approaches innovation including research and development to identify, develop and promote best practice.
• Regularly highlight, promote and report innovative approaches to education and training

Person Specification

Post Title:           Head of Excellence and Improvement

Team:                  Operations

Knowledge & experience

⭐⭐ Essential:

In depth additional expert knowledge acquired over a significant period in strategy formulation, Leadership, service improvement and resource management.

Knowledge and experience of good governance practices and providing assurance to executives.

Experience and ability to influence without formal hierarchy, demonstrating credibility, expertise and positive relationships even through challenge

Experience in a high growth or scale-up context with demonstrable experience and evidence of creating a structure in ambiguity without slowing down growth and innovation

Experience leading a transformation, operational excellence, business improvement or service redesign function. Experience partnering with Product, Technology or Digital teams to deliver organisational change.

Experience implementing significant operational, process or systems change across multiple business functions.

Experience establishing adoption, governance and benefits-realisation frameworks that ensured change delivered measurable outcomes.

Experience influencing senior leaders and driving change across departments without formal authority.

Experience operating in a high-growth, scaling or rapidly evolving environment.

⭐Desirable

Healthcare, health tech or other regulated industry experience.

Previous experience of having corporate responsibility for major policy and service development

Skills & Abilities

⭐⭐ Essential:

Able to make a connection between their work and the benefit to company goals and achievements

Demonstrates sound judgement in the absence of clear guidelines or precedent, seeking advice as necessary from more senior management when appropriate.

Ability to analyse numerical and written data, assess verbal, written, numerical and draw appropriate conclusions.

Ability to work on own initiative and organise workload, allocating work as necessary, working to tight and often changing deadlines.

Ability to make decisions autonomously, when required, on difficult issues.

Commitment to and focused on quality, promotes high standards in all they do.

Consistently looks to improve what they do, looks for successful tried and tested ways of working, and also seeks out innovation.

⭐Desirable

Lean, Six Sigma or equivalent practiced as a discipline

Experience delivering digital transformation, workflow automation or AI-enabled operational improvement.

Interpersonal Skills

⭐⭐Essential:

Highly developed communication skills with the ability to communicate on highly complex matters and difficult situations.

Works well with others, is positive and helpful, listens, involves, respects and learns from the contribution of others.

Actively develops themselves and supports others to do the same.

Flexibility, and the ability to handle a rapidly changing and ambiguous environment.

🙏🏻 What you can expect from us

• Competitive salary of £70,000–£90,000
• Based at our Canary Wharf office with the option to work from home 1–2 days per week
• 33 days holiday (includes UK public holidays)
• A paid day off on your birthday
• £500 home office setup stipend
• Office equipment when you join
• Pension contribution
• Team get-togethers
• The chance to be a genuine senior leader in one of the UK's most ambitious HealthTech scale-ups — at a moment when what you build will actually matter

🗓️ Our hiring process

• We aim to make our hiring process as streamlined as possible.

What to Expect

🚀 Applications close at 8am on 10th July.

📩 We'll aim to contact shortlisted candidates by the end of the day on the 10th July.

💻 Initial Microsoft Teams calls with one of our Talent Acquisition Specialists will take place on the 13th and 14th July**,** the perfect chance for us to get to know each other more.

👥 Panel interview and skills based assessment to be held on the 22nd July in our Canary Wharf office.

🩵 Apply with confidence

Studies show that men apply for roles when they meet around 60% of the qualifications, whereas women and other marginalised groups often apply if they meet every requirement. If you believe you're a great fit but don't meet every single criteria, we encourage you to apply.

At Care ADHD, we're committed to building a diverse and inclusive environment. We encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds, especially those from historically marginalised communities, as we work together to create a more equitable future.