Chief Medical Officer Recruitment
Welcome
Thank you for your interest in the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) role at NHS Devon Integrated Care Board (ICB).
We are seeking an exceptional clinical leader with Board-level experience to join our team and play a pivotal role in shaping the strategic direction of our organisation, with a commitment to innovation, excellence, and equality.
NHS Devon is responsible for commissioning £2.3 billion of health services in Devon. Our aim is to improve people’s lives – wherever they live in the county – to reduce health inequalities and ensure we can deliver these services for the long term.
As the organisation’s medical leader, you will collaborate closely with our Board, executive leadership, healthcare professionals, and stakeholders to drive forward our mission of commissioning outstanding healthcare services to the communities we serve.
Along with all ICBs in the country, we are currently in a period of significant organisational change, which involves fundamentally restructuring the whole organisation. As CMO, you will play a crucial role in leading the change, and inspiring and supporting staff through compassionate, inclusive, and impactful leadership.
About the role
Having recently joined the organisation as Chief Executive (in February 2024), I am heartened by the commitment of all our colleagues and partners within the system to deliver a long-term strategy to achieve aims.
As CMO, you will work closely with me, Board colleagues and our partners to help develop and deliver our long-term strategy: the Joint Forward Plan.
You will have a crucial role in supporting our ambitions by leading the development and delivery of our long-term clinical strategy, working alongside the Chief Nursing Officer and inspiring and influencing clinical and professional colleagues across Devon and the south west region, to ensure this reflects and integrates the strategies of all relevant partner organisations within the integrated care system (ICS), and the needs of our population.
You will provide leadership that ensures collaborative working across organisational boundaries by building strong and trusting relationships with key system partners to generate buy in to a collective vision for integrated care and population health management; transforming the health and care system across Devon to enable change at system and partnership level.
Along with other executive colleagues, you will have shared accountability for the development and delivery of our long-term financial strategy, ensuring this reflects and integrates the strategies of partner organisations within the ICS as well as ensuring that system resources are effectively deployed and used to provide the best possible care for the population.
We are looking for a high-calibre individual with the ability to balance leading and empowering our organisation’s medical directorate, as well as clinical and professional leadership across the county to recognise and realise system-wide opportunities.
You will be able to drive improvement in the quality of our services for the benefit of the communities we serve, with a focus on population health and outcomes, and work with the Chief Nursing Officer and Chief People Officer to develop meaningful clinical and professional workforce strategies that are sustainable for the future.
You will be a registered medical practitioner with the regulatory body (GMC) with significant experience of board level and/or system leadership within a health care environment.
This is a significant, high-profile role and you will need to share our belief that NHS Devon should reflect the communities it serves. With a passion for health and the focus on driving improvements in care as well as delivering long term preventative strategies for population health and for tackling health inequality, you will bring authentic compassionate leadership and high levels of personal integrity, blended with the ability to hold others to account.
We are looking for an impactful, influential and ambitious CMO who actively champions diversity, inclusion, and equality of opportunity for all, and can help us to achieve our vision of improving people’s lives in Devon.
Service and financial performance
Devon has many exceptional services, but others have faced longstanding issues, including in some areas of urgent and elective care. While we are beginning to see some signs of an encouraging turnaround, they remain critical priorities to be addressed without losing sight of our need to go further on health prevention and inequalities.
Our financial challenges are also well documented, and our organisation currently has an underlying deficit of more than £240 million. There is a significant amount of work underway to improve this position and return to financial balance.
As a result of our service and financial performance, the organisation and system is under the highest tier of oversight and scrutiny by NHS England (segment four of the NHS Oversight Framework). We are working towards nine ‘exit criteria’ including elective care waits, strategy and finances.
Like many areas in England, the health and social care sector is experiencing workforce shortfalls which require innovate solutions to address.
The CMO will have a key role in addressing these issues and making the most of the opportunities we have available to us.
About Devon
Devon is the fourth largest county in England with a diverse and growing population. It includes the cities of Plymouth and Exeter, more than 45 towns – both rural and urban – and several hundred parishes.
It is home to two of the country’s 15 national parks (Dartmoor and Exmoor) as well as two vibrant cities, many high-quality education opportunities and businesses.
Devon has a unique set of opportunities and challenges due to its combination of coastal, rural and urban communities. The population in Devon is older than the national average, with the higher levels of frailty that often accompany this.
As with many areas of the country, there are also increasing numbers of children and young people needing care and support. We also know that we need to shift to a greater emphasis on prevention and early intervention for all in our population.
Significant opportunites
NHS Devon is in a period of transition, which provides significant opportunities for a talented clinical leader to help shape how we work for the benefit of our staff, patients and communities, now and into the future.
I look forward to meeting you.
Kind regards,
Steve