Head of Healthcare

Main area Secured Services Grade Band 8a Contract Permanent Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Monday to Friday) Job ref 270-TG699-HMPLG

Site HMP Lowdham Grange Town Nottinghamshire Salary £55,690 - £62,682 pa, pro rata Salary period Yearly Closing 22/02/:59

Job overview

Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT) is pleased to announce an opportunity to apply for the substantive post of Head of Healthcare at HMP Lowdham Grange. HMP Lowdham Grange is a Category B closed training prison for adult males, with capacity for 920 men, many serving long term sentences. Following its return to public sector management in 2024, the prison is undergoing significant transformation to improve safety, performance, and outcomes. This is a unique opportunity to lead healthcare in a challenging yet rewarding environment

The Head of Healthcare at HMP Lowdham Grange will oversee all aspects of the healthcare service including strategic, operational, and clinical leadership for all healthcare services within HMP Lowdham Grange.

We are looking for an experienced senior manager with an innovative and enthusiastic approach to service improvement and development.

The successful candidate will join the NHFT's Specialist and Secured services senior team. You will report directly to the Assistant Director of Specialist and Secured Services. The Specialist and Secured care delivery pathway includes prison healthcare across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire prisons and a range of specialist services including SARC, Gender Identify Service and Medium Secure facilities.

Main duties of the job

The Head of Healthcare will provide strategic and operational leadership across integrated healthcare services, developing and delivering improvement plans aligned with national standards. You'll oversee clinical governance, ensuring high quality care, effective management of incidents and reviews, and full compliance with safeguarding, infection control, and regulatory duties.

You will lead mental health and substance misuse services, including psychological therapies, crisis pathways, and harm reduction work, contributing to the wider establishment drug strategy. Strong workforce leadership is essential, ensuring the recruitment, development, and wellbeing of a skilled multidisciplinary team.

The role also includes responsibility for budgets, performance reporting, and delivering safe cost improvements. You will build strong partnerships with prison leadership, commissioners, and external providers to support continuity of care. Finally, you'll contribute to emergency response arrangements and participate in the on call rota.

Working for our organisation

NHFT is an award winning Trust recognised as an outstanding provider of health care with consistently exceptional levels of staff satisfaction. We believe in making a difference for you with you, by striving for continual innovation and a collective vision of outstanding, compassionate care. If you hold our PRIDE values of People first, respect and compassion, improving lives, dedication and equality, then The NHFT family would welcome your interest.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For further information on the advertised role, please refer to the job description located under the Supporting Documents heading. The full person specification can be accessed under the 'About You' Section of the document.

Person specification Qualification / Experience

• Registered nurse (or hold an equivalent healthcare qualification) or be an experienced manager with robust operational experience.
• Experience of working in a multidisciplinary environment
• Experience of working within a prison environment
• Experience of change management/improvement
• Be able to communicate with a wide range of people, using a variety of skills, including the ability to utilise effective verbal and non verbal communication skills
• Be person centred and trauma focused, working collaboratively with key partner organisations, clinicians, and other practitioners within the multi disciplinary team
• Attend relevant meetings and give formal presentations when required.

By completing an application you are giving authorisation for the transfer of your data. In submitting an application form, you authorise us to confirm any previous NHS service details via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR) Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process. Including factual reference, occupational health clearance and statutory and mandatory training records and full service history.

You must ensure that your application, including supporting statements and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.

Correspondence regarding your application will be sent to you via a TRAC system account.

Please submit your application as soon as possible; due to the high volumes of applications we receive we reserve the right to close any adverts before the closing date once we have received sufficient applications.

We are an equal opportunities employer, which aims to employ a workforce that reflects the diverse communities we serve. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons from all backgrounds.

All roles are subject to the home office immigration rules and therefore eligibility must be met in order for any sponsorship to be considered. Please visit the government website for more information regarding eligibility.

At NHFT we support many of our colleagues to work flexibly and we will consider requests for flexible working from day one. For this role, we are open to discussing a range of options including flexible hours, agile/home working, compressed hours and part time hours. Please have a conversation with the recruiting manager about the flexibility you need and we will promise to explore what is possible with you.

Applicants who have a disability and meet the essential criteria for the job will be considered under the Guaranteed Interview Scheme. If you require a reasonable adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process please make the recruitment services team aware as soon as possible.

All posts that are engaged in a regulated activity will be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and a DBS re check on a three yearly basis whilst employed in such a role. Staff employed in these posts will therefore be asked to register with the DBS Automatic Update Service upon receipt of their DBS certificate and must update yearly, the annual fee will be reimbursed subject to Trust policy. For further information please visit: DBS Update Service: applicant guide - GOV.UK ()

Please note if a DBS is applicable for the position then a charge will be deducted from your first salary or upfront cost if a staff bank position.

Please note that all new starters to the trust are subject to a probationary period.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.