Chief People Officer

Care is only as strong as the people who stay to give it. This role builds the workforce behind lifetime pathways—from secure and acute hospitals through rehabilitation, nursing, residential care and supported living—so colleagues are safe, skilled and proud to remain. Success is felt on the ward and in the home: steadier teams, safer staffing and patients who move through care with dignity rather than delay.

Performance Objectives

• Set a three-year people strategy that cuts hard-to-fill vacancies and agency dependence while protecting safe staffing across every service type.
• Stand up leadership pathways so registered managers and clinical leaders retain teams and lift engagement year on year.
• Make hope, compassion, respect and empowerment visible in how we hire, supervise, roster and recognise people—not only in induction slides.
• Give the executive team a monthly workforce picture they act on: turnover, sickness, time-to-fill, training compliance, pay pressure and inclusion.
• Partner with operations to open and stabilise services without compromising continuity of care or patient flow.
• Strengthen speak-up, employee relations and inclusion so safety and dignity hold in 24/7, high-support environments.
• Design reward and career routes that attract nurses, therapists and support workers within an agreed cost envelope.

Environment & Resources

You report to the Chief Executive and sit on the executive team, leading people, culture, recruitment, learning and employee relations. Regional people partners work inside services, not from a distant centre. You will have workforce systems, e-rostering and learning platforms, plus an annual people budget tied to safe-staffing plans. Clinical directors and registered managers are your primary partners; regulators and commissioners set the standard you must help services meet.

Essential Qualifications

• Senior people leadership across multi-site health or social care, including secure, acute or residential settings.
• A recorded shift in retention, agency use or leadership capability—not a programme that never reached the floor.
• Working fluency in UK employment law, safer staffing and regulated-care expectations.
• Credibility with both a board and a night-shift manager.
• Proof you can build an inclusive culture where people work unsocial hours under clinical pressure.

Role Selling Points

• A national care pathway, not a single-site HR brief—your decisions travel from admission to community life.
• A direct line from workforce quality to system flow and patient dignity.
• A growth organisation: you will build the people function, not only maintain it.
• Values that are meant to be practised in restrictive and high-support settings, where they are hardest and matter most.

Call to Action

If you judge your work by safer teams and better care, not by policy volume, apply. Tell us the workforce outcome you are most proud of—and what changed for the people receiving care.