South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust
Ophthalmology Unit Manager
The closing date is 24 November 2026

Job summary
We are looking for an experienced, motivated, compassionate Ophthalmology Unit Manager to lead our busy eye unit.

You will be responsible for day to day running of clinics and staffing, ensuring that patients receive safe, timely and high quality care.

As a visible and approachable leader you will support and develop a multi disciplinary team, working closely with clinicians, Nurses and management to maintain a safe environment and drive service improvements.

This is an exciting opportunity for a Registered Nurse with strong leadership skills to make a real difference to patient care and staff wellbeing.

Main duties of the job
Establish, develop, maintain, monitor and facilitate the delivery of services at departmental level, across two sites ensuring services provided meet organisational objectives, divisional service strategies and quality accounts.

About us
Come and join a Trust rated Outstanding by the CQC. South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust have been rated as outstanding following our latest inspection by the CQC and we are recruiting new staff to come and help us improve even further. In addition our staff survey results have placed us 4th in the country for recommended place to work.

We provide services across Warwickshire and beyond ranging from Hospitals in Warwick, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Royal Leamington Spa and Shipston-on Stour to Community Services across the county. We are a progressive, expanding organisation with great ambition around improving quality, integrating pathways and delivering high levels of productivity.

Our values can be summed up in one sentence. We are 'Trusted to provide safe, inclusive, effective and compassionate care'. Throughout the recruitment process you will be asked to think about how you demonstrate these values and how they impact on your work. It doesn't matter what role you do, whether it is patient facing or not, we are all working in the same way with our values at the core.

As part of our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion we encourage all applicants to complete a short survey. This can be accessed via the link below:
https://forms.office.com/e/ahWY3eAGM2

We appreciate you completing the survey.

Details
Date posted: 10 November 2026
Pay scheme: Agenda for change
Band: Band 7
Salary: £49,387 to £56,515 a year per annum
Contract: Permanent
Working pattern: Full-time
Reference number: 203-EL1259
Job locations: Warwick and Stratford, Lakin road, Warwick, CV34 5BW, United Kingdom

Job responsibilities
Key Result Areas: Professional/Clinical

• To provide strong visible leadership to all staff within the Department and across the organisation, ensuring that nursing practice is up to date, evidence based and cost effective.
• To develop the outpatient teams, individuals and self to enhance performance, ensuring that staff training needs to meet organisational objectives are pursued through the principles of IPR and PDP and knowledge & skills framework, in accordance with Trust Policies and procedures.
• To be responsible for own professional registration and ensure that all nurses working on the ward have valid NMC registration and practise in accordance with the NMC Code, Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics for Nurses and Midwives and in accordance to Trust policy, ensuring a robust system is in place to checking registered practitioners registration status.
• Provide leadership for the implementation of the quality initiatives such as Essence of Care benchmarking.
• Ensure a strong team focus on high quality, clinically effective healthcare that meet our patients needs, is embedded in ward culture.
• Create and maintain a strong culture of Infection Prevention & Control awareness & practice and ensure robust systems are in place to measure IP&C standards, celebrate & share good practice and develop & review action plans to address deficiencies.
• Develop, maintain and review annually the departments philosophy so that this continually reflects the aims of the team, division and organisation.
• Develop and lead teams that seeks to actively resolve compliant/concerns at local level ensuring appropriate escalation of complaints, clinical incidents or near misses.
• To be responsible for organising the Ophthalmology on-call roster.
• Foster and embed a patient safety culture and participate in national and local patient safety work streams or campaigns to improve the patients environment and experience such as Patient Safety Thermometer.

Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential

• First Level Nurse
• Degree in Professional Nursing/Health Studies
• Ophthalmology Post graduate certificate or equivalent experience
• ENB course in Medical Specialties
• Post-registration management qualification or equivalent experience
• ILS/ALS
• Evidence of continuing professional development

Desirable

• ENB 998 or equivalent qualification

Experience
Essential

• Experience in nurse management
• Experience of change management
• Experience of general medicine

Desirable

• A minimum of 2 year experience at band 6 within acute hospital setting

Skills
Essential

• Presentation skills and relevance to question
• Sound knowledge of evidence based practice
• Knowledge and experience of audit process
• Evidence of involvement in change management
• Sound resource (human and finance) management skills

Desirable

• Some knowledge of business planning
• Experience of writing guidelines/protocols & policies

Personal Qualities
Essential

• Can demonstrate characteristics of effective leadership
• Demonstrates ability to motivate, train and develop staff
• Is innovative, positive and has ability to stimulate a productive team Able to set/achieve individual/team objectives and meet deadlines
• Able to role model both clinically & managerially

Other job requirements
Essential

• Up to date with current NHS priorities and nursing issues
• Passes Occupational Health Clearance
• Flexible and adaptable in meeting changing service demand

Desirable

• Experience of project work and report writing

Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website.

UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website.

Employer details
Employer name: South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust
Address: Warwick and Stratford, Lakin road, Warwick, CV34 5BW, United Kingdom
Employer's website: https://www.swft.nhs.uk/

Employer contact details
For questions about the job, contact: Lead Nurse, Harvinder Khera, harvinder.khera@swft.nhs.uk, 01926495321

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