Job summary
An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced and inspirational safeguarding leader to join NHS Thames Valley Integrated Care Board as Director of Safeguarding.

The postholder will provide strategic leadership across the health and care system, ensuring the highest standards of safeguarding for children, young people and adults. Working closely with executive leaders, provider organisations and multi-agency partners, you will lead the delivery of statutory safeguarding responsibilities and drive continuous improvement across the system. This role is ideally suited to a senior safeguarding professional with significant ICB/NHS leadership experience and a passion for improving outcomes for vulnerable people. If you are a visionary leader who can influence at Board level and build strong partnerships across complex systems, we would love to hear from you.

Please feel free to contact Sarah Bellars, Chief Nursing Officer via email (sarah.bellars@nhs.net) should you wish to organise a call before formally applying.

Interviews will take place in person at the ICB offices, Bath Road Reading on the afternoon of Tuesday 15th September 2026

At our Organisation, our selection process ensures we recruit candidates with the right skills and values. We monitor AI use in applications and remain alert to misuse that misrepresents abilities. You must declare any AI use when submitting your application.

Main duties of the job
The postholder will be responsible for the strategic and operational, development and delivery of safeguarding arrangements, including the safeguarding element of Thames Valley ICB's strategies and plans. The Director engages with executive/board members, senior managers, clinicians, practitioners, and officers across health, social care, and Thames Valley Police to develop a strategic safeguarding vision and transform that into a delivery model that can be adopted by the health community and Integrated Care System.

The Safeguarding Team in collaboration with health providers across Thames Valley ICB have responsibility for the delivery priorities on behalf of the Child Safeguarding Partnership and Safeguarding Adults Boards. The team represent the Integrated Care Board/Integrated Care System (ICB/ICS) at multi agency/single agency local, regional, and national groups in relation to safeguarding children, Looked After Children, Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children, Care Leavers and adults and coordinate a number of working groups to facilitate the delivery of ICB/ICS priorities. The delivery of the safeguarding assurance and governance processes are a primary focus of the team

About us
We value and promote diversity and are committed to equality of opportunity for all. We believe that the best employers are those that reflect the communities they serve. We want to increase the diversity of our NHS leadership and particularly encourage applications from women, people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, LGBT communities, younger candidates and from people with lived experience of disability, who we know are all under-represented in these important roles. We are committed to delivering a trustworthy, flexible and responsible staff culture.

Job responsibilities

• Lead the safeguarding team within the ICB, supporting them to fulfil their statutory and strategic responsibilities within their allocated place-based locality and with effective development and support.
• Formulating and communicating strategy to all stakeholders, ensuring efficient and effective utilisation of available resources for successful delivery.
• Establish and maintain appropriate systems and processes to facilitate the implementation of strategic initiatives within new organisations.
• Proactively identifying and managing key risks and issues and taking timely actions to mitigate or resolve them.
• Monitoring progress against strategic objectives and establishing accountability measures to ensure completion within agreed timelines.
• Managing the budgetary impact of activities.
• Safeguarding the continuity of standard business operations (business as usual).
• Managing and actively fostering positive relationships with key stakeholders.
• Establish accountability and monitor the safeguarding functions through the governance structure.
• Ensure learning from Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews (CSPR), Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARS), Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs), Child Death Reviews (CDR) and Learning from lives and deaths people with learning disabilities and autistic people (LeDeR) are embedded across health organisations, with a clear link to Quality Improvement programmes and commissioning decisions.
• Assure the NHS Thames Valley ICB/ISC Executive Lead for safeguarding that the statutory duties are delivered in line with legislation.
• Participate in the On Call system for the ICB.

Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential

• Educated to master's degree level (postgraduate studies) or equivalent level of experience of working at a senior level in specialist area.
• Current valid registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (Essential)

Knowledge, Experience
Essential

• Recent, proven and significant leadership experience.
• Demonstrated expertise in a Healthcare environment.
• Demonstrated expertise and understanding of all aspects of safeguarding, children, which includes Looked After Children, and adults and the responsibilities across a multiagency 'system'.
• As a minimum, proven and significant leadership experience at a Deputy Director level with responsibility and accountability for safeguarding.
• Project Management qualification, including experience of the implementation of project management methodologies.
• Safeguarding Board level experience of leading and delivering complex change and strategy development programmes in a politically sensitive and complex environment.
• Awareness of relevant public and private sector business management best practice.
• Experience of successfully operating in and delivering priorities in a partnership environment.
• Proven record in transferring processes and roles between locations.
• Significant experience and understanding of proven implementation of project management methodologies.
• Education sector knowledge.
• Experience and/or understanding of the Health Economy. Commercial expertise.
• Extensive experience of delivering presentations to large groups of stakeholders in often pressured and politically sensitive environments.
• Significant evidence of continued professional development.
• Member of a relevant professional body.

Desirable

• Significant and recent ICB management experience at director seniority level managing an all age safeguarding team (Desirable)

Skills, Capabilities, Attributes
Essential

• Demonstrates a dynamic presence, with proven ability to establish trusted stakeholder relationships and develop extensive support networks within complex political environments such as the NHS.
• Strong external communications skills in a politically sensitive environment and experience in handling media.
• Ability to prepare and produce concise yet insightful communications for dissemination to senior stakeholders and a broad range of stakeholders as required.
• Ability to analyse highly complex issues where material is conflicting and drawn from multiple sources.
• Demonstrated capability to act upon incomplete information, using experience to make inferences and decision making.
• Ability to analyse numeric, Al and written data, assess options and draw appropriate initiative.
• Leadership, vision, strategic thinking and planning with highly developed political skills.
• Demonstrated capability to plan over short, medium and long-term timeframes and adjust plans and resource requirements accordingly.
• Experience of managing and prioritising a large budget.
• Ability to provide informative reporting on finances and impact to Board management.
• Experience of project and programme management techniques and tools such as Prince 2 or Managing Successful Projects.
• Demonstrated capabilities to manage own workload and make informed decisions in the absence of required information, working to tight and often changing timescales.
• Ability to make decisions autonomously, when required, on difficult issues.
• Experience in leading a major change initiative with entrepreneurialism in a challenging organisational environment.
• Experience of creating a new team and motivating and inspiring colleagues to work together to achieve a common objective.
• Ability to work effectively between strategic and operational activities where required.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office with intermediate keyboard skills.

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.

UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

We value and promote diversity and are committed to equality of opportunity for all. We believe that the best employers are those that reflect the communities they serve. We want to increase the diversity of our NHS leadership and particularly encourage applications from women, people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, LGBT communities, younger candidates and from people with lived experience of disability, who we know are all under-represented in these important roles. We are committed to delivering a trustworthy, flexible and responsible staff culture.