Deputy Head of Midwifery and Neonatal Services
The closing date is 29 July 2026

Job summary
As part of our commitment to developing future leaders, we are excited to offer the Deputy Head of Midwifery and Neonatal Services role — a key opportunity for experienced senior midwives who aspire to progress into high-level leadership positions.

This role is designed to support your development towards becoming a Head of Midwifery/Nursing or Chief Neonatal Officer in the future. You will take a lead on corporate midwifery and nursing responsibilities, provide professional leadership across the service, and act up in the absence of the Head of Midwifery. This is a pivotal position for someone ready to take the next step in their leadership journey.

You will have responsibility for your own directorate while also offering oversight and guidance to a small group of Matrons across the Division. We recognise that this senior role requires an experienced leader with the confidence, knowledge, and professional maturity to support colleagues with complex issues and decision-making.

We are looking for a visible, compassionate, and influential midwifery leader — someone who can inspire teams, uphold professional standards, and act as a role model across multiple clinical areas. If you are committed to driving high-quality care, shaping services, and leading with integrity, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

• To be professionally accountable and maintain the standards of professional practice as set by the appropriate regulatory body applicable to your profession or role.
• Accountable for identifying and ensuring improvements in patient safety, patient experience and effectiveness of service
• In conjunction with the Clinical Director & Group/Directorate Manager, lead the implementation and delivery of the clinical service improvement plan
• Provide expert advice to the Group /Directorate on all nursing matters
• Ensuring effective contribution to the delivery of the organisation's objectives
• Manage a devolved budget for a number of clinical areas ensuring efficient and effective use of resources.
• Contribute to the planning and execution of cost improvement programmes ensuring the quality of care is risk assessed and managed appropriately
• Line manage matrons and nursing leads from a number of clinical areas including professional line of communication to research nurses and nurse specialists
• Act as lead specialist for specified projects within the Chief Nursing Officer's portfolio
• In conjunction with the Divisional Head of Nursing lead on quality improvements to enhance the patient journey.

About us
The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust is one of the largest NHS trusts in the West Midlands providing primary, acute and community services and we are incredibly proud of the diversity of both our staff and the communities we serve. We are building a workforce that can help us to fulfil our values, improve the quality of care for patients, and solve the health care problems of tomorrow. We're passionate about the value that diversity of thinking and lived experience brings in enabling us to become a learning organisation and leader in delivering compassionate care for our patients.

We are delighted that we have been rated as "Good" by CQC. We have achieved numerous awards; The Nursing Times Best Diversity and Inclusion Practice and Best UK Employer of the Year for Nursing Staff in 2020.

The Trust is a supportive working environment committed to creating flexible working arrangements that suit your needs and as such will consider all requests from applicants who wish to work flexibly.

Key Details
Date posted: 15 July 2026
Pay scheme: Agenda for change
Band: Band 8b
Salary: £66,582 to £77,368 a year (per annum)
Contract: Permanent
Working pattern: Full-time
Reference number: 225-DIV1-8063613
Job locations: New Cross Hospital, Neachells Lane, Wolverhampton, WV10 0QP

Job description
Ensuring safe and effective clinical practice

• Work with the Clinical Director to embed systems to deliver high quality person-centred care with compassion, dignity and respect with good health outcomes
• Monitor the Senior Sisters/Charge Nurses & Matrons delivery of on-going improvements in standards of nursing and nursing services through the development of effective systems and processes.
• Implement agreed systems across the Group/Directorate to evidence and monitor the nursing contribution to both national and local standards of care.
• Identify on-going and likely risks relating to nursing, developing & implementing action plans to mitigate them as well as alerting the Clinical Director and Head of Nursing and ensuring they are recorded on the appropriate risk register.
• Lead the development of the nursing research agenda within the Group/Directorate
• Implement and engage research and evidenced based practice to develop the skills of others.
• Monitor complaints relating to nursing and patient experience in the clinical areas and incidents related to nursing within the Group/Directorate, ensuring appropriate responses and implementation of action plans effectively resolve issues.
• Implement agreed systems to identify opportunities for learning and sharing good practice.
• Take timely action when professional standards fall short of those acceptable.
• Implement systems to deliver patient safety and prevention of harm assurance.
• Ensure the implementation and monitoring of practice standards that meet Infection Prevention standards.
• Ensure learning from the root cause analyses of incidents, complaints and claims are translated into learning and improvement within designated areas
• Participate in a range of formal management processes, investigation, hearing and implementation of findings where nursing staffs professional/personal conduct or professional competency is called into question.

Enhancing the Patient Experience

• Undertake clinical activity and be a visible presence to patients and staff whilst monitoring the quality of care and experience of patients in all clinical settings.
• Actively seek out and organise systems to capture the patient experience liaising with the Patient Experience Lead
• Take action to address poor patient experience identified through trend analysis/complaints and report outcomes to Group/Directorate
• Work with the Clinical Director to embed processes to engage patients and the public in service developments, to seek their views on existing services and to respond to their ideas and concerns including attending the Patient Experience events/meetings to represent their Group/Directorate
• Lead corrective actions when patients/carers raise concerns regarding care standards
• Support the effective management of patient pathways through the organisation ensuring the safety and best patient experience is upper most in all decision making.
• Monitor and identify standards in relation to cleanliness and environment and ensure corrective actions are taken
• Ensure that everyone within sphere of care is treated with dignity and humanity, understanding individual needs, showing compassion and sensitivity, and provide care in a way that respects all people equally.

Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential

• Health Care related Masters degree
• NMC Registered Midwife
• Post registration evidence of professional updating and CPD
• Management and Leadership training

Experience
Essential

• 2 years experience at Matron level or above with staff management skills
• Effective leadership
• Budgetary management
• Workforce Planning
• Practice/Service development within area of control

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 (Opens in a new tab).

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

Employer contact details
For questions about the job, contact:
Head of Midwifery and Nursing Services
Katherine Cheshire
katherine.cheshire@nhs.net