Senior Strategy & Partnerships Manager

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Strategy:

• Support the Head of Strategy & Partnerships to ensure an appropriate framework is in place for continuous development and review of Trust strategies, enabling strategies and business plans across the two Trusts.
• Support the development, delivery and monitoring of the Trusts’ Strategic Plans and realisation of its strategic goals.
• Coordinate support from within the team to review and assist services in developing strategic plans, ensuring that robust impact assessments and necessary engagement is undertaken.
• To support in the production of progress reports on the delivery of strategies
• Provide practical support to teams within the Trust in terms of helping them to understand the Trust strategy and their role in business planning.
• Facilitate engagement sessions and workshops with key stakeholders that may be required.
• Support the planning, development and implementation of clinical service strategies and business plans. This will include undertaking insightful analysis, advising on interdependencies, identifying risks and appropriate mitigations to address any issues identified in keeping plans on track.
• Develop briefings on significant national and local health and social care policy developments.
• Support the Head of Strategy to ensure key risks to strategy delivery are proactively identified, escalated appropriately, and addressed with robust mitigations.

Business Planning:

• Support implementation of the Trusts’ Joint Planning Framework.
• Champion a planning culture and ownership of plans at all levels.
• Provide expert guidance on complex planning issues.
• Coordinate specific aspects of the Trust’s annual planning framework, including collating information and support for annual submissions (and any ad-hoc requests) as required by the GM Integrated Care system and NHS England and Improvement.
• Support the Head of Strategy & Partnerships to coordinate the alignment of corporate-level strategy and planning with divisional and service-level planning, ensuring sufficient resource from the team is prioritised across the two Trusts.
• Where necessary, deputise for the Head of Strategy & Partnerships in supporting the operational planning process across the Trusts.

Business Cases:

• Oversee governance of the business case processes across the Trusts, including reporting on progress and exceptions to senior management teams and Board.
• Provide support and advice to clinical and corporate teams to develop clinical service change proposals and business plans.
• Support the preparation of investment proposals in response to national and local initiatives and initiate action to deliver approved schemes.
• Provide project management support and an active role in supporting divisions in the development of robust business cases.
• Support divisions to develop high quality business plans and business cases through training and skills development.
• Lead meetings and hold colleagues to account through a programme management approach, ensuring agreed timescales are met. Ensure that regular reports are produced identifying progress against project plans and highlighting any significant risks, identifying areas of poor performance / project performance, as well as managing and implementing any remedial action required as directed.
• Coordinate and monitor the evaluation process of business cases and other major projects to ensure the delivery and achievement of planned outcomes and benefits.

Partnership working:

• Provide programme support for Stockport’s Provider Partnership, to ensure strong collaboration between health and care providers in the locality to deliver shared priorities.
• Working closely with the Trust leads, co-ordinate activities with partners for strategic planning projects and implementation including data and service analysis.
• Support the two Trusts to develop partnership initiatives to improve services and generate sustainability.
• Work with a range of key stakeholders including commissioners, public stakeholders, regulators and independent clinical experts, aligning to best practice.
• Support specific partnership work as identified by the Head of Strategy & Partnerships.

Capital Programme:

• Coordinate the joint process for capital planning across the two trusts.
• Implement programme management and governance assurance processes to support delivery of agreed capital priorities and programmes in line with agreed objectives.
• Ensure that adequate support is assigned from within the team to manage capital bids and prioritisation.
• Support the Deputy Director of Strategy & Partnerships to ensure clear oversight of the capital planning process, including providing progress reports to executive teams and Committees.

Tenders:

• Support the processes in place for monitoring and responding to tender opportunities. Provide project management support and bid writing expertise to support divisions in the development of robust tender bids.
• Coordinate the process for the identification and coordination of new tender opportunities.
• Act as project management support on specific tender bid submissions.

KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS

Planning & Organising

• Organise and plan own day-to-day workload or activities in order to support the timely delivery of agreed projects and objectives.
• Identify and resolve deviations from expected interventions / projects in order to deliver key milestones and reporting deadlines.
• Contribute to ensuring relevant internal and external governance and reporting arrangements are met.

Communications

• Responsible for communicating key information and leading engagement activities with all staff relating to the Trust strategy.
• Ensure that appropriate staff and teams are actively involved in key business planning activities and understand their roles and responsibilities.
• Present information in a clear and transparent way, suitable for a wider audience including assurance committees.
• Communicate highly complex or sensitive information clearly and concisely to staff at all levels of the organisation and external key stakeholders. This involves the ability to present to a variety of audiences, including groups with conflicting and varying views to establish agreement and co-operation regarding complex or sensitive issues.
• Translate national policy relating to NHS strategy and annual planning activities required in a form which is meaningful to all staff groups using a variety of communication styles to achieve this.
• Produce written documentation, including status reports, information/data/reports as required for organisation at Programme and Executive level.

Responsibility for Patient Care

• Assist patients / service users / carers / relatives during incidental contacts.
• Where the delivery of projects and key Trust objectives involves significant changes to service provision, ensure appropriate user engagement is carried out in line with Trust Policy.
• On occasions when visiting or working in clinical areas and interacting with patients / service users / carers / relatives ensure liaison and appropriate notice is agreed with the Nurse in Charge / Department Leads in advance to co-ordinate such activities.

Responsibilities for Physical and / or Financial Resources

• The post holder will take responsibility for managing the Strategy & Partnerships team and associated resources.
• Support divisions and other corporate directorates to enable delivery of the Trusts’ strategic and operational objectives within available resources.

Responsibility for Policy and Service Development and Implementation

• Observe the provisions of and adhere to all Trust policies and procedures.
• Support the development, delivery and monitoring of the Trusts’ Strategic Plans
• Support the Head of Strategy & Partnerships to maintain policies and frameworks for strategy and planning.

Responsibilities for Human Resources and Leadership

• Deputise for the Head of Strategy & Partnerships and the Deputy Director of Strategy & Partnerships on appropriate matters as required.
• Line manage the Strategy & Partnerships team, supporting personal development and delivery of business objectives.

Responsibilities for Teaching and Training

• To participate and, on occasions lead, any training and development required to ensure a sustainable knowledge base with regards to strategy and business planning activities across the Trust.
• Coach, mentor and teach business planning and business case development skills to relevant staff at all levels

Working conditions:

The role is administrative based in a hybrid working pattern, based primarily at Tameside General Hospital, as well as support teams at Stockport NHS FT and working with our independent sector partner to deliver the new service in Denton.