Are you passionate about creating digital services that make a real difference for patients and staff?
Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust is seeking an exceptional digital leader to become our Deputy Director, Digital Service Owner. This is a unique opportunity to establish and lead a modern digital service ownership function, ensuring our digital services deliver meaningful outcomes, exceptional user experiences and lasting value across the organisation.
Reporting to the Chief Digital & Data Officer, you will be accountable for ensuring digital services meet the needs of patients, clinicians and staff throughout their lifecycle. You will work closely with clinical, operational and corporate leaders to understand challenges, identify opportunities and ensure services continuously evolve in response to changing user needs and organisational priorities.
This role is ideally suited to a senior leader with experience in service ownership, product management, service design or agile delivery who is passionate about user-centred design and improving outcomes through digital innovation. You will have the opportunity to influence strategy, shape investment decisions and lead multidisciplinary teams that are transforming how healthcare services are delivered.
As Deputy Director, Digital Service Owner, you will be accountable for the quality, performance, outcomes and benefits delivered by the Trust's digital services. Your focus will be ensuring services continue to meet the needs of patients, staff and the organisation, delivering measurable improvements to experience, efficiency and care.
You will:
Lead multidisciplinary teams across service ownership, product management, digital delivery and business analysis.
Act as the accountable owner for digital services, ensuring they remain aligned to user needs and organisational priorities.
Champion user-centred design and agile delivery approaches, using insight and evidence to drive decision-making.
Work directly with clinicians, operational teams and service leaders to understand needs and improve digital experiences.
Ensure services deliver measurable clinical, operational and workforce benefits.
Establish robust governance, performance and benefits realisation arrangements.
Lead business cases, funding opportunities and strategic partnerships that support innovation and transformation.
Foster a culture of continuous improvement, learning and user-focused delivery.
We are the main provider of NHS community services across East and West Sussex, with 6,000 staff serving 1.3 million people. We deliver essential care to adults and children, helping them manage their health, avoid hospital admissions, and reduce hospital stays.
Our Trust vision is to provide excellent care at the heart of the community. We offer opportunities across medical, clinical, support, and corporate services.
Why work for us?
- Positive 2024 NHS Staff Survey results, highlighting compassionate leadership and wellbeing
- Varied environments: community hospitals, patients’ homes, and bases across Sussex
- Flexible working options: part-time, flexi-time, annualised hours, and flexi-retirement
- Excellent training, development, and research opportunities
- Accredited Living Wage Employer, we ensure fair pay for all our staff
- Cost-effective workplace nurseries in Crawley, Hove, and Brighton
- Active EMBRACE, Disability & Wellbeing, LGBTQIA+, and Religion & Belief networks
- Level 3 Disability Confident Leader and Veteran Aware Trust
Our values — Compassionate Care, Working Together, Achieving Ambitions, Delivering Excellence —guide everything we do.
We embrace diversity and encourage applications from all backgrounds, particularly from ethnically diverse, disabled, and LGBTQIA+ individuals. We aim to create an inclusive environment and support reasonable adjustments during recruitment.
This post may close early if sufficient applications are received.
This role is about much more than delivering digital systems. It is about taking accountability for ensuring digital services solve the right problems, deliver the intended outcomes and continue to meet the needs of patients and staff over time.
As Deputy Director, Digital Service Owner, you will lead the evolution of the Trust's digital services through a user-centred, outcome-focused approach. You will work closely with clinicians, operational colleagues, patients and partners to understand user needs, improve services and ensure investment decisions deliver meaningful benefits.
You will be responsible for ensuring digital services are safe, effective, sustainable and continually improved, balancing user needs, organisational priorities, risk and available resources. You will oversee service strategy, delivery, adoption, performance and optimisation, ensuring teams focus on real-world outcomes rather than simply implementing technology.
We're looking for a leader who understands that service ownership means accountability. Someone who can create the conditions for multidisciplinary teams to succeed, champion user-centred design and agile delivery, and ensure every digital service delivers value for patients, staff and the communities we serve.
