NHS England North West is seeking an exceptional Regional Chief Nursing Officer — a rare and influential opportunity to shape the future of care across one of the country’s most diverse and dynamic regions.
This senior leadership role will provide strategic direction and professional oversight for the nursing, midwifery and allied health professions workforce, ensuring the delivery of safe, high‑quality services today while driving the transformation required for the future.
The North West’s three large integrated care systems are progressing through recovery and stabilisation, with some areas requiring enhanced regional support. The post-holder will work across all regional directorates to identify where improvement or transformation is needed and ensure providers and systems receive the right level of clinical and operational support.
A key responsibility will be leading the region’s contribution to NHS England’s new quality strategy and supporting the implementation of forthcoming modern service frameworks for cardiovascular disease and sepsis. The role will also champion the development, wellbeing and professional voice of the nursing, midwifery and AHP workforce across the region.
Working closely with the Regional Medical Director and the Regional Chief Delivery and Transformation Officer as a ‘triumvirate’, the postholder will ensure quality remains the organising principle for all regional activity and that improvement is consistently clinically-led. They will also provide expert clinical input into the assessment of provider and commissioner performance.
This is a pivotal role for a credible, influential and trusted leader who can inspire the region’s clinical workforce, support systems to deliver high‑quality care, and help realise the ambitions of the 10‑Year Health Plan. It offers the chance to make a profound and lasting impact on the health and wellbeing of communities across the North West
The post-holder, as a member of the regional executive team, will provide professional support to Regional Director to deliver the objectives of NHS England. They may also lead or support initiatives set out by NHS England’s national leadership, as relevant to their portfolio.
NHS England has a wide range of statutory functions, responsibilities and regulatory powers. These are focused on supporting the wider NHS to deliver high quality care, as well as doing those things that are best done once for the whole NHS.
Our staff bring expertise across clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial specialisms — enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.
In March 2025, the Government announced that NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the department.
If you currently work within the NHS and if successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the process.
Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in our offices.
We cannot offer visa sponsorship for any vacancies.
The Chief Nursing Officer is accountable to and reports to the NHS Regional Chief Executive.
The Chief Nursing Officer will:
- Support the transformation of the NHS landscape through personal leadership and connection with senior leaders within NHS organisations.
- Ensure that accountability is tightly managed and that appropriate levers, including undertakings and regulation, are applied to support Boards to regain high levels of performance and quality.
- Support the delivery of national and regional priorities for health and care in their region. This includes driving continuous improvements in quality of care and health outcomes, improvements in performance against NHS Constitution standards, and ensuring that local health systems live within their combined financial budgets.
- Support the oversight relationship with the Boards of providers, ensuring that there is autonomy and accountability and where success delivers, freedom from central oversight within a rules based system.
- Support the oversight of the Boards of strategic commissioning organisations across their region ensuring high performance and accountability in these organisations.
- Ensure that the voice of the region is fed into the relevant national Director Generals and Priority Programme Directors as necessary.
You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.
