Salary:VSM – Competitive
Lead with Compassion, Inspire Excellence – Become the Next Chief Nurse at Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
Join #TeamMWL and Make a Difference
#TeamMWL is seeking an inspiring, compassionate, and strategic Chief Nurse to lead our nursing, midwifery, and allied health professional (AHP) workforce that will drive excellence in patient care and champion professional leadership and ensure that our values and vision translate into outstanding clinical practice.
Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is committed to delivering 5-star patient care that is safe, effective, and compassionate through fostering a culture where our teams feel valued, supported and empowered to thrive.
The person
We seek an exceptional, values-driven leader with experience operating at a very senior level within a complex health or care environment. You will:
-Be a strong and influential leader, capable of inspiring and developing our nursing, midwifery, and AHP workforce.
-Have a passion for patient-centred care, with a commitment to innovation, integration, and collaboration across health and social care systems.
-Be a strategic thinker, shaping and delivering quality, safety, and governance initiatives.
Here at MWL, we are committed to fostering an inclusive culture and encourage applications from diverse backgrounds, particularly individuals with protected characteristics currently under-represented in our Trust.
As Chief Nurse, you will be a key member of the Trust Board and executive leadership team, playing a critical role in ensuring the delivery of outstanding, safe, and compassionate patient care. Your responsibilities will include:
• Providing expert professional leadership to nursing, midwifery, and AHP teams.
• Overseeing the implementation of patient safety, quality, and clinical governance strategies.
• Driving continuous quality improvement initiatives aligned with national and regional health priorities.
• Collaborating with system partners across Cheshire and Merseyside ICS and Lancashire and South Cumbria ICS to support integrated care delivery and reduce health inequalities.
Further details of the role requirements are outlined in the Candidate Briefing Pack.
Please note, this recruitment process will include an assessment centre featuring a focus group exercise, presentation, and interview.
Date of Assessment Centre: 28th April 2025
On the 1st July 2023 St Helens & Knowsley Teaching Hospitals and Southport & Ormskirk Hospitals came together as a single organisation under the name Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Our vision to provide 5-star patient care remains the Trust’s primary objective, so that patients and their carers receive services that are safe, person-centred and responsive, aiming for positive outcomes every time. The mission and vision have remained consistent and embedded in the everyday working practices of staff throughout the Trust, where delivering 5-star patient care is recognised as everyone’s responsibility.
We are privileged to deliver acute hospital care, intermediate care, community, and primary care services to a population of over 600,000 people with a combined workforce of around 10,500 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 locations including Newton, Ormskirk, St Helens, Southport and Whiston hospitals. The Trust also provides regional services for burns, plastic surgery and spinal injuries to more than 4 million people across Merseyside and West Lancashire, Cheshire, the Isle of Man and North Wales.
The Trust is also the largest Lead Employer in the NHS of doctors, dentists, and specialists in public health in training totalling circa 13,000 trainees across 8 NHSE regions. We also provide payroll services to 13 NHS organisations across the country issuing 97,000 payslips per month.
The Trust is immensely proud of its achievements and some of these are listed below:-
• - Outstanding rating awarded by the CQC, the best possible rating. This has remained unchanged following the formation of the new Trust in July 2023 and following recent maternity inspections.
• - Awarded the prestigious HSJ Trust of the Year (2019)
• - Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & HSJ)
• - Achieved the best scores in the NHS, in the Patient-led Assessments of the Care Environment
• - Awarded Freedom of the Borough in recognition for the Trust’s work during the COVID-19 pandemic by St Helens, Knowsley and Sefton Councils
• - Received the Queens Award for the Trust’s Voluntary Service – the highest award a voluntary group can receive in the UK
• - Rated by staff as the best place to work in the and receive treatment in the North West (NHS Staff Survey 2022)
• - First NW Trust to receive the National Preceptorship for Nursing Quality Mark (NHS England 2022
Further details of the role requirements are outlined in the Candidate Briefing Pack.
Please note, this recruitment process will include an assessment centre featuring a focus group exercise, presentation, and interview.
This advert closes on Tuesday 15 Apr 2025
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Disability Confident
About Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident .