Hello and thank you for your interest in this exciting role and opportunity.

The search has begun for the new Chief Nurse at Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. This very senior leadership role will be vacant from the end of December 2019 because Suzanne Banks, our fantastic Chief Nurse, is retiring. Suzanne and her team have delivered truly impressive improvements over the last couple of years and she will leave the Trust and the local health and social care system in a very strong position.

The role reports into me (Chief Executive) and the Chief Nurse is a key senior ally in achieving our two key expectations:

• We expect all patients to receive the same standard of care we would want our friends and family to have and
• We would like all colleagues to be treated with the same values we believe are important; support, kindness and respect.

We are proud of our achievements at Sherwood; we consistently provide safe, high quality care, our staff engagement scores are the best in the Midlands, the CQC rated us as Good Overall and Outstanding for Care in 2018, our emergency care performance is the best in the East Midlands, we have delivered our financial control total for the last three years, we have a rapidly growing research programme, we have a deliverable strategy (see attached) which closely aligns us to local health and social care partners and we are buddying with another trust to support them with quality, governance and engagement. Evidence suggests Sherwood is a special place to work and I promise you I am not just saying it. If you do not believe me, please talk to colleagues who are already part of the team here!

Suzanne and her team have achieved record levels of recruitment to nursing, midwifery and AHPs roles, she has raised the profile of our AHP workforce through the appointment of two excellent substantive Associate Chief AHPs, she has improved quality, safety and patient experience, led on local, regional and national work on menopause awareness and has delivered with local health and social care partners incredibly important work to some of the most vulnerable members of society through the Street Health work. We are in a good place but we also recognise we are far from perfect. Like other trusts we continue to experience high levels of demand, not all of our colleagues enjoy their experience at Sherwood and we need to continue to improve the Trust’s and the local health and social care system’s financial performance.

I am looking for a Chief Nurse of the highest calibre. It does not matter whether you are currently an established Chief Nurse or looking for your first Board role. What does matter is that the successful candidate will be able to evidence they consistently deliver results and at least as importantly is that they deliver them in the right way; through support, kindness and respect. The new Chief Nurse will play an active role in shaping our senior leadership team agenda and will have significant influence over decisions involving the Mid Nottinghamshire region.

If you want to join a team that has already achieved a huge amount but also has its best times ahead of it, please contact me directly for a conversation:

Richard.Mitchell2@nhs.net

Given the importance of this role, it is unlikely candidates will be taken through to the interview stage unless they contact me for a conversation in advance of shortlisting.

We are working to the following timeline:

• Job goes live: Thursday 11 July – we are not using a recruitment firm because I believe the job and the Trust will “sell itself”. The process will be absolutely open, fair and transparent and I want to attract a large field of strong candidates. I will be accessing information from the National Leadership Academy as one way of identifying suitable candidates.
• Job closes: Friday 2 August .
• All candidates contacted to confirm if they have made the shortlist: COP Tuesday 6 August
• Interviews: Wednesday 21 August – I recognise August is not the best month to interview, so we will be flexible with the interview date, but ideally it will be this day. I would recommend all candidates being interviewed visit the Trust at least once before their interview.
• We would like to have our new Chief Nurse substantively in the Trust at the beginning of November to ensure a full handover can take place.

I am delighted I have had the opportunity to work with and get to know Suzanne over the last two years and I am looking forward to meeting all of the candidates interested in this exciting role.

Thank you for reading this.