Chief Operating Officer
2 days ago
Leicester
A rare COO opportunity in one of the UK's most forward-thinking primary care organisations. Willows Health is appointing its next Chief Operating Officer. We're 12 GP practices, 75,000+ patients, and one of the largest providers of NHS primary care in the East Midlands - with a digital-first patient access model, AI-enabled triage through SystmConnect, a growing Urgent Care Service, and our own training academy. This isn't a caretaker role. It's a builder's role. Why this role is unusual: • A 12-month handover with our outgoing COO before they retire - a genuine induction, not a sink-or-swim, • Direct seat on the Executive Board, reporting to the Chair, • Full operational accountability across all 12 sites, • A digitally fluent executive team that thinks in dashboards, AI tools, and operating models, • "Good" CQC rating, growing organisation, strong board support What you'll own: • End-to-end operational leadership across 12 practice sites, • CQC compliance and integrated operational governance, • Senior management and site leadership team development, • Digital transformation programmes - telephony, patient access, AI-enabled triage (SystmConnect), patient communication, • Workforce planning, including ARRS and multi-disciplinary teams, • Board-level reporting, risk management, and operational assurance, • Stakeholder relationships with the ICB, PCNs, NHSE, and CQC What we're looking for: You'll bring substantial senior operational leadership experience from a complex, regulated, multi-site environment. Primary care experience is welcome but not essential - we're equally interested in exceptional operators from NHS provider settings, regulated public services, or comparably complex service organisations who can bring fresh thinking. You'll be: • Digitally fluent and confident across modern primary care platforms, BI dashboards, and AI-supported productivity tools, • Forward-thinking and energised by transformation, not just maintenance, • Decisive and accountable, able to operate with high autonomy, • Collaborative and enabling - leading through others, not around them, • Genuinely values-aligned - patient-first, evidence-led, kind, and people-centred The package: • Very competitive executive salary, dependent on experience, • Full-time, permanent, • Multi-site Leicestershire base (regular travel between sites), • EAP, Pension Closing date: 31st May 2026