Director of Nursing & Midwifery

Director of Nursing and Midwifery

We are looking for a motivated, creative and ambitious leader to take Nursing and Midwifery at Salford forward, building on our strengths and developing new areas of business to meet the demands of a changing world.  As the Director of Nursing and Midwifery, you will have expertise in nursing and midwifery education and leadership within a Higher Education setting.

You will be an exceptional leader and collaborator, working with a wide range of key stakeholders across the University, as well as industry partners. You will be a team player and be dedicated to creating the best possible student experience.

About us

The University of Salford is the largest provider of nursing and midwifery education in the north-west and third largest provider of nursing undergraduate education in the country. Collaboration is at the heart of what we do, working with a wide range of industry partners across health and social care to produce highly skilled nurses and midwives, who graduate ready to make a difference to patients’ lives. We are focused on the student experience, learning, teaching, research, and enterprise, building on an existing track record of good practice of working with partners in the public, private and third sectors.  We are a diverse community with colleagues and students from all over the world.

Developing our relationship with our partners is crucial to programme design, delivery and assessment. We aim to build on these existing partnerships and develop new strategic partners, in order to further develop distinctive programmes, and research and enterprise activities which respond to employers’ needs and ensure that our graduates are work ready. With award winning facilities and experts in the field, we provide students with real life experience, work-based placements and project work which addresses clinical, health and / or service-based problems. We are passionate and innovative, and committed to providing an outstanding experience for all our students.

Research is vital to our learning community and our research influences practice at local, regional national and international levels. We are committed to ensuring that all of our staff are research informed and are growing the numbers of research active staff.  We have recently invested in our professoriate and are proud to have six professors and 4 readers in our directorate who are leading our research agenda.

By joining us, you will become part of a wide network of professionals, sharing knowledge and expertise. You will have strong links with industry and access to world class research. Like us, you will be passionate and committed and will be part of our ambitious journey, to shape the health and social care professionals of the future.

The School of Health and Society is a forward-thinking, dynamic school with a commitment to lifelong learning and real-world impact. Our strengths lie in the breadth of our offering across the span of health sciences; sport; public health; nursing; midwifery; allied health professions; social work; psychology; and social sciences.

We are the largest school in the university with over 8,000 students. We have seen 28% overall growth in the last five years and 47% growth in health-related programmes.

We are building on this success by investing in our future, with plans to develop an estate that will enable us to grow student numbers even further, and deliver high quality learning, teaching, simulation, innovation and research, while increasing the accessibility of our campus and facilities.

Our vision is a campus that allows innovative learning and teaching and can evolve to meet the skills demands of the future; expansion of our in-house clinics to support student learning, reducing demand for placements on external partners and enabling us to grow and deliver world leading research, enterprise and knowledge exchange.

We are already reaping the benefits of this approach. Our nursing and midwifery students learn in state-of-the-art simulation suites as part of a multidisciplinary team, tackling real-life scenarios in a safe and supported environment. Set up like a hospital ward, the labs contain hi-tech patient simulators that can mimic everything from the common cold to a major heart condition. We also have ‘home from home’ facilities where we can simulate home births and pool births. This helps our students develop clinical skills as well as the high-level communication skills to make a real difference to patients.

The rooms are so realistic they have been used to film hospital settings in various TV dramas, recently featuring in Netflix thriller The Stranger.

Take a 360 tour of the facilities here. 

About the role

Working closely with the Dean and Deputy Dean, the Director of Nursing and Midwifery will lead and deliver impact in line with the University’s Strategic Plan and initiatives. The role will have a significant focus on delivering strategic initiatives within the School, with a requirement for a high level of outputs and outcomes which deliver significant improvements. The post holder will be responsible for ensuring the directorate of nursing and midwifery is a high performing directorate. The director will be a member of the School Leadership Team. 

The Directorate is home to approximately 160 staff and 3800 students and is a vibrant and diverse community of staff, researchers, students and professional services.

The role involves line management of the Deputy Director and Heads of Subjects working closely with staff to ensure alignment to priorities, resourcing and organisation to ensure smooth delivery of the business. In taking forward the strategic elements of the role the post holders will operate with a firm external focus, considering opportunities for partnership working, and interdisciplinary, real world academic practice. The post holder will network across the Greater Manchester Integrated Care System and our strategic partners in the NHS and with other health and social care providers to ensure an outstanding student experience, the programmes deliver on quality and standards and that the Directorate plays a significant role in delivering workforce requirements.  This will require having strong knowledge base of academic development and accreditation.

In line with the ‘Salford Behaviours’ and as key posts within the School Leadership Team, the post holder will be a role model in visibly inspiring; aligning; collaborating; co-creating; enabling and evolving colleague’s behaviours across the remit of the post.  Success in this influential leadership will be evidenced through the work done both across the School, and externally in collaborating with Associate Deans in other areas of the University, and with external partners.

Please ensure you provide evidence, in your cover letter/supporting statement, of how you meet the essential criteria detailed within the person specification.

To apply please attach your CV as well as a personal statement detailing how you meet the essential criteria

This vacancy will close at 11:55pm on 26th March.

What’s in it for you?

With over 200 languages spoken across Greater Manchester, we want to create an inspirational, inclusive learning and working environment, celebrating the diversity of our University community in our everyday conversations. Our student population is already incredibly diverse, and we want to ensure this is reflected across our colleague profile as well. 

To help you, we have wide ranging colleague support networks, promoting awareness events throughout the year and giving you the opportunity to share your experiences with others. Our extensive faith centre facilities reflect our continuing commitment to support the student and colleague experience and the beliefs and values you bring to our community. 

There is a varied benefits package available through ‘MySalford’ where you can tailor your benefits to suit your own lifestyle – everything from additional annual leave, savings on High Street shopping, travel discounts as well as health and wellbeing support. To maintain work/life balance, when appropriate you can connect to work from wherever you are. Whether it’s our Peel Park Campus, MediaCityUK or your couch at home, the tools are there for you to do your best work.

We put our students first in everything we do, our colleagues help create a community and sense of belonging by having a vibrant campus and campus life that is more than just a workplace. We use agile working principles to enable colleagues to do their best work, from the right location, at the right time to meet our business needs. We are open to your ideas about how you can deliver the outputs of your role in a creative way. We are happy to talk to you about alternative patterns of work that balances your wellbeing and productivity.

What’s in it for you? – the benefits

Competitive salary - and excellent pension scheme

· Generous annual leave - plus the option to buy additional holiday days

· Flexible working - we support a culture of both flexible and agile working, to help you find the right balance

· Professional development - a comprehensive package of training and development opportunities to help you achieve your full potential

· Our community – there’s a real sense of belonging here at Salford. We value diversity — in backgrounds and in experiences. Our difference makes us stronger, and together we share a passion for improving students’ lives

· The perks! MySalford, our online employee portal, offers a wide range of lifestyle benefits and discounts

· Wellbeing support –dedicated services and facilities to support your mental and physical health, ranging from an Employee Assistance Programme and counselling, to sports and fitness facilities, including discounted gym memberships

· Sustainable Salford - We embed sustainability in all aspects of university life and have a commitment to becoming NetZero Carbon by 2038

· Greater Manchester - Live and work in one of the most vibrant regions in the UK, a hot spot of digital innovation, excellent schools and colleges, and with affordable city, suburban and rural living options to suit a wide range of lifestyle choices.

Our Peel Park campus is unique and offers lots of green spaces. Our MediaCity campus is at the heart of one of the country's leading digital and media hubs

· Team Salford - By joining us, you can be part of our ambitious journey and help make a real difference to the people and communities we support