Chief Operating Officer, King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Chief Operating Officer,
King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
United Kingdom
We are one of London’s largest and busiest teaching hospitals.
We provide a strong profile of local hospital services for people living in the boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, and Bromley.
Our specialist services are also available to patients from a wider area. We provide nationally and internationally recognised treatment and care in liver disease and transplantation, neurosciences, haemato-oncology, and fetal medicine.
Our vision is to be bold, and our Trust values – Kind, Respectful Team – help ensure we bring a positive attitude to the way we interact with patients, relatives, and the many people who use our services.
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OVERVIEW
King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is one of the UK’s largest and busiest teaching Trusts. It is recognised internationally for its work in liver disease and transplantation, neurosciences, cardiology, haemato-oncology, fetal medicine, stroke and major trauma.
Our hospitals include King’s College Hospital (Denmark Hill), Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH), and Orpington Hospital. We also provide some services at Beckenham Beacon and Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup. We provide care to 1.5 million patients in Southwark, Lambeth, Bromley, Bexley, Lewisham and elsewhere in south-east London and parts of Kent.
In June 2026, we launched our new strategy for 2026-31. Our vision is to transform healthcare, and we have agreed six strategic ambitions to help us improve care for patients, and the working lives of our staff.
Our six strategic ambitions are delivering high-quality patient care; creating a great place to work; leading pioneering research, innovation and education; building strong and successful partnerships; providing timely and efficient care; and ensuring long-term financial sustainability.
We have also agreed four new organisational values – Caring, Collaborative, Inclusive, Innovative – and these underpin everything we do, and how our teams interact with the patients under our care. For more information about our strategy and values, visit our website.
OUR CURRENT CONTEXT
As with many health care systems across the world, we are facing a formidable challenge to provide high quality health care through growing financial pressures and rising demographic demand.
As a universal healthcare service funded by taxation, the NHS is available to all based on need. It is a great privilege to work for an institution that has such widespread public support. With that support comes a responsibility to use the financial resources that are made available to us to secure value; to ensure we are delivering the best outcomes for the people we serve from the resources that are made available to us - in short to be efficient and effective. We know from our outcome data that KCH services produce good outcomes; we also know that we are currently spending more than our income and need to transform to deliver longer-term sustainability.
OUR VISION FOR THE FUTURE
Our values of Caring, Collaborative, Inclusive and Innovative underpin everything we do and will guide how we shape our future. We are Caring, putting patients and their families first and showing compassion and respect in every interaction with them, as well as with one another. We are Collaborative, working as one of the team across all our hospitals and services, with partners, and our communities to deliver the best possible outcomes. We are Inclusive, celebrating diversity, listening to different voices and creating a culture where everyone feels they belong and can thrive. And we are Innovative, constantly seeking new ideas and smarter ways of working to improve care, research and education. Together, these values express who we are and how we will continue to move King’s forward, united in purpose, ambitious in vision and committed to delivering exceptional care for all.
Our six strategic ambitions provide the focus and direction needed to deliver the best outcomes for our patients, staff and communities. By striving for high-quality care for every patient, we ensure safety, compassion and excellence in all we do. Creating a great place to work empowers our people to thrive, grow and deliver their best. Through pioneering research, innovation and education, we turn discovery into real improvements in treatment and learning, and by building strong, successful partnerships across the NHS, academia, industry and our communities, we will strengthen our impact. Providing timely and efficient care means making every patient’s journey smoother and more effective, and ensuring financial sustainability will enable us to continue to deliver the highest possible care, and to invest confidently in the future. Together, these ambitions focus our collective energy on what matters most: improving lives now and for generations to come.
King’s has always stood for more than excellence in treatment: it stands for hope, discovery and progress. Our promise for the next five years is to build on our proud past while embracing innovation and transforming healthcare to create a lasting impact on lives, ensuring King’s remains a place where care, research and education come together to shape a healthier future for all.
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All applications must include:
• A full curriculum vitae/resume
• Quoting the role reference number:
Chief Operating Officer: A042024
• A covering letter highlighting the aspects of the job description and King's College Hospital that particularly attract you to the post (Microsoft Word document)
• Contact details for three referees, these will not be contacted without your permission. (References should validate a minimum period of six years employment)
• A completed Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form (which you will be redirected to once you have submitted your application) *
Right to work checks
If you are successfully shortlisted, our partner, Yoti, will contact you to complete an online right to work check. This is a quick and secure process, ensuring that all necessary legal requirements are met before proceeding further in the recruitment process.
Monitoring
One of Alumni Global’s and King's College Hospital's objectives is to ensure that its workforce is reflective of the local community and therefore we actively encourage applications from under-represented groups. So that we can successfully achieve these aims, while it is not mandatory we would encourage every applicant to complete the “Equal Opportunities Monitoring form” so that we can measure the effectiveness of our efforts. The Recruiting Manager does not have access to the Monitoring Information Sections of the application form at any stage of the process and the information provided will be kept entirely confidential.
For a confidential discussion on this role please contact:
Frank McKenna, Global Managing Director or David Heaton, Principal Researcher whose details can be found at the bottom of this microsite.
Candidate adjustment
If you require any reasonable adjustments to be made as part of the recruitment process please can you advise us so that we can ensure this is accommodated.
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Closing Date: 9th September 2026
Stakeholder Sessions: TBC
Final Interview: w/c 5th October 2026 - TBC
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King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is looking for an exceptional Chief Operating Officer to join its Board at a pivotal point in the organisation's development.
Reporting to the recently appointed Chief Executive, Matthew Trainer, this is an opportunity to help lead one of the UK's largest and busiest teaching hospital Trusts as KCH delivers its new five-year strategy and ambitious vision to transform healthcare.
Serving more than 1.5 million patients across south east London and beyond, KCH provides outstanding local hospital services alongside internationally recognised specialist care, supported by pioneering research, education and innovation. With more than 14,000 colleagues and a broad portfolio of services across multiple sites, it is one of the most complex and influential organisations in the NHS.
As Chief Operating Officer, you will be responsible for leading operational delivery across the Trust, ensuring patients receive safe, timely and effective care whilst improving operational performance, patient flow, productivity and financial sustainability. Working as a member of the Trust Board, you will work closely with clinical and corporate colleagues to translate the Trust's strategic ambitions into practical delivery across the organisation.
This is a role for an experienced operational leader who is comfortable working in a large, complex organisation and who understands how to deliver improvement through others. You will build strong relationships with clinicians, operational leaders and staff across KCH, providing clear leadership whilst creating the pace, clarity and accountability needed to deliver sustained improvement.
We are looking for someone with a successful Board-level track record of leading operational services within a large and complex healthcare organisation. You will bring sound judgement, resilience and credibility, together with experience of improving performance, leading major change and delivering sustainable operational and financial improvement. Equally importantly, you will value collaboration, develop high-performing teams and create an environment in which people feel supported to deliver their best.
You will also play an important role beyond KCH, working with partners across South East London to strengthen pathways, improve services and support more integrated models of care for local communities.
This is an opportunity to join a new executive leadership team at an important moment for KCH. If you are looking for a Board-level role where you can make a lasting contribution to one of the NHS's largest and most complex teaching hospital Trusts, we look forward to hearing from you.
Please take note of the reference number found under section “How to apply”. This is needed for us to process any application.
