Chief Executive Officer, Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board

About Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board

In July 2022, 12 organisations came together to establish NHS Greater Manchester, our city region’s ICB. We are a statutory part of our ICS - Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership, overseen by a Board comprising colleagues from across the system championing joined up working to help people live independent, active and healthy lives, all while making the system work better for the public and professionals who serve it.

In March 2023, we published our first Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) Strategy setting out our ambition for the next five years. Local Health and Well Being strategies for the 10 localities were reviewed as part of the development of the ICP strategy and used to inform its content, and the strategy itself was developed with the Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBBs) in Greater Manchester and their views were sought on an engagement draft in early 2023.

Our vision is the one which many partners across the city region have collectively adopted: for Greater Manchester to be a place where everyone can live a good life; growing up, getting on and growing old in a greener, fairer more prosperous city-region. To achieve this, our strategy sets out six missions: to strengthen our communities; help people get into – and stay in – good work; recover core NHS and care services; help people stay well and detect illness earlier; support our workforce and our carers; and achieve financial sustainability.

Welcome Letter
Thank you for your interest in the post of Chief Executive for NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board (NHS GM ICB). This is a pivotal opportunity to lead NHS GM through a period of significant transformation, as the delivery of our strategy and the operation of a commissioning-led ICB as “form and function” become defined.
Greater Manchester has long been recognised as a pioneer in health and care integration with a neighbourhood-based model of public service reform going back more than a decade. Our ICB brings together the NHS with local government, VCSE partners and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to plan and commission health and care for 2.8m people, with the metro Mayor jointly chairing our integrated care partnership. With these deep roots in devolution and early adoption of integrated commissioning, Greater Manchester is well placed to lead the next wave of reform.
Nationally, the 10 Year Health Plan has formalised the NHS’s ambition to deliver three strategic shifts: from hospital to community, sickness to prevention, and analogue to digital. These are underpinned by a new “rules based” NHS model, providing earned autonomy, streamlined bureaucracy, and a strengthened role for ICBs as strategic commissioners. 
From April 2025, ICBs assumed commissioning responsibility for 70 specialised services, worth £14bn annually, marking a major acceleration in delegates of strategic commissioning. This coincides with national expectations to adopt a model ICB blueprint alongside structural changes with the upcoming abolishment of NHS England. Our system is recognised by NHS England as a Segment 3, but parts of the system, for example all of primary care, perform well, and positive progress is being made across the performance spectrum and to achieve financial sustainability. 
Within the rapidly changing landscape, our system has completed an external leadership and governance review. This has informed a revised operating model to build commissioning capacity, strengthen population health leadership, and deepen neighbourhood level integration. 
As Chief Executive, your priorities will include:
- Shaping NHS GM as a strategic commissioner, delivering the three "shifts" and harnessing delegated specialised commissioning alongside primary, dental, and pharmacy commissioning.
- Strengthening our organisation, ensuring governance, workforce, and digital infrastructure align with our new operating model.
- Driving system recovery, supporting provider collaboratives to stabilise performance, restore financial control, and reduce urgent care pressures and elective backlog.
- Delivering the Joint Forward Plan and ICP strategy, influencing service transformation that tackles health inequalities, improves outcomes, enhances productivity, and supports Greater Manchester’s economic and social prosperity.
This is a role for a bold, collaborative leader - someone who can navigate complexity, build trust across sectors, and inspire confidence through strategic clarity and compassionate leadership.
If you share our ambition to deliver lasting improvements for the people of Greater Manchester, we warmly welcome your application.
Yours sincerely,
Sir Richard Leese
Chair, NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board
Please click here to read the Job Description & Person Specification
All applications must include:
- A full curriculum vitae/resume - this should include your contact address and details, stating your preferred method of contact, highlighting and explaining any gaps in your employment history.
- Quoting the relevant role reference number: A040918
- A covering letter highlighting your skills and experience and allow insights on your knowledge, skill and experience relevant to the role. You should outline your personal responsibility and achievement within previous roles that demonstrates you have the knowledge, skills and competencies to deliver this role, as outlined in the person specification and take the opportunity to highlight your personal values and motivations for applying for the role. (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 Greater Manchester ICB’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:
Thomas Patterson, Managing Director or David Heaton, Principal Researcher on +44 7842 003 200.
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.
Closing date: 31st October 2025 - TBC
Stakeholder Sessions: w/c 1st December 2025
Final Interviews: w/c 1st December 2025
Please ensure you have made a note of the final interview date(s). We recommend that you bookmark this microsite, as any potential updates regarding the role will be posted online.