Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Chief Medical Officer
United Kingdom
Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is the UK’s leading heart and lung hospital, delivering more than 120,000 patient ‘episodes’ per year.
The Trust is currently rated 'outstanding' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), from an inspection carried out in 2019 and is currently in Segment 1 of the National Oversight Framework.
Founded as a tuberculosis colony in 1918, Royal Papworth Hospital has established an international reputation for excellence in research and innovation. Since carrying out the UK’s first successful heart transplant in 1979 and the world's first heart-lung and liver transplant in 1986, the hospital now performs more adult heart, heart-lung and lung transplants each year than any other UK centre, with the shortest waiting times and best outcomes.
It also in 2015 became the first hospital in Europe to perform a pioneering type of heart transplant - donation after circulatory death (DCD) - and in 2022 performed its 100th DCD heart transplant, making it the biggest and most successful DCD heart transplant centre in the world.
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Dear Applicant
Thank you for your interest in the post of Chief Medical Officer at Royal Papworth Hospital. This is an outstanding opportunity for ambitious and talented colleagues to join one of the most specialist and highest performing Trusts in the NHS and to lead with purpose and impact, championing a culture where our people feel valued, heard and supported to deliver outstanding care for our patients.
Joining us as Chief Medical Officer will enable you to make a significant impact on the future of Royal Papworth Hospital and the lives of the patients we serve. Reporting directly to the Chief Executive, you will be a full member of the Board. You will have strategic responsibility for the development and leadership of our medical workforce, while also sharing a broader corporate remit with your executive colleagues to support improving the experience of all of our staff, helping to create a working environment that is supportive, caring, fair and equitable where everyone’s contribution is valued.
We are seeking a compassionate, values driven leader who can uphold our tradition of excellence through providing professional challenge and holding to account. You will also guide the Trust through the implementation of our new Trust strategy that enables our vision to be a centre for heart and lung care which is renowned for clinical excellence, innovative partnerships, and where every member of staff is valued, empowered, and proud to work here. In creating our new Trust strategy, we involved and engaged with hundreds of people, using a range of different ways to ensure we heard from staff, patients, communities, and partners across our health and care system. This same approach of involvement and engagement now runs through everything that we do.
The successful candidate will be someone who can understand complex organisational and strategic issues, identify the key issues and then communicate them in a way that is clear for a range of different audiences.
Our consultants are recognised nationally and internationally for their expertise, and we are proud of their achievements. Leading such a highly specialist medical workforce requires credibility, sound judgement and the confidence to challenge when necessary. We therefore require a Chief Medical Officer who can bring colleagues together across specialties, establish clear expectations and accountability, and support our clinicians to do their best work within a collaborative and inclusive culture.
It is an exciting time to be joining us. Royal Papworth has a reputation as one of the best performing hospitals in the country, a status I am determined we maintain. We are a hospital that has a pioneering spirit with a culture and history of developing clinical practice for the benefit of our patients.
Clinical excellence and innovation have helped us to get where we are today and remain at the heart of everything we do, but how we do things is just as important as what we do, and the Trust Board is clear on the need to deliver our vision for an inclusive leadership culture.
We recognise that there is much work to do and we have the energy and optimism for the journey ahead of us.
We are committed to having a Board that is representative of our workforce and the communities we serve, with a breadth of clinical experience and insight essential to delivering the high quality patient experience that we pride ourselves on. We encourage applications from all suitable candidates, including women and, colleagues from ethnic minority backgrounds who are currently underrepresented in our Executive Team.
If you would like to talk to about the role then please do not hesitate to contact Thomas Patterson at Alumni Global who will organise a confidential telephone discussion. Thank you for your interest, good luck with your application, and I look forward to meeting you through the process.
Yours sincerely
Eilish Midlane
Chief Executive -
Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is the UK’s leading heart and lung hospital, delivering more than 120,000 patient ‘episodes’ per year. The Trust is currently rated 'outstanding' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), from an inspection carried out in 2019 and is currently in Segment 1 of the National Oversight Framework.
Founded as a tuberculosis colony in 1918, Royal Papworth Hospital has established an international reputation for excellence in research and innovation. Since carrying out the UK’s first successful heart transplant in 1979 and the world's first heart-lung and liver transplant in 1986, the hospital now performs more adult heart, heart-lung and lung transplants each year than any other UK centre, with the shortest waiting times and best outcomes.
It also in 2015 became the first hospital in Europe to perform a pioneering type of
heart transplant - donation after circulatory death (DCD) - and in 2022 performed its 100th DCD heart transplant, making it the biggest and most successful DCD heart transplant centre in the world.
In addition to transplantation, Royal Papworth Hospital has the UK’s largest Respiratory Support and Sleep Centre (RSSC) and is one of five UK centres providing Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) to patients experiencing severe respiratory failure. It is also the only centre in the UK for a number of specialist services including Pulmonary Endarterectomy and Balloon Pulmonary Angioplasty (BPA).
Royal Papworth moved to a state-of-the-art building on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in May 2019, which was officially opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in July 2019. In October 2019, it became the first hospital Trust in the country to receive the top rating of 'outstanding' in each of the five main domains that the CQC assesses.
In 2020/21, in collaboration with Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, a new world-first heart transplant programme began, offering life-saving transplants to six young patients. This achievement took place at the same time as the hospital was caring for the sickest coronavirus patients in the country as one of only a few specialist respiratory ECMO centres, treating people in acute respiratory failure.
The new Heart and Lung Research Institute, co-located on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, opened in July 2022. Inside this institute is the Clinical Research Facility, a pioneering space specialising in early-phase cardiorespiratory trials and experimental medicine to tackle some of the biggest causes of premature death globally.
In 2023, the hospital became the first in the UK to use a new type of cutting-edge robot for thoracic surgery and recently became one of the first hospitals in Europe to fit a new type of defibrillator, called an extra-vascular ICD, which is safer for patients with abnormal heart rhythms.
In addition to clinical achievements, Royal Papworth’s people are highly respected internationally for their specialist expertise and are influential in improving and changing patient care. In the past few years, consultants at the hospital have been presidents of several professional bodies including in intensive care medicine, anaesthesia, heart valve disease, cardiothoracic surgery and heart and lung transplantation.
Royal Papworth Hospital is a member of Cambridge University Health Partners (CUHP), a partnership representing world leading hospitals and globally recognised universities which focuses on supporting collaboration to maximise life sciences innovation. The hospital is also
a member of the Federation of Specialist Hospitals, a coalition of some of the country’s best
known and regarded hospitals.
Our Mission and Vision
Our mission is to transform what is possible for patients with heart and lung conditions. We deliver outstanding care by building thriving teams.
Our vision is to be a centre for heart and lung care which is renowned for clinical excellence, innovative partnerships, and where every member of staff is valued, empowered, and proud to work here.
Our hospital primarily serves the East of England. Providing specialist services for our region, along with our remarkable research, education and innovation, will always be at the core of what we do as an organisation. We have additional roles locally in Cambridgeshire, nationally across the UK, and internationally.
But how we do things is just as important, and our strategy is clear about improving our staff experience. By 2031, we want to be known as an exemplary employer in specialist healthcare where staff across all roles and levels feel genuinely valued, heard, and supported to do their best work. One where our culture consistently extends the same compassion we show patients to our colleagues, creating an environment where everyone feels a sense of belonging and can thrive.
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All applications must include:
A full curriculum vitae/resume
Quoting the role reference number: A042588
A covering letter highlighting the aspects of the job description and Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust 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)
An Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form will be made available following submission of your application. Completion is voluntary, and applicants may select the “Prefer not to say” option for any or all questions *
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 Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’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, UK Managing Director whose details can be found at the bottom of this microsite.
Reasonable Adjustments
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: Sunday 6th December 2026
Stakeholders: TBC
Final Interviews: Monday 21st December 2026
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.
Please take note of the reference number found under section “How to apply”. This is needed for us to process any application.
