Director of Central Operations

Who Are We

Newmedica is one of the leading providers of NHS-funded and private ophthalmology services in England.

• Our Purpose is tochange lives through better sight and eye health
  
• Our Vision is to end avoidable sight loss in every community we serve

We provide services for NHS ICBs NHS Trusts and other providers of NHS funded services. We deliver thousands of patient interactions annually including outpatient appointments diagnostic testing and eye surgery. Our services are delivered mainly through Ophthalmology Joint Venture (OJV) Partnerships.

We have an ambition to significantly grow the business and create a national brand. We are looking for people excited by our agenda and who demonstrate our company values and behaviours.

Role Summary

This role is to lead the delivery and development of our operational systems and support we give to our services. We want to continually improve the operational support we deliver regarding referral management operational systems and process improvement to ensure we enable our services to deliver the most efficient care safely ultimately reducing costs increasing capacity and enabling our teams to see more patients and maintain excellent standard of care.

As a member of the Newmedica senior leadership team you will be a visible proven credible and inspirational leader with a passion for healthcare. You will have proven experience of leading operations functions and working with joint venture partnerships. You will have the ability to coach your team to meet their individual potential and lead them to resolve day to day operational issues with pace and have a focus on our patient and colleagues.

The role will proactively engage with OJV Partner stakeholders to seek feedback continually explore what next and how Newmedicas system and process capability can be enhanced to meet both patient needs and organisation objectives. You will work in partnership with IT to identify cost effective solutions as well as clinical and delivery teams to ensure consistency in delivery of optimized ways of working whilst scanning the market to understand best practice benchmarks across all industries as well as our colleagues in Specsavers. The role will look forward and anticipate changes within the healthcare market and growth in our business and understand how the operations support teams need to adapt accordingly to maintain excellent patient care and drive efficiencies.

Ultimately clearly communicating to key stakeholders to ensure they have all the information they need to deliver care for our patients and support their teams to do so supporting our cultural ambition of Pay It Forward and ensuring best practice is shared across the partnership.

Key Responsibilities:

Systems and Process Improvement

• Accountable for the development and implementation of Newmedicas operational annual plan (across Operations Support Referrals and Process Improvement Teams.
• Accountable for the development and implementation of the ongoing ePR enhancement programme working closely with the Technology and Learning and development teams.
• Business Sponsor for technology enabled change.
• Lead the cross functional steering group to manage the programmes risks issues and change delivery/implementation (reporting via Clinical Governance to ExCo).
• Lead the communication of the plans goals and status of the programme to the business and partners.
• Ensure that the clinical safety process is operating (Clinical Safety Engineer is part of the team reporting to this role).

Operational Support

• Look forward and anticipate changes within the healthcare market and growth in our business and understand how the operations support teams need to adapt accordingly to maintain excellent patient care and drive efficiencies.
• Accountable for first line support for our partnership; ensuring the Operations Support Team are appropriately structured resourced and trained to deliver a high standard of support.
• Accountable for referrals management including referral triage data transfer (bulk referrals) demand projection capacity and SLA management rostering and scheduling and appointment booking.
• Seek out automation/AI solutions to drive efficiencies in these teams.
• Review current ways of working across our sites support and identify critical areas for simplification and develop solutions that drive efficiencies reduce costs and improve care.
• Develop tools to coordinate activity planning and ensure transparency of plans for OJVs so workload can be managed and delivered right first time e.g. Flight Control.
• Identify industry best practice and understand potential for Newmedica.
• Be relentless in reviewing areas for improvement and developing solutions.
• Understand the resources available through Specsavers and synergies.

Internal Communications

• Develop and deliver the communication strategy and plan. Ensuring key stakeholders and teams receive key messages at the right time in the right way to ensure right first-time delivery.
• Ensure optimised ways of working with Specsavers sharing best practice and delivering Total Care ambition.

Clinical Efficiency and Optimisation

• Pathway review and development supporting the clinical proposition team ensuring efficient profitable pathways delivering the highest standards in patient care.
• Review all elements of pathways for areas for improvement through techniques such as Lean 6 Sigma.
• Lead the team to deliver a programme of health checks to ensure OJVs are delivering consistently and identifying opportunities for improvement.
• To ensure the team review and report on clinical efficiency performance metrics through formal groups e.g. Clinical Governance Committee and identify areas for improvement with associated plans with each OJV.
• Ensure Head of Clinical Proposition leads Clinical forum calendar to review.
• Development of the optometry community in Newmedica. Working in partnership with L&D to deliver best in class engagement and training with a Grow Our Own Ambition.

Leadership

• Play a key role in the Newmedica leadership team chairing the Information Governance Committee and the ePR enhancement Steering Group and participating in other governance activities.
• Recruit retain and develop high performing teams and coach the leaders to work collaboratively for the benefit of the business.
• Ensure operational best practice is adopted by all partners and proactively drive to simplify the operational procedures to allow businesses to focus on service.
• Identify and manage risks across our business (e.g. key suppliers business continuity information governance) and record them in the corporate risk register and disaster recovery plans monthly.
• Manage relationships with key suppliers that support Newmedica.
• Provide insight and analysis on the operations and efficiency of the OJVs and develop and deliver plans and initiatives to ensure we have the best operational processes.
• Champion the use of AI/automation in all teams be obsessive about driving efficiencies.
• Chair of the incident management team.

Role requirements:

• Degree level or equivalent experience and evidence of ongoing development
• Healthcare experience either NHS or private/independent sector experience
• Proven successful track record of operational leadership.
• Proven experience of implementing successful change initiatives in complex multi-site organisations.
• Proven experience of identifying and delivering performance enhancing initiatives
• Skilled at managing operational incidents calmly assessing the risk the issue brainstorming solutions and communicating clearly.
• Proven successful track record of coaching managing and developing teams to obtain results
• Experience addressing different audiences across multiple mediums and platforms
• Experienced at managing multiple projects with multiple stakeholders.
• A high level of interpersonal skills with the ability to build strategic working relationships with a diverse range of people.
• Strong patient service focus

What can we offer you

• A competitive salary
• Annual car allowance of 9000
• A company bonus of up to 25% based on company performance and personal objectives
• Profit share scheme
• 25 days annual leave including 1 day birthday leave plus bank holidays
• A company pension scheme
• Access to a range of benefits including free eye tests discounted or free glasses a free 24/7 well-being/counselling/advice service private medical insurance private dental care health care scheme death in service cover of 4 x salary an opportunity to sign up to a tax-free cycle to work and a retail/technology discount scheme.
• An environment whereyourlearning and development is supported through a range of various learning tools and courses.

If you are looking to join a high growth market leader in Ophthalmology with exciting plans to expand across the UK please apply and we look forward to connecting with you soon.

Please note that the closing date is Monday 5th January 2026.

Our employment offers are subject to receipt of satisfactory pre-employment checks. Applicants must have the right to work in the UK and a Disclosure and Barring Service check may be necessary in the event of a successful application which we will pay for.

AtNewmedica we actively promote diversity and equal opportunities and we are committed to this in both the running of our services and how we recruit our staff. We actively encourage applications from everyone with the essential requirements of the job regardless of any protected characteristics.

Newmedica is fully committed to safeguarding the welfare of all people irrespective of gender age disability sexual orientation race language religion ethnic or social origin.

Required Experience:

Director