Job Description

✨ Join Us at Care ADHD: Make exceptional care consistently possible ✨

At Care ADHD, we’re improving access to high-quality neurodevelopmental services. We’re client-centred and outcomes-focused, with a strong emphasis on operational excellence: clear ways of working, consistent use of systems, and teams who know what “good” looks like.

We're only two years old — but in that time we've grown to over 550 people, achieved remarkable scale while maintaining gold standard clinical care, and built a service that’s changing the lives of thousands of people every single month.

The need is very real. The positive impact we have is immediate. And we're just getting started.

We're making a significant investment in how we operate at scale. We have a new Product function defining what our patient and clinician experience should be. We need an equally serious operational leader to make sure we can reliably deliver it — consistently, safely, and in a regulated environment where the stakes are high.

That's this role.

💫 What we are looking for

This is a genuine senior leadership role with real proximity to the COO. You'll lead the operational excellence function and act as the COO's trusted proxy — triaging escalations, holding the operational health picture, making the calls that keep things running well, and surfacing what matters before it becomes a problem.

You'll build a slick and confident OpEx team that clinical and operational colleagues get excited about working with. One that enables them to do their best work, and makes the lives of their teams easier. And you'll shape how we deliver an exceptional experience for patients, consistently, safely and at scale.

If you're energised by that kind of responsibility — the trust, the visibility, and the genuine authority that comes with it — this role was built for you.

😎 What you'll be doing

Own the operational standards that make care consistent and safe. In a CQC-regulated environment growing at pace, process quality is a patient safety concern, not a back-office one. You'll build and own the framework that makes that true in practice — defining what good process design looks like, maintaining a version-controlled process library, and ensuring that regulatory requirements are embedded from the outset, not bolted on after the fact.

Be the COO's operational proxy. When something breaks or a senior decision needs rapid triage, you're the first call. You'll hold the live picture of operational health across Clinical Care and Client Services, represent the COO's priorities in forums where they can't be present, and be trusted to exercise judgement — not just relay information. You'll also help translate operational performance, risk and improvement progress into clear, evidence-based reports and papers for exec and board audiences.

Lead and develop your team. You'll line-manage the Senior Operational Improvement Manager, Implementation Manager, Ops Process Training & Enablement Specialist, and Events Coordinator. You set the strategic direction their work operates within — and you're accountable for whether the department is making a measurable difference, not just generating activity.

Partner with the Head of Product as a genuine peer. Product defines what the experience should be. You make sure the organisation can reliably deliver it. These roles are two sides of the same commitment — and the relationship between them is one of the most consequential in the business. When the experience breaks down, you'll know whether the root cause is a design problem or an operational one, and you'll work with the Head of Product to resolve it accordingly.

Build trusted partnerships with our Service Delivery teams.

Build trusted peer relationships with the Heads of Clinical Care and Client Services — influencing how those departments design and govern their own operations through credibility and evidence, not authority. You'll identify where operational risk is accumulating before it becomes an incident, a complaint or a CQC concern.

Build operational readiness into everything. When new services launch or pathways change, you'll make sure the operational infrastructure is ready before go-live — not scrambling after it. You'll work closely with the Head of PMO to ensure process change needs are identified early and sequenced properly into delivery timelines.

🚀 To thrive in this role you'll need

Essential

• Proven leadership of an operational excellence, process improvement or equivalent function — accountable for results, not just a senior practitioner within one
• Experience operating as a senior deputy or proxy to a COO or equivalent leader
• Experience building process standards and improvement infrastructure in a regulated environment where documentation, audit trails and compliance are non-negotiable
• Demonstrable ability to influence how departments operate without holding line management authority — through credibility, evidence and relationship
• Experience in a high-growth or scale-up context: able to create structure in ambiguity without slowing the organisation down
• A track record of leading and developing a team through genuine organisational change
• Comfort working alongside a product or service design function — and a clear understanding of where design ends and operational delivery begins

Strongly preferred

• CQC-regulated healthcare or HealthTech background
• Lean, Six Sigma or equivalent — as a practised discipline, not a qualification on a CV

This role probably isn't right for you if:

• You need mature infrastructure, a clear mandate and an established team to be effective
• You're a strong individual improvement practitioner who hasn't yet led a function through genuine change
• You haven't worked in a regulated environment and underestimate what compliance adds to the complexity of process design
• You see Product and OpEx as separate or competing — this role requires genuine collaborative instinct with the Head of Product from day one

🏆 What success looks like (12 months)

• A functioning, well-adopted process standards framework actively used across Clinical Care and Client Services
• The improvement portfolio is running with clear strategic direction — and the SOIM is leading it without needing to escalate routine decisions upward
• Operational training is tightly coupled to process change: when something changes, everyone who needs to know does — before it goes live
• The Head of Product and Head of OpEx are operating as genuine peers: sharing intelligence, coordinating on improvements, and not creating rework for each other
• The Heads of Clinical Care and Client Services treat OpEx as a partner they seek out, not a function to tolerate
• The COO has confidence that operational risk is being actively managed — and hears about problems before they become incidents

🙏🏻 What you can expect from us

• Competitive salary of £75,000–£85,000
• Based at our Canary Wharf office with the option to work from home 1–2 days per week
• 33 days holiday (includes UK public holidays)
• A paid day off on your birthday
• £500 home office setup stipend
• Office equipment when you join
• Pension contribution
• Team get-togethers
• The chance to be a genuine senior leader in one of the UK's most ambitious HealthTech scale-ups — at a moment when what you build will actually matter

🗓️ Our hiring process

• A talent call with one of our Talent Acquisition Specialists
• An interview with members of the SLT
• A skills-based assessment
• Offer!

🩵 Apply with confidence

Studies show that men apply for roles when they meet around 60% of the qualifications, whereas women and other marginalised groups often apply if they meet every requirement. If you believe you're a great fit but don't meet every single criteria, we encourage you to apply.

At Care ADHD, we're committed to building a diverse and inclusive environment. We encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds, especially those from historically marginalised communities, as we work together to create a more equitable future.