Directorate Support Manager

The Directorate Support Manager provides essential operational, governance, and service-improvement leadership across the entire Adult Community Services Directorate, ensuring safe, effective, and efficient delivery of community services. The role requires a strong understanding of the operational functions of the Virtual Ward and Urgent Community Response (UCR), both of which are critical pathways supporting admission avoidance, early supported discharge, and urgent community care performance.

The post holder leads and line-manages the central administrative team, ensuring high-quality data, efficient scheduling, accurate monitoring, and strong communication across all services, including Planned Care (District Nursing) and Rapid Access to Social Care (RASC).

A key part of the role is overseeing governance, compliance, incident management, risk processes, and business continuity, promoting a culture of safety, transparency, and continuous improvement.

The DSM also drives service improvement and operational efficiency, supporting redesign, optimisation, and development of services across multiple community sites within the Directorate.

Responsibilities

• Provide day-to-day operational leadership across Adult Community Services.
• Coordinate workflows, staffing, scheduling, and resources across multiple sites.
• Resolve operational issues and maintain service continuity.
• Lead clear communication across clinical, admin, and managerial teams.
• Oversee Virtual Ward, UCR, and wider pathway performance.
• Support continuous improvement and identify inefficiencies.
• Monitor incidents, risks, and support investigations.
• Maintain risk registers, mitigation plans, and escalation.
• Support audits, assurance, and quality improvement actions.
• Ensure Information Governance compliance.
• Maintain business continuity plans and service resilience.
• Support CQC and regulatory readiness.
• Lead admin, reception, and secretarial teams.
• Support workforce planning, recruitment, and workload distribution.
• Promote team development and professionalism.
• Ensure high-quality data, activity capture, and reporting.
• Manage IT access, smartcards, and system issues.
• Use data to support performance and target delivery.
• Support service redesign and efficiency improvements.
• Align service development with Trust strategy.
• Act as a change agent embedding evidence-based practice.
• Monitor demand and support income-linked activity.
• Represent the Directorate at Trust-wide meetings.
• Build strong stakeholder relationships.
• Promote a safety culture, flexibility, and high professional standards.