🚀 Head of NHS Strategy and Planning
Salary: £81,000 – £91,000 per annum
Reports to: Associate Director of Partnerships
Location: Hybrid (1-2 days per month in our Canary Wharf office) | Full-time
✨Join Us at The Centre for ADHD Research and Excellence: Shaping the Future of Accessible Healthcare✨
At CARE ADHD, we’re revolutionising private healthcare by making ADHD assessments and treatment more affordable and accessible to those who need it. Our client-centred approach, combined with lean methodology and a focus on continuous improvement, drives our commitment to excellence. We embrace an innovative mindset, encouraging rapid learning and adaptation through our ‘fail fast’ ethos. With ambitious plans to become the largest ADHD service provider outside the NHS within the next five years, we are committed to pushing boundaries and fostering innovation.
Care ADHD operates within complex and highly variable NHS systems, each with different commissioning priorities, planning cycles, financial pressures and governance cultures.
Long-term success depends not simply on identifying opportunities, but on shaping them well — ensuring activity assumptions are robust, risks are understood, and commitments made externally can be delivered internally.
This role brings senior NHS insight, judgement and system credibility into those conversations, ensuring Care ADHD engages with the NHS clearly, confidently and consistently, and that growth decisions strengthen — rather than stretch — the organisation.
💫What we are looking for?
The Head of NHS Strategy, Planning and Partnerships is a senior accountability role responsible for shaping how Care ADHD positions itself within the NHS, plans for growth, and engages at system level with commissioners and partners.
The role exists to ensure that Care ADHD’s NHS growth is intentional, evidence-led and credible — grounded in a deep understanding of commissioning environments, system incentives, activity planning and delivery reality. It provides strategic discipline to how opportunities are identified, shaped and progressed, ensuring organisational ambition aligns with NHS priorities and operational capability.
Operating at the intersection of strategy, partnerships, contracts and delivery, the postholder plays a critical role in protecting the organisation from over-commitment while enabling sustainable expansion. Through clear system leadership and cross-organisational alignment, the role underpins Care ADHD’s credibility as a mature and trusted NHS partner.
😎What You’ll Be Doing:
What the Role Does Day to Day
- Act as the organisation-wide lead for NHS strategy, commissioning insight and system positioning
- Shape how Care ADHD engages with Integrated Care Boards, NHS Trusts and wider system partners
- Review emerging and live NHS opportunities, testing system need, activity assumptions, affordability and delivery risk
- Lead and support complex NHS planning, commissioning and negotiation discussions
- Sponsor and support NHS bid and opportunity development from concept through to contract stage
- Stress-test proposals before commitment, ensuring they are operationally and financially deliverable
Strategic Leadership and Planning
- Set and own Care ADHD’s NHS strategy, system positioning and partnership priorities
- Translate NHS policy, planning guidance and system intelligence into clear organisational direction
- Embed system insight into corporate planning, investment decisions and service development
- Identify medium- and long-term opportunities aligned to NHS priorities and organisational capability
Business Development, Planning and Bids
- Identify, shape and prioritise NHS opportunities aligned to strategic intent
- Sponsor complex opportunities prior to procurement or contracting
- Lead or support NHS bid development as required
- Work closely with the Head of Contracts to ensure clean handover into contracting
Cross-Directorate Leadership
- Work closely with NHS Partnerships Managers to translate strategy into deliverable opportunities
- Align Finance, Operations, Clinical and Governance teams around realistic commitments
- Bring senior-level challenge and credibility into complex or sensitive discussions
- Strengthen strategic and system capability across the Partnerships function
Accountability and Ownership
The postholder is accountable for the quality and credibility of Care ADHD’s NHS strategic positioning, the robustness of opportunity shaping and planning, and the alignment of commitments with system need and organisational capability.
Decisions taken in this role materially influence Care ADHD’s growth trajectory, reputation and long-term sustainability.
Return on Investment
This role pays for itself by strengthening forward planning and horizon scanning — enabling Care ADHD to anticipate commissioner needs, spot signals early and engage proactively, rather than reacting once decisions are already locked in.
Only well-shaped, strategically sound opportunities are progressed into contracting, complementing the Head of Contracts role and reducing avoidable downstream risk.
🚀To thrive in this role you’ll need to:
This is a senior role due to the scale of strategic and system risk involved. Decisions taken directly influence multi-million-pound NHS income streams and Care ADHD’s credibility and position as an NHS partner.
The role provides system-level strategic leadership within the Partnerships Directorate and works closely with contractual, operational and clinical leaders to ensure growth is credible, aligned and deliverable.
Essential Experience and Skills:
- Senior NHS or NHS-facing strategic, commissioning or system-level experience
- Strong understanding of NHS planning, commissioning and incentive structures
- Experience shaping complex opportunities or bids
- Credibility operating at system and senior stakeholder level
- Strong strategic judgement and ability to balance ambition with delivery reality
What We Value
Care is at the heart of who we are – in how we support patients, and in how we treat each other as colleagues. We believe the way we show up for each other is just as important as what we do. Skills matter, but it’s our mindset and behaviours that protect the supportive culture we’ve built, and help us thrive together. We value:
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Kindness – treating colleagues, partners, and everyone we support, with respect and care.
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Transparency – being open and honest so that trust can grow.
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Reflection – pausing to learn from experience and improve together.
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Growth mindset – always welcoming feedback and challenges as opportunities to develop.
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Accountability – taking ownership of our actions and outcomes, not to assign blame, but to learn, adapt, improve, and move forward.
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Solution-seeking – focusing on constructive ways forward, even when things are tough.
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Collaboration – sharing ideas, supporting one another, and celebrating collective success.
🙏🏻What You Can Expect from Us
Care ADHD is at a pivotal stage in its journey as an NHS partner. This role offers a rare opportunity to shape how care is planned and delivered at scale, while helping to build an organisation the NHS trusts to do what it says it will do.
- Competitive salary
- Work hybrid in our Canary Wharf office 1-2 days per month
- 25 days holiday (plus UK public holidays)
- Team get-togethers
- A paid day off on your birthday
- Office equipment when you join
- Pension contribution
- Be part of one of the UK’s most ambitious HealthTech start-ups
🗓️Our Hiring Process
We aim to make our hiring process as streamlined as possible. Successful applicants will have:
Stage 1 – Screening Call with our Talent Acquisition Specialist
Stage 2 – Interview with Associate Director of NHS Partnerships
Stage 3 – 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 only if they meet every requirement. If you believe you’re a great fit but don’t meet every single requirement, 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.
