Every day, we work to improve the health and wellbeing of citizens across the nation. This is both a privilege and a responsibility. The dedicated staff across the NHS and the civil service have achieved remarkable things in recent years – from the extraordinary response to COVID-19, to record numbers of general practice appointments, to cancer survival in England being at an all-time high – demonstrating incredible resilience, expertise and commitment.
We are now building a Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for the future – an organisation better equipped to provide publicly accountable leadership across health and care that truly serves our communities better.
This new Department of Health and Social Care will incorporate the role of NHS England to create a new accountable and agile centre. This will be a new model of leadership for the health and care system and it will require compassionate, determined and focused leadership.
The Opportunity
Given this task, now is a particularly exciting time to join DHSC as a senior leader. The Government has just published its 10 Year Health Plan and you will play a pivotal role in delivering national policy, stewarding system-wide reform, and delivering outcomes that matter to our patients and our citizens.
Reporting to the Permanent Secretary and the NHS Chief Executive, and with a role on the Department’s Executive Committee, The Director General for Strategy and Healthcare Policy will be responsible for leading the development, coordination, and delivery of the Department’s strategic policy agenda, and on all aspects of healthcare policy. You will provide senior leadership across the department and central government and beyond, shaping government policy, overseeing strategic planning, and ensuring alignment with ministerial priorities and long-term national objectives to deliver improved health outcomes for our citizens and communities.
Leading on the strategy function you will identify the key strategic challenges and opportunities facing the health and care system in the future and lead the development of strategic programmes to address these. You will build an innovative, high performing and outward facing multi-disciplinary strategy team, who build partnership arrangements across government, health, local government, industry and wider civil society to ensure that we consider the contribution that all parts of society can make to our work.
You will also lead on healthcare policy, working closely with Ministers and other members of the senior team to develop sound, evidence-based policy which can then be delivered and overseen with other functions such as performance, people, quality and system improvement.
We are looking for individuals who can bring strategic insight, collaborative leadership, and a commitment to public service to help us deliver on our mission to provide the highest quality, most compassionate health and care system in the world.
If you share our passion, have the capabilities set out below, thrive at delivering large-scale change and believe in the future we will build for our citizens and our communities, then we look forward to receiving your application.
Diversity is vital to the success of these roles, and to the Civil Service as a whole. We actively welcome applications from candidates from all backgrounds, with different experiences and perspectives - and we are committed to ensuring that we work in an inclusive way that means everyone in the Civil Service can perform at their best.
For more information, including details of how to apply, please see the link below:
https://odgers-berndtson.foleon.com/dhsc/dhsc-candidate-brief/
The closing date for applications is 23:55 on Thursday 14 August 2025.
Berwick Partners