Chief People Officer | Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
| Posting date: | 24 November 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | Not specified |
| Additional salary information: | Competitive salary aligned with experience |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 24 December 2025 |
| Location: | Wigan, WN1 2NN |
| Company: | Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh NHS Foundation Trust |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 7635903/302-25-7635903CPR |
Summary
Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) is seeking an exceptional, values-ledChief People Officer (CPO)to join our Board and Executive Team at a crucial moment in our organisation’s evolution. This is an outstanding opportunity for a strategic, system-minded people leader to shape the future of a major acute and community teaching trust serving more than 329,000 residents across the Wigan Borough.
A pivotal moment for our organisation
WWL is delivering a £4.8m transformation programme — the only one of its kind in Greater Manchester — in partnership with our local authority and ICB, reshaping urgent and emergency care, improving patient flow and accelerating our acute-to-community shift. Alongside this, our three-year financial recovery plan is progressing successfully, supported by a refreshed Executive Team and a new Chair passionate about integrated care. With two new divisions, Start Well and Live Well, we have reshaped our operating model to meet the borough’s health needs across the life course and deliver care closer to home.
We are an organisation defined by our culture: low turnover, high engagement, a strong ethos of continuous improvement, and deep partnership with our local system. As an anchor institution — with 70% of colleagues living in or near the borough — WWL plays a vital role in improving population wellbeing, tackling inequality, and supporting the local workforce pipeline.
About you:We are seeking an accomplished senior People & OD leader with experience gained in a complex environment, ideally within the NHS or wider public sector. You will bring:
• A track record of developing and delivering impactful People & OD strategies
• Significant experience of organisational development, workforce transformation and culture change
• Deep expertise in equality, diversity and inclusion with demonstrable commitment to anti-racism
• Strong partnership skills, including working with multi-agency stakeholders and Trade Unions
• Visible, compassionate leadership and the ability to inspire followership
• The confidence, credibility and strategic insight to influence at Board level
• A personal style that reflects our values — compassionate, collaborative, authentic and ambitious
Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust are the proud providers of acute hospital and community services to the people of the Wigan Borough and surrounding areas. At WWL, we value our staff believing that ‘happy staff, makes for happy patients’. We have a recognised track record in staff engagement, and living our values ‘the WWL Way’.
WWL are committed to placing the patient at the heart of everything we do, and in the provision of safe, effective care that acknowledges and ensures dignity. With this in mind we are seeking to recruit people who share our values and beliefs.
At WWL we value the benefits a rich and diverse workforce brings to our community and therefore welcome applications from all sections of society.
About the role:As CPO, you will be a strategic equal at the Board table, responsible for the design, implementation and evaluation of our People & Culture Strategy, aligned with the NHS People Plan, NHS People Promise and long-term workforce ambitions. You will lead the full portfolio of workforce, organisational development, culture, leadership, digital people services, education, recruitment, wellbeing and Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) — including leading our journey to become a fully anti-racist organisation.
You will provide visible, inclusive and compassionate executive leadership, strengthening people management capability across the Trust and driving service improvement, modernisation and high performance. You will also play a key system leadership role through the Greater Manchester HR Directors’ Network, the Healthier Wigan Partnership and wider locality programmes.
Will be required to travel to all Trust sites.
Key priorities include:
• Leading and embedding our People & Culture Strategy
• Overseeing workforce planning, modernisation and future workforce design
• Driving the acute-to-community shift and redesigning workforce models to meet growing demand
• Strengthening leadership capability, succession planning and talent development
• Improving colleague experience, wellbeing, psychological safety and engagement
• Leading EDI strategy and reporting, with explicit responsibility for anti-racism
• Ensuring robust employee relations, partnership working and Trade Union collaboration
• Supporting organisational transformation through high-impact OD and cultural change programmes
• Delivering People Services excellence with grip, control and service improvement focus
A full Job Description and Person Specification is available in the attached candidate pack.
A recruitment microsite with further information can be found atwww.wwlopportunities.co.uk
Applications are viaCV and Cover Letter. Please email:jp@seymourjohn.comusing the subject line:“WWL CPO Application”
For an informal and confidential conversation, please contact:Jonathan Phillips – 07817 988490
Key dates
• Closing date:Midnight, Monday15 December 2025
• First-stage assessment:Week commencing15 December 2025
• Final interviews:Week commencing12 January 2026
This advert closes on Monday 15 Dec 2025