At a glance
Role
Operations & Capability Director — second-in-command to the owner
£85,000–£110,000 base + performance bonus linked to growth and new-venture milestones
Organisation
Five GP surgeries across the North West c.120 staff c.20 doctors
Reports to
The owner directly
Location
North West England, across our sites, with some hybrid working
Trajectory
Chief Operating Officer within 2–3 years for the right person, with a leading role in our new venture
Why we’re hiring
We are a stable, long-established GP group with a track record of turning around underperforming practices. We are now building something bigger: a company that provides remote back-office services to GP surgeries nationally, using our own practices as the proof of concept.
That ambition depends on one thing more than any other: the quality of our people. We are looking for someone who makes everyone around them better. They raise the standard of the team, spread know-how so it doesn’t sit in a few heads, and see the whole organisation clearly. They can also roll up their sleeves at a single surgery’s front desk when that’s where the problem is.
This is not an administrator’s role, and not a strategy-only role. It is for a builder of people and systems who is equally at home in the boardroom and on the shop floor, and who will challenge and teach the owner as much as support him.
The person we’re looking for
- A talent multiplier. You judge your success by how much better your people get. People you have developed have gone on to outperform you in some area, and you’re proud of it.
- A spreader of competence. You turn individual know-how into systems, playbooks, training and habits, so the organisation gets stronger rather than relying on heroes.
- A nurturer with standards. You spot potential early, invest in it and give honest feedback. When someone isn’t right for the role, you deal with it fairly and quickly.
- A fearless learner. You have picked up unfamiliar technical fields fast before, and you’ll do the same with NHS contracts, primary-care finance and clinical workflows.
- A reader of the market. You understand that we compete with other GP groups, PCNs, federations, corporate providers and outsourcing firms, for patients, staff, contracts and customers. You track what they are doing and help us win.
- Helicopter and 3-inch. One minute you’re looking across five sites and two businesses. The next you’re inside a single process, finding exactly where it breaks.
What the role involves
1. Raise the bar on talent
- Assess capability across the group and build a clear picture of strengths, gaps and future leaders.
- Design development pathways, succession plans and a hiring standard that raises quality with every appointment.
- Coach managers to coach. Build a leadership layer that develops its own people.
2. Spread competence through the organisation
- Turn best practice at our strongest site into the standard at every site, through SOPs, training, onboarding and peer learning.
- Build the internal academy and playbooks that will later become the product of the new venture.
- Measure success by how well teams perform without you in the room.
3. Run the operating rhythm
- Own the weekly scorecard and management meeting as the health check for the business, with the Operations/Office Manager handling data collection.
- Use the scorecard to diagnose problems and find their causes, not just chase overdue items. Fix the system as well as the symptom.
- Lead and, where needed, performance-manage professionals more technically qualified than you. The owner provides all clinical input.
4. Read and win in the market
- Build and maintain a clear view of competitors, commissioners and policy changes affecting primary care and back-office services.
- Lead organic growth at our surgeries: patient registrations, reputation and staff recruitment in a tight labour market.
- Bring the owner a monthly view on where we are winning, where we’re exposed and what to do about it.
5. Build the new venture
- From around month six, help the owner launch and scale the back-office services company: service design, pricing, first customers and building the team.
- Recruit, develop and lead the venture’s people, applying the same talent standards you built in the core group.
What you’ll bring
Must-haves (we will ask for evidence)
- A track record of measurably raising a team’s capability. Names, promotions and results, not just job titles.
- Have built a training, onboarding or knowledge system that others still use after you moved on.
- Led an organisation or division of 50+ people, directly or through managers.
- Have quickly mastered a technical field you started out knowing nothing about.
- Strong with numbers: you can interrogate a P&L, a scorecard or a spreadsheet quickly and confidently.
- Experience of competitive strategy: you have studied competitors and changed what an organisation did as a result.
- Comfortable switching between board-level conversations and front-line problem-solving in the same day.
Strong advantages
- Experience in a multi-site service business: healthcare, professional services, hospitality, retail or similar.
- Start-up or new-venture experience, especially in B2B services or outsourcing.
- A coaching, training or teaching qualification or background.
Teachable, so don’t screen these out
NHS contracts, CQC and healthcare compliance, primary-care finance and our internal systems. We train all of that. A degree is welcome but not required: we care far more about what you have built than where you studied.
Your first year
- First 90 days: learn the business at every site, meet every team, own the scorecard rhythm, and give the owner an honest talent and operations assessment.
- By month 6: development pathways and core playbooks live, measurable improvement in two or three weak areas, a growth plan running and a competitor view in place.
- By month 12: a leadership layer that runs the day-to-day without you, the new venture launched with its first team in place, and you operating as the owner’s genuine second-in-command.
Who will thrive and who won’t
You’ll thrive if you light up when someone you coached gets promoted, you’re happy to fix a broken process with your own hands, and you enjoy debating ideas with a demanding, hands-on owner.
You won’t thrive if you need a big team to delegate everything to, you see people development as HR’s job, or you’d rather present a strategy than make one work.
How we’ll assess
- Stage 1: CV and cover-letter review against the qualities above.
- Stage 2: a structured interview walking through your career, including a deep dive on the project in your cover letter.
- Stage 3: meet members of the team you would lead, then a final conversation with the owner.
As part of the process we’ll ask to speak to previous managers and people who have worked for you, with your permission.
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