Head of Patient Access

Job Description:

Head of Patient Access

King Edward VII's Hospital, 5-10 Beaumont Street, Marylebone, London W1G 6AA

Permanent (37.5hrs) On-Site

Competitive Salary + Fantastic Benefits

We make health happen

At King Edward VII's Hospital, exceptional healthcare begins long before treatment starts. As our Head of Patient Access, you'll play a pivotal role in ensuring patients, consultants and colleagues experience a seamless, efficient and exceptional journey from first contact through to admission and beyond.

Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, you'll provide senior operational leadership across a diverse portfolio including Contact Centre, Reservations, Front of House and Security services. You'll also lead the Hospital's Business Continuity Planning and Sustainability Strategy, helping to ensure operational resilience while supporting the delivery of our long-term strategic objectives.

This is an outstanding opportunity for an experienced operational leader to influence patient access, optimise capacity and service utilisation, lead transformational improvement programmes and enhance patient and consultant experience within one of the UK's most respected independent hospitals.

You'll be at the heart of our commitment to delivering exceptional service, creating an environment where teams thrive, operational excellence is embedded and patients receive the highest standards of care and support.

How you'll help us make health happen

• Lead the Contact Centre and Reservations functions, ensuring responsive, accurate and patient-centred enquiry, booking and admission processes.
• Provide senior leadership and oversight for Front of House, reception, portering and Security services, ensuring a safe, welcoming and efficient environment for patients, consultants and visitors.
• Work closely with Heads of Department, Finance and Transformation teams to understand demand, capacity and service utilisation, identifying opportunities to improve operational efficiency and maximise available resources.
• Develop and maintain operational performance reporting, using activity, productivity, capacity, utilisation and financial data to identify trends, bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement.
• Drive service improvement, transformation and process redesign initiatives that enhance patient access, operational performance and patient experience.
• Lead the Hospital's Business Continuity Planning and operational resilience programme, ensuring plans are maintained, tested and aligned to organisational requirements.
• Lead delivery of the Hospital's Sustainability Strategy, working collaboratively across departments and with Bupa to embed sustainable practices and monitor progress against agreed objectives.
• Provide visible leadership to managers and teams across the portfolio, ensuring effective workforce management, performance development and delivery against agreed objectives.
• Manage delegated budgets, contracts and supplier relationships, identifying opportunities for efficiencies while maintaining safety, quality and experience standards.
• Work collaboratively with consultants, clinical teams, senior leaders, Bupa teams and external partners to support organisational objectives and service excellence.
• Ensure risks, incidents, complaints, audit actions and service issues are appropriately managed, providing assurance and performance updates to the Chief Operating Officer.
• Foster a culture of accountability, continuous improvement and exceptional customer service across all patient access functions.

Key Skills / Qualifications

Essential

• Significant senior operational management experience within healthcare or another complex, highly regulated service environment.
• Strong leadership experience across multiple operational services, with responsibility for managers, teams, suppliers and outsourced or managed service providers.
• Experience leading patient access, customer contact, booking, admissions or comparable high-volume service operations.
• Strong analytical and commercial skills, with experience using capacity, utilisation, productivity, financial and performance data to drive operational improvement.
• Proven experience delivering service improvement, operational transformation or process redesign programmes.
• Knowledge of business continuity, operational resilience and risk management, with the ability to coordinate organisation-wide planning and improvement activities.
• Understanding of sustainability principles and experience translating strategic objectives into measurable operational outcomes.
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication and influencing skills with the ability to build strong relationships across clinical, operational and executive teams.
• Experience managing budgets, contracts and third-party supplier relationships.
• Degree-level qualification in Healthcare Management, Business, Operations or a related discipline, or equivalent substantial senior operational experience.

Desirable

• Postgraduate qualification in Management, Leadership, Service Improvement, Project Management or Change Management.
• Experience within an independent healthcare or private hospital environment.

Benefits

Our benefits are designed to make health happen for our people. Viva is our global wellbeing programme and includes all aspects of our health – from mental and physical, to financial, social, and environmental wellbeing. We support flexible working and have a range of family friendly benefits.

Joining Bupa in this role you will receive the following benefits and more:

• Payment of professional registration fees
• Equivalent to 25 days holiday per year, increasing through length of service, with option to buy or sell.
• Bupa health insurance as a benefit in kind
• An enhanced pension plan and life insurance
• Various other benefits and online discounts

Part of a Globally Trusted Healthcare Group

When you join King Edward VII, you also become part of Bupa — a global healthcare leader with the scale, stability and expertise of a major international brand. Being backed by Bupa means access to an extensive network of clinical and operational specialists, shared best practice from across the organisation, and the support of well‑established systems that help you grow, develop and deliver exceptional care. Our size gives us strength, while our purpose keeps us personal.

We champion diversity and want our people to reflect the communities we serve. Everyone is encouraged to “Be you at Bupa”, and we actively welcome colleagues from all backgrounds and experiences. Bupa takes pride in being a Level 2 Disability Confident Employer and will aim to offer an interview/assessment to disabled applicants who best meet the minimum criteria for the role. We’re committed to ensuring you’re treated fairly during the recruitment process and offer reasonable adjustments to anyone who may benefit from accommodations to the recruitment process.   

Time Type:

Full time

Job Area:

Locations:

King Edward VII Hospital