Group Head of Learning & Development, Communications and Partnership Engagement

We have a fantastic opportunity for a Group Head of Learning & Development, Communications and Partnership Engagement to join our Senior Leadership Team. This role will be remote with national travel.

Reporting directly to the Group Chief People Officer you will be responsible for leading on EMED Group’s strategy for learning and organisational development, internal and external communications, partnership engagement and social values, ensuring these areas are aligned to operational and strategic priorities to support the capability, leadership culture and social impact needed to deliver exceptional patient care, operational excellence and sustainable growth.

Benefits for the role include

• Competitive Salary
• Annual car allowance
• Performance related bonus
• Private Healthcare
• 33 days annual leave (inclusive of bank holidays) with the option to purchase additional leave through salary sacrifice.
• Life Assurance
• 24/7 online/telephone GP Consultation and access to prescriptions.
• 2nd opinion medical support following diagnosis or where a colleague is on a treatment pathway.
• Cash-plan benefits, providing colleagues the option of protecting themselves in case of illness and recuperation, including dental, optical, chiropody.
• Access to mental health and physiotherapy consultations.
• Access to legal advice on domestic issues e.g. motoring offences, wills and probate, and personal injury.
• Long Service Recognition Scheme – recognising colleagues for their continued service after 5 years and at 5-year intervals with an increase in annual leave.

Role Responsibilities

• Develop, lead and implement the Group Learning & Development Strategy, aligned to EMED’s People Strategy, organisational objectives and future capability requirements.
• Partner with the Chief People Officer, Executive Leadership Team, senior leaders and operational leaders to identify capability gaps and design learning solutions that support business priorities.
• Design and oversee leadership and management development programmes for Managers, including the Manager Acceleration Programme and associated pathways.
• Lead succession planning and talent development activity in partnership with HR Business Partners and senior leaders, ensuring learning supports future leadership pipelines.

• Work collaboratively with the Training team, clinical, quality, governance, safeguarding, information governance, health and safety and operational colleagues to ensure learning responsibilities are clearly defined and support safe, compliant and high-quality patient care.
• Maximise effective use of the Apprenticeship Levy and develop apprenticeship pathways that support frontline colleagues, managers and senior leaders.
• Promote professional qualifications and structured development routes that enhance capability, retention and career progression.
• Lead the development and effective delivery of internal communications channels that connect colleagues with corporate news, organisational priorities, celebrations, successes and key messages across EMED Group.
• Work with senior leaders, operational teams and enabling functions to ensure internal communications support engagement, change, culture, colleague voice and shared organisational identity.
• Provide leadership for internal social value activity delivered through the EMED Foundation, ensuring activity is aligned to EMED’s organisational values, community impact objectives and wider people strategy.
• Support the leadership of EMED Foundation activity via the Trustees to deliver campaigns, colleague involvement and associated governance to ensure social value initiatives are visible, meaningful and connected to local and national priorities.
• Work in conjunction with the Talent Resourcing team to identify and develop social value, employability, outreach and partnership activity that supports attraction, resourcing, community engagement and inclusive workforce development.
• Build effective internal and external partnerships that support the delivery of social value commitments, including charitable relationships, community stakeholders, education partners and resourcing-related initiatives.
• Develop opportunities to embed lived experience within colleague learning and induction, including investment in a patient-focused video that helps colleagues understand the experience of being a dialysis patient. This should include scoping an outline budget for partners to work within and ensuring the content supports empathy, awareness and patient-centred practice.
• Work with charitable and social value partners to strengthen EMED’s external value proposition, including exploring how partner insight and content can support social value development within bids, particularly where increased weighting may be expected in future commissioning and procurement processes.
• Planning, prioritisation, budget awareness and strategic leadership of the Learning & Development function, with potential future responsibility for team leadership as the function evolves.

Do you have what it takes?

• Communication with Impact – articulates strategy to influence stakeholders, communicates decisively during uncertainty, inspires confidence and ensures ownership and clarity when delivering messages across teams, stakeholders, external partners and the wider business.
• Agile Thinking – adjusts long-term plans and organisational strategies in response to changing needs, promotes collaboration across teams and proactively manages risks through experimentation, learning and innovation.
• Delivering Results – aligns team efforts with organisational objectives, establishes clear metrics, integrates financial understanding into decision making and adapts strategies using insight to deliver commercial and operational impact.
• Encouraging Ownership and Teamwork – empowers team members by assigning responsibility based on strengths, breaks down silos, promotes shared accountability and actively mentors others to strengthen capability.
• Customer Focussed – ensures the organisation understands and responds to evolving customer, patient and service user needs, integrating their perspectives into strategic decision making and cross-functional delivery.
• Delivering Clarity of Vision – develops and communicates a compelling vision for learning and organisational capability, aligning it with EMED’s strategic priorities, future workforce needs and long-term objectives.
• Investing in Talent – actively leads succession planning, develops talent pipelines, establishes mentoring and sponsorship approaches and invests in leadership development to strengthen organisational capability.
• Leading with Influence – engages and influences key stakeholders at a strategic level, builds credibility as a thought leader, and leads learning, engagement, social value and change initiatives that secure support for transformation and long-term success.
• Leading Change – communicates the case for change, builds confidence through uncertainty, addresses resistance constructively and fosters a culture of innovation, continuous improvement and learning.

About Us

EMED Group is an established healthcare logistics provider that enables access to health and social care through our four specialist divisions. We are one of the largest health and care partners to the NHS with 4,000 colleagues across over 60 bases UK-wide.

EMED Group is committed to pro-actively improving the wellbeing of our communities by providing access to vital health and social care services across the UK