Health service manager

You would lead and organise staff and services so that a local community gets high quality, value-for-money healthcare.

Jobs range from being chief executive of a large hospital to manager of a GP surgery. You could also be a manager within the ambulance service, a community health service or a local NHS headquarters that monitors the service and performance of local NHS services.

You’d work with work with medical staff and other professionals.

You would:

• Recruit and appoint staff

• Supervise staff and take responsibility for the work they do

• Deal with day-to-day operational matters

• Assess performance and plan for the long term, using statistical information

• Attend meetings, write reports and do presentations

• Set budgets and manage finances

• Put policies in place and make sure government guidelines are followed

• Manage premises including cleaning, catering and security services

• Manage contracts

There is a wide variety in health service management. You might work in a specific area such as finance, human resources (HR), project management, information management or facilities management.

Healthcare services are very important to people so this is a challenging role. You’d need to be able to deal with constant change. You’d need to understand the issues surrounding confidentiality, be good at solving problems and be able to explain complex things in a clear way.

You can see more about this role in the National Health Service on the Management development page on the NHSScotland Careers website.

• Scottish Ambulance Service - How it works, about its employees and experiences of people who use the Service