Skip to content
CV Rocket
Get started
How it worksThe enginePricingBlogContactSign in

Open nowPosted 21 hours agoWe saw it 34 min after it went up

Head of Corporate Secretariat and Legal

Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust44 open roles

Where
Portsmouth, England, United Kingdom
Work mode
On site
Get the CV for this job

From $25 per CV, paid once. No subscription.

Your applicationOpen nowHead of Corporate Secretariat and LegalPortsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust · Portsmouth, England, United Kingdom

  1. YouYes, apply to this one.

  2. CV RocketCV written for this posting.

  3. 25 readersRecruiter, hiring manager, skeptic. Round after round.

  4. CV RocketApplied on Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust's own form.

The reply lands in your private mailbox

3×more interviews than doing it yourself with ChatGPT.

The clock on this job

Early applications get read.

13.6% of postings close within 7 days. Measured by our own scanner across the market. Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust postings stay open a median of 14 days.

Share of postings closed within
  1. 2.3%1 day
  2. 4.7%3 days
  3. 13.6%7 days
  4. 21.9%14 days
  5. 36.9%30 days
  6. 59.0%60 days
This job: posted 21 hours ago

Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust median: 14 days open

The posting

Company Description

Working as a partnership, both Isle of Wight NHS Trust and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust have a shared vision for excellence in care for our patients and communities; with a set of strategic aims underpinning how we will achieve this.

The single corporate service is delivered across both organisation. You may be based at either IWT or PHU and individuals may be required to undertake business travel between sites. For leaders managing staff across multi-site locations, you will need to be visible and provide in person leadership. The arrangements and frequency will be agreed locally.

Job Description

Contract Type: Permanent

Hours: 37.5 hours per week (Monday - Friday)

Grade: Band 8c

Base: Across site working, between Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth and St Mary's Hospital, Isle of Wight.

We are seeking an exceptional and highly experienced senior governance leader to join our Corporate Governance Directorate as Head of Corporate Secretariat and Legal.

This is a significant Group-level leadership appointment with responsibility for two distinct but closely connected portfolios: the Board Secretariat and Healthcare Legal Services functions serving both Isle of Wight NHS Trust and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.

Reporting directly to the Group Director of Corporate Governance, you will be a senior member of the Corporate Governance Directorate leadership team and will provide authoritative advice to the Boards, Executive teams and senior leaders across both organisations. You will also deputise for the Group Director of Corporate Governance on corporate governance and legal matters when required.

The role

You will provide strategic and operational leadership to the teams responsible for:

  • delivering an effective and high-quality Board and committee secretariat;
  • maintaining and continuously improving the Group’s corporate governance framework;
  • managing the annual business cycles of the Boards, their committees and Executive teams;
  • supporting Board effectiveness, development and succession planning;
  • overseeing healthcare legal services, including litigation, coronial inquests, Court of Protection matters and general legal advisory work;
  • ensuring effective oversight and supervision of lawyers, paralegals and case managers;
  • managing legal-service performance, risk, external representation and reporting arrangements; and
  • providing expert, proportionate and pragmatic advice on complex, sensitive and potentially contentious governance and legal matters.

This is a broad and demanding portfolio requiring an individual who can operate credibly with Board members and senior executives while providing visible, effective leadership to specialist governance and legal teams.

You will need to balance strategic leadership with a detailed understanding of the systems, controls and professional standards required to deliver high-quality Board governance and healthcare legal services across two statutory NHS organisations.

About you

To succeed in this role, you will already be operating in a substantive senior corporate governance, company secretariat or comparable leadership position within a large, complex and highly regulated organisation.

You must be able to demonstrate:

  • significant senior-level experience of leading corporate governance or Board secretariat services;
  • substantial knowledge of NHS governance structures, statutory responsibilities and regulatory requirements;
  • direct experience of overseeing a legal-services function or supervising legal professionals and complex legal casework;
  • experience of advising Boards, Executive Directors, Non-Executive Directors and other senior stakeholders;
  • leadership of multidisciplinary specialist teams at a senior level;
  • the ability to interpret complex legal, regulatory and governance requirements and translate them into practical organisational arrangements;
  • experience of leading complex governance programmes, service improvements or strategic initiatives;
  • excellent judgement, political awareness and the ability to influence confidently where issues are sensitive or contested; and
  • the ability to produce and present complex, high-quality reports and advice at Board level.

A relevant Master’s degree, or equivalent senior-level experience, together with a corporate governance qualification or demonstrable equivalent expertise, is essential.

A legal qualification, chartered governance qualification and experience of healthcare, coronial or Court of Protection law would be advantageous. However, all applicants must demonstrate credible senior-level experience of providing oversight of legal services and supervising legal professionals.

This role is unlikely to be suitable for candidates whose experience has been limited primarily to committee administration, meeting coordination or governance support without wider strategic leadership responsibility and direct exposure to legal-services oversight.

Working across the Group

As part of our Single Corporate Service, the role operates across Isle of Wight NHS Trust and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.

A visible leadership presence will be required across both organisations. The successful candidate must therefore be able to work regularly across our sites in Portsmouth and on the Isle of Wight, with a significant proportion of the role undertaken on site. Individual working arrangements will be agreed with the Group Director of Corporate Governance.

This is an opportunity to make a significant contribution to the leadership, governance and assurance of two major NHS organisations.

Working alongside Board members, Executive Directors and senior leaders, you will help shape governance best practice, strengthen organisational assurance and ensure that the Group has effective, responsive and professionally led corporate secretariat and legal-services functions.

If you are an accomplished, strategic and collaborative senior leader with the confidence and credibility to operate at Board level, and the experience to lead both a complex corporate governance portfolio and a specialist healthcare legal-services function, we would welcome your application.

Along with your CV, please also provide a supporting statement. As part of your supporting statement, please provide clear examples demonstrating:

  • your personal experience of advising Boards, Executive Directors and Non-Executive Directors on complex corporate governance matters;
  • a significant governance framework, programme or service improvement that you have led at organisational level;
  • your experience of overseeing a legal-services function, supervising legal professionals or managing complex healthcare legal matters

For further details, please see enclosed Job Description

Qualifications

Essential

  • Masters’ degree in relevant subject (or equivalent level).
  • Corporate governance qualification (or equivalent experience).

Desirable

  • Qualified practising Solicitor/Barrister/Legal Executive.
  • Chartered Secretariat qualification.

Experience

Essential

  • Significant experience working in a senior role in corporate governance.
  • Knowledge and experience associated with NHS specific provisions, structures and social care policies.
  • Experience of oversight and supervision of junior lawyers.
  • Line management responsibilities at a senior level.
  • Team Management.
  • Excellent organisational and analytical skills.
  • Excellent communication skills.
  • Expert in influencing, negotiating and interpersonal skills.
  • Ability to analyse and interpret data and information at an advanced level.
  • Ability to write complex reports at a senior level, including Board level.
  • Strategic skills and experience of application, to support with design and implementation of strategy and strategic initiatives.

Desirable

  • Expertise in one or more legal disciplines.
  • Experience in healthcare law, coronial law and court of protection proceedings.

Knowledge

Essential

  • Extensive knowledge and experience of the application of corporate governance and law in a practical setting.

Desirable

  • Expert knowledge of systems and processes relating to the management of the Coronial process, litigation and claims management.
  • Expert awareness and application of Data protection and confidentiality, Human Rights Act, Mental Health Act and Health and Safety Law.

Additional Information

The health and wellbeing of our staff is at the forefront of everything we do. We are proud to be able to offer our staff some fantastic benefits including our on-site Nursery, access to our free Beach Hut for those long summer days, our on-site Wellness Centre including a gym and a swimming pool, access to our fantastic staff networks including LGBTQ, Race Equality and DisAbility, and awards ceremonies to recognise your achievements. We believe we can offer support to all of our staff when they need it the most.

We welcome the unique contributions that you can bring in terms of your education, opinions, culture, ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity and expression, nation of origin, age, languages spoken, veteran’s status, colour, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and beliefs.

For more information, please see our People and OD Strategy 2026

Smoke Free Policy:

All of our hospitals operate a strict no smoking policy. Smoking cigarettes or tobacco products is not allowed on any of the grounds or in any of the buildings run by us. This applies to patients, staff, carers and visitors to Trust premises.

Our goal is to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone we care for and, by making sure that our NHS services are smoke-free, we benefit the health of people who use our services as well as the health of the people who work for us.

From $25, paid onceGet the CV for this job

What happens when you press

One press. We do the rest.

  1. A CV for this posting

    Written against Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust's own wording, from every piece of relevant proof in your profile.

  2. 25 readers review it

    Recruiter, hiring manager, skeptic and more read every draft, round after round. You get the best round.

    The review screen in CV Rocket: how each CV was read, round by round.

  3. We apply on Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust's form

    Our application engine gets through the hardest forms there are. Where a question needs you, AI suggests the best answer. Don't want us applying from our IP addresses? Use our Chrome extension: we apply straight from your own browser.

    An application in CV Rocket: every answer filled in on the employer's form.

  4. Every reply, sorted

    Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust's answer lands in your private mailbox, and we classify it on arrival: interview, question, rejection.

    The CV Rocket inbox: each employer reply classified as an interview, an action or a rejection.

  5. Reply with AI

    AI helps you write the email, checks it and sends it. We show you whether the recruiter read it.

  6. The interview in your calendar

    Full integration with your calendar. The invitation goes straight in.

    An interview invitation in the CV Rocket inbox, added to the candidate's calendar.
Get the CV for this job

From $25 per CV, paid once. No subscription.

Why it works

3×

more interviews than doing it yourself with ChatGPT.

ChatGPT writes a CV and never learns what happened to it. We see every reply. For each CV we know:

  • How it was written, and how the review scored it
  • When we applied, and how long after the posting went up
  • Which posting, which company, which city
  • Who got the interview, and who heard nothing

That is how we know which CVs get called.

Get the CV for this job

From $25 per CV, paid once. No subscription.

The numbers game

More applications. More interviews.

Every application goes out with its own CV, written for that posting and paid once. Send enough of them and the law of large numbers finds you the job.

Get the CV for this job
By hand5–10
With CV Rocket100
applications a day

Nearby

Live postings like this one

Same employer first, then the same role elsewhere.

Before you press

Straight answers

Get the CV for this job

From $25 per CV, paid once. No subscription.

What if my background isn't good enough?

We make the most of the background you have. The CV uses every piece of relevant proof your profile holds, and one of the 25 readers reads your whole profile and flags what the CV left out.

Do you really apply for me?

Yes, on the employer's own form, the hardest ones included. Where a question needs you, you answer it right there and AI suggests the best answer. Don't want us applying from our IP addresses? Use our Chrome extension: we apply straight from your own browser.

Is it a subscription?

No. You pay once per CV, from $25. Every application goes out with its own CV, written for that posting.

One job. One CV.
Paid once.

Pick the posting you want. We write for it, apply for you and catch the reply.

Get the CV for this job

From $25 per CV, paid once. No subscription.