Community Hospitals Matron | Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust


Company:	Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust
Salary:	£57,528 - £64,750 pro rata, per annum
Hours:	Full-time
Location:	Ashford, TN25 4AZ
Job type:	Permanent
Posting date:	17 Sept 2026
Closing date:	17 Oct 2026

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Summary

Please note: at this stage, the role is open only to colleagues currently employed within Kent and Medway NHS Trusts, the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB) and Medway Community Healthcare or working on the Staff Bank within these organisations. Nursing and AHP vacancies are also open to Student Nurses and Newly Qualified Nurses/AHPs.

Are you an inspiring clinical leader passionate about delivering outstanding patient care? We are seeking a dynamicCommunity Hospital Matronto provide expert clinical and professional leadership across our Community Hospital services in Kent.

Supporting inpatient rehabilitation, reablement and sub-acute care teams across multiple sites, you will champion clinical excellence, patient safety and high-quality care for patients with complex health needs. Working closely with the Lead Matron and operational leaders, you will drive continuous improvement, embed a culture of learning and assurance, and ensure services consistently meet Trust, regulatory and national standards.

This is a fantastic opportunity for an experienced senior nurse to influence practice, support professional development and make a real difference to patient outcomes across our community hospitals.

Join us and help shape the future of community healthcare in Kent.

• Providing visible, credible professional leadership across community hospital sites, promoting excellence in clinical care, safety and patient experience

• Providing clinical support across community hospital sites, including advice and expert opinion for complex patients, clinical assessment, care planning, diagnosis, risk management, education and service delivery. This will support safe patient care, strengthen clinical practice and help colleagues develop confidence and competence.

• Responsible for working with the Lead Matron in delivering strategic quality priorities, including, clinical risk management, audit programmes and service improvement initiatives.

• You will plan and organise complex clinical quality, safety and improvement activity across community hospitals, adjusting plans in response to changing priorities, patient acuity, staffing, bed management, patient flow, MDT case conferences and education or training requirements. This includes promoting discharge planning as a shared responsibility across the multidisciplinary team, supporting proactive conversations and timely decision-making to improve patient flow and safe discharge.

Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust is due to integrate with Medway Community Healthcare on 1 October 2026. Following integration and to align our community services to the new Neighbourhood Model of care delivery, there will be a period of consultation which may result in changes affecting some services, teams or roles. Depending on the area you are applying to work in, this could include potential changes to your role, work base, reporting arrangements, or terms and conditions of employment. Any changes would be subject to consultation and managed sensitively and in line with relevant employment processes. Please do contact the recruiting manager if you have any concerns about this so they can answer any questions you might have.

Rated ‘Outstanding’ by CQC, we deliver high-quality care that improves the health of our communities. We are looking for people who share our values: Compassionate, Aspirational, Responsive and Excellent.

We are proud to be an inclusive, welcoming organisation and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds. We use protected characteristic information for monitoring only and it is not seen by recruiting managers, except where applicants choose to be considered under our disability guaranteed interview scheme.

We know life outside work matters.As a flexible working-friendly organisation, we welcome conversations about arrangements that help you thrive while supporting excellent care for our patients.

Explore KCHFT career pathways

As a community Trust, many of our roles require individuals to be able to drive to perform their duties. Where driving is a requirement of the role, you will be asked to confirm that you hold a full UK driving licence or a full driving licence issued by an EU country (not exchanged from a non-EU country) to proceed with your application. We are committed to supporting candidates with disabilities into employment. If you are unable to drive due to a disability, please contact the Recruitment Team via kentchft.recruitment@nhs.net, quoting the vacancy reference number, so we can support you further.

The job description and person specification gives you all the information you need about this role. Please look carefully at the criteria in the person specification and tell us what you have done that shows you meet this in your application. If you need an application form in an alternative format please let our recruitment team know. All information you supply on your application should, to the best of your knowledge, be true and accurate.

Still have questions? The recruiting manager would love to hear from you, their contact details can be found in the job advert.

We can get a lot of applications for some roles so to be in with the best chance of being shortlisted please make sure you apply as soon as possible. A vacancy may close early if there is a lot of interest in the job.

At KCHFT we strongly encourage colleagues in clinical and non-clinical roles who have direct or social contact with patients to be fully vaccinated. In this way we will be doing all we can to ensure your safety and that of your colleagues and the patients we serve.

Find out more about the community differencehere.

Good luck! We can’t wait to meet you and welcome you to #teamKCHFT, #cometocommunity.

It is important to us that all our staff are aligned to our Values and in particular the behaviours we expect from KCHFT managers. With this in mind as part of the selection process for this position you will be asked to complete two other activities in addition to the competency-based interview that you will invited to. This extended selection process is designed to assess your management style and the specific details of the exercises will be given if you are successfully shortlisted. The provisional date of the selection event is 16th September 2026, although this may be subject to change.

This advert closes on Thursday 1 Oct 2026

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