Care Director
Salutem LD Bidco Ltd/ Salutem LD Bidco II Ltd/ Sal
At Salutem Care and Education, our aim is to empower people to live a life they choose, regardless of the care or support they need.
We are proud to provide a range of care and support across our schools, day centres, and residential homes for children and adults. Just like any strong community, we want the very best for the individuals we support.
We’re proud to be recognised by the Top Employers Institute as a Top Employer United Kingdom, reflecting our exceptional culture, care, and commitment to our people.
In addition, we’re honoured to be named among the 2025 Top 100 Global Inspiring Workplaces, and to have achieved Top 10 in the 2026 UK & Ireland Inspiring Workplaces Awards.
We’re passionate about developing and supporting colleagues for the future. Through a culture of continuous learning and reflective practice, we create opportunities for personal and professional growth — helping our people build meaningful and rewarding careers in care.
About The Role
The Care Director is a senior leadership role responsible for the strategic and operational management of care services, ensuring the delivery of high-quality, safe, and person-centred care. The post holder will provide direction, leadership, and oversight to care teams, driving continuous improvement and ensuring services meet regulatory standards, organisational values, and the needs of service users.
Working closely with senior stakeholders, the Care Director will lead on service development, quality assurance, workforce planning, and performance management. The role requires a strong focus on governance, compliance, and innovation to enhance outcomes and maintain excellence across all areas of care provision.
Key priorities include fostering a positive, inclusive culture; ensuring effective safeguarding practices; managing resources efficiently; and delivering sustainable, high-performing services aligned with organisational objectives.
Job Responsibilities:
1. Strategic Leadership & Service Development
- Develop and implement a care strategy aligned with organisational and educational priorities.
- Lead the integration of care and education to ensure cohesive learner pathways, reflecting the model of close liaison between education and residential services.
- Promote innovation in care delivery, including person-centred approaches and assistive technologies.
- Contribute to executive decision-making and long-term organisational planning.
- Extensive travel nationally supporting both pre-school primary, secondary and P19 provisions within the division.
- Ensure all services meet CQC, Ofsted, and safeguarding standards, always maintaining inspection readiness
- Establish robust quality assurance frameworks, including audits, service reviews, and continuous improvement cycles.
- Oversee the development and audit of person-centred care plans and clinical protocols, ensuring consistency and quality across services.
- Lead systems that ensure safe practice in areas such as medication, infection control, and delegated healthcare tasks.
- Provide senior oversight of systems supporting learners with complex health needs, including enteral feeding, epilepsy care, respiratory support, moving and handling, intimate care, continence support, dysphagia management, medication administration and delegated clinical tasks, ensuring that staff are appropriately trained, assessed as competent and regularly reviewed.
- Work with nursing, therapy and external health professionals to ensure that clinical delegation, competency sign-off, escalation pathways and emergency protocols are robust, current and consistently implemented.
- Lead implementation and optimisation of digital care systems, reporting platforms, and data dashboards.
- Ensure data integrity and real-time oversight of service performance.
- Provide executive oversight of safeguarding across the organisation, building on the expectation that care leaders hold DSL/DDSL responsibilities.
- Ensure robust systems for risk assessment, behaviour support, and safe care practices are implemented and monitored.
- Promote a strong safeguarding culture aligned with statutory guidance and best practice
- Provide oversight and direction to Heads of Care and service leads across the portfolio.
- Ensure effective delivery of care services that meet individual learner needs, health requirements, and personal outcomes.
- Lead on admissions, transition, and compatibility decisions, ensuring accurate assessment of needs and provision capacity.
- Act as the senior escalation point for complex care issues, families, and external stakeholders.
- Lead the recruitment, development, and retention of a skilled multidisciplinary workforce, including nurses, care staff, and support workers.
- Ensure effective supervision, appraisal, and competency frameworks, reflecting expectations for ongoing training and practice checks.
- Drive a culture of accountability, excellence, and continuous professional development.
- Address underperformance and support staff progression through structured HR processes.
- Provide oversight of safe staffing models across complex care provision, ensuring that staffing levels, skill mix, training, supervision and deployment are matched to learner need and risk.
- Ensure care provision actively supports learning, communication, and Preparing for Adulthood outcomes.
- Promote approaches that enable student voice, independence, and participation in their own care.
- Work collaboratively with education leaders to align care strategies with EHCP outcomes and curriculum delivery.
- Lead effective collaboration with therapy teams, healthcare professionals, commissioners, and families.
- Represent the organisation in external forums, inspections, and partnership meetings.
- Ensure strong communication systems that enable consistent, high-quality service delivery.
- Monitor and report on service performance, quality metrics, and learner outcomes.
- Ensure high-quality documentation and reporting for regulators, commissioners, and senior leaders.
- Use insight and data to drive service improvement and innovation.
Knowledge, skills and competency
Experience
- Senior leadership experience in education, residential care, or integrated services
- Proven ability to deliver high-quality, compliant services in complex care environments
- Experience leading multidisciplinary teams and large-scale service delivery
- Strong understanding of CQC and Ofsted frameworks, safeguarding, and health & social care regulation
- Expertise in person-centred care planning, clinical governance, and quality assurance
- Knowledge of Preparing for Adulthood and specialist education settings
- Strategic thinking and system leadership
- Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills
- Ability to drive cultural change and continuous improvement
This role extends beyond a traditional Head of Care by:
- Providing portfolio-wide leadership and strategic direction
- Ensuring consistent standards across multiple services
- Embedding integration between care, health, and education
- Holding accountability for quality, compliance, safeguarding, and outcomes at scale
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