Autism Service Team Manager

Job Title: Autism Service Team Manager

Time commitment: Full Time        

Location: Hybrid (3 days/week) in our London office

Reporting to: Senior Care Delivery Manager

About Paloma

We aim to provide families with high-quality NHS autism and ADHD assessments for their child within 4 weeks of a GP referral. 

We were founded as we are deeply frustrated that families are waiting 2.5-10 years for NHS children’s autism and ADHD assessments, and this crisis has recently been highlighted by the Children’s Commissioner for England: https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/blog/childrens-commissioner-warns-of-invisible-crisis-as-delays-and-inequalities-laid-bare-among-children-with-neurodevelopmental-conditions/

Our NHS children and young people’s autism assessments went live in November 2024, and we are launching NHS children’s ADHD assessments and treatment in early 2026.

How is Paloma different?

• We are clinically led, Care Quality Commission (CQC) registered, with a strong focus on the quality of care we provide
• We have built our own software platform to:
• Give our families a more consumer-like experience of healthcare
• Free our assessors from documentation to focus on  supporting families
• Our strong culture, including a friendly and approachable team, transparency, a sense of community, and supporting staff career development
• The experience of our founders (Dr Mark Jenkins & Darshak Shah), who have previously built tech-enabled NHS obesity and ophthalmology services. Combined, their previous companies have treated over 1 million NHS patients in the last 15 years!
• Being backed by leading healthcare investors (Triple Point Ventures and Heal Capital), allows us to move fast.

The Opportunity

We are looking for a dedicated and results-driven Team Manager to lead and mentor a team of Neurodevelopmental Assessors delivering our autism assessment service. 

We do not expect the Team Manager to have a clinical background as clinical support and supervision is provided by senior assessors within the organisation. You will lead onboarding and day to day management for this team, ensuring your approaches are robust, well documented and routinely reviewed. You will be passionate about working with people, inspiring them to do their best, and use data to support their development. We support a culture of innovation, and you will be always looking to improve our ways of working.

You will collaborate with our existing Neurodevelopmental Service Team Manager, as well as with Product & Clinical Leaders to ensure the best possible experience for patients. As part of this you will use project management tools and methodology to ensure timely, high quality patient outcomes. 

With success in this role, you can progress to more senior roles including a ‘Senior’ Team Manager.

From a cultural perspective, you are:

• Comfortable working in a dynamic environment and embracing change
• Excited about using new technologies in your role
• Always looking for ways to improve our staff and patient experience

We commit to supporting your development and well-being, including:

• Quarterly development conversations with clear career progression pathways

About you

You are an experienced team manager, ideally with some experience of managing healthcare professionals. You will have developed the ability to operate autonomously and make things happen.. You are passionate about creating a positive and inclusive team culture.

Responsibilities:

• Line manage a growing team of neurodevelopmental assessors, fostering a person-centred and collaborative culture.
• Input into our staff capacity modelling, hiring plans and performance monitoring data.
• Support staff within the team to achieve their Key Performance Indicators, and develop within their individual career pathways.
• Develop a positive and collaborative culture in the team, maintaining high retention and trust levels. 
• Analyse, interpret and improve workforce absence, turnover, and utilisation, ultimately helping improve business performance.
• Be part of the safeguarding team, completing relevant training, partner with our Safeguarding Lead, and support safeguarding queries from your team.
• Partnering with our People Team, ensure all clinical staff are up to date with requirements such as DBS, professional body registration, and for all staff, actively pursuing their CPD. 
• Actively research examples of best practice related to workforce management and scaling from other organisations, and then challenge our current working practices positively, promoting a culture of continuous improvement and learning.

Qualifications and experience:

Required:

• At least 4 years of experience directly managing 10-15 person teams in fast growing environments, including leading areas such as, rota and scheduling, professional development, performance management and supporting staff wellbeing. 
• Excellent influencing skills and able to communicate effectively with staff at all levels.
• Experience working cross-functionally to improve service quality and efficiency.
• Able to balance continuous workforce improvement alongside increasing and changing service demand.
• Experience in creating, delivering and improving training programmes.
• Confident in using Google Sheets or Excel to look at and drive insights from data, and then use these to launch improvement initiatives.
• Excellent coaching skills, with the ability to mediate and resolve conflict situations successfully.

Desirable:

• Experience managing clinical teams.
• Qualifications in workforce development or planning, project management, education and training.
• Experience in safeguarding, including level 3 safeguarding training completed.
  
  

Don’t meet every requirement? 

Studies have shown that women and people from ethnic minority groups are less likely to apply for jobs unless they meet every qualification. Paloma is dedicated to building a diverse and top-performing workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align with every qualification, we strongly encourage you to apply. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles!

Why join Paloma?

You will be part of a mission-driven organisation that’s transforming access to Autism Assessments in England. We offer:

• A strong and positive culture that prioritises staff well-being, transparency, and career development.
• Protected time and budget for team connection, learning, and community-building.
• Salary of £45,000 per year.
• Annual salary reviews, 5% employer pension, and company laptop.
• Share options in Paloma Health. We all benefit from our success!
• A unique leave benefits package includes 25 days of annual leave, your birthday off, and 10 days of paid sabbatical leave every three years of service.
• Home Office Equipment Allowance, and Professional Registration Fees Allowance for Assessors.
• Access to NHS discounts, including the Blue Light Card (as we are an NHS provider).

Equality & Diversity

Paloma Health is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace and throughout the application process. We do not discriminate based on any protected characteristic.

Accommodations

We’re glad to accommodate candidates who need adjustments throughout the hiring process. We encourage you to be open about the adjustments you need, so we can adapt our interview process accordingly.

Safer Recruitment & Pre-Employment Checks

Paloma Health ensures that supporting people to be safe is at the heart of our work and a key priority across all areas of the organisation. As part of our pre-employment checks, you will be asked to complete a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. Depending on your role within the business, this will be at either an Enhanced, Standard, or Basic level. We are committed to safer recruitment practices and expect all applicants to share our dedication to safeguarding. Our recruitment processes are designed to ensure we appoint individuals who are aligned with our values and who will contribute to maintaining a safe and supportive environment for everyone we work with.

Application process

Please apply via our website. We understand that applying for a new job requires a significant amount of effort, and we appreciate your time. We look forward to reviewing your application.

Join us and be part of our journey to revolutionise access to NHS autism and ADHD care!