Clinical Scheduling and Capacity Specialist

Job Title: Clinical Scheduling and Capacity Specialist

Time commitment: Full time preferred. Part time 4 days per week would be considered.

Location: Hybrid working from the London office (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) is preferred. If this is not possible we will consider flexible hybrid, attending the London office at least once per week.

Reporting to: VP Operations & Product

About Paloma

Mark and Darshak founded Paloma as they were frustrated that families are waiting 2-10 years for NHS children’s autism and ADHD assessments. Learn more about the crisis in NHS children’s neurodevelopmental services from this Children’s Commissioner for England here: https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/blog/childrens-commissioner-warns-of-invisible-crisis-as-delays-and-inequalities-laid-bare-among-children-with-neurodevelopmental-conditions/

Paloma’s mission is to make children’s autism and ADHD assessments and care available on the NHS within 4 weeks of GP referral. We are making this happen by redesigning care pathways, building new software & AI tools, and training up a specialist clinical workforce.

We are growing incredibly fast to meet the need for autism and ADHD care, and we have:

• Grown our fantastic team to 90 people, and are hiring ~100 more over the next 12 months
• Raised £5m pre-seed funding from leading healthcare investors (Triple Point Ventures and Heal Capital) helping us to invest in our technology and our team
• Achieved financial sustainability

How is Paloma Health different from other Neurodevelopmental providers?

• We are clinically-led, Care Quality Commission (CQC) registered, and continuously improve our outcomes and family experiences.
• Our in-house product & engineering team ensures we can:
• Give families a more consumer-like experience of healthcare
• Free our clinicians from documentation to focus on supporting families
• Our strong culture, including 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 allows us to move fast

The Opportunity

We are seeking a highly capable Clinical Scheduling and Capacity Specialist to ensure that families receive the fastest possible children’s autism assessment from Paloma. You will be responsible for ensuring that every available appointment is used, patient wait times are minimised, and our complex booking systems run flawlessly. You will manage the small team that action the day-to-day bookings process and lead our clinical capacity planning, forecasting, and process improvement.

With success in the role, you can progress to a ‘Lead’ role with time.

About you

You:

• Are strategic and highly analytical
• Have strong experience in solving complex scheduling and capacity challenges in a fast-paced environment. 
• Enjoy turning data into actionable strategies that improve the experience of care for our patients.
• Are a hands-on leader, able to manage a team while simultaneously owning the most complex aspects of the booking system and continuous process improvement.
• 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

Responsibilities:

Strategic planning and clinical capacity management

• Own clinical scheduling to ensure capacity is always filled and wait times maintained. This involves allocation of resources across working patterns, locations, professional backgrounds and skillsets.
• Conduct continuous capacity planning, ensuring appropriate resources are in place to meet demand and maintain target wait times and providing insights to the operational and talent team on what clinical roles are needed ahead of time.
• Develop and maintain robust contingency planning protocols to manage staff illness, leave, and urgent cases without disrupting overall patient flow.

Booking excellent and team leadership

• Oversee the booking and rescheduling of all patient appointments, ensuring smooth and timely processing.
• Manage a small, high-performing team responsible for actioning bookings, reschedules, managing outcome clinics, and timely patient discharges.
• Ensure Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are consistently met for responding to booking requests and that strict policies are followed for cancellations and no-shows.
• Provide daily clear, concise updates to leadership on key operational metrics, including availability, buffer capacity status, reschedule themes, and backlogs.

Process improvement

• Proactively and continuously review all booking processes, platforms, and team workflows to identify and implement ways to improve efficiency, reduce administrative burden, and enhance the patient and clinician experience.

Qualifications and experience:

Required:

• At least 2 years experience in managing complex booking systems and large-scale capacity planning, ideally within a healthcare or fast-paced service delivery environment.
• At least 1 years experience in leading and managing a small team responsible for administrative or operational scheduling tasks.
• Demonstrable experience of using analytical skills to achieve performance targets translate scheduling data into strategic decisions.
• Able to confidently describe what scheduling software you have used, and ideally also the benefits and drawbacks of different scheduling software systems

Desirable:

• Experience working within the NHS or a CQC-regulated healthcare provider.
• Experience in a scaling start-up or fast-growth organisation.

Why join Paloma?

You will be part of a mission-driven organisation that’s transforming access to autism and ADHD care 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 £60,000 per year if outside of London and £66,000 if living within the M25, with some flexibility based on experience 
• Annual salary reviews, 5% employer pension, and company laptop.
• Share options in Paloma Health. We all benefit from our success!
• A unique annual leave benefits package which includes:
• 34 days of annual leave. This includes eight bank holidays and your birthday off.
• Option to buy an additional 5 days per year
• An additional 10 days of paid sabbatical leave every three completed years of service (which means 44 days of leave in year four at Paloma!)
• 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!