Head of Operations

 

Time commitment: Full-time   

Location: Hybrid working from the London office (Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays), with 2 days working from home (Tuesdays and Fridays) ideally. If not possible, one day per week in the London office (Thursdays) will be considered as the minimum. 

Reporting to: VP Product & Operations

 

About Paloma

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 believe the NHS can offer quick access to these services, and Paloma is achieving this by redesigning care pathways, developing new software & AI tools, and investing in clinicians' learning & development.

Mark and Darshak founded Paloma as they were frustrated that families are waiting 2-10 years for NHS children’s autism and ADHD assessments. This crisis in NHS children’s neurodevelopmental services has recently been highlighted by the 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/

We are growing our team purposefully to meet the need for NHS autism and ADHD care, and since launching, we have:

• Grown our fantastic team to over 100 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 looking for a Head of Operations to lead and scale our operations function. 

This is a high-impact role where you will be responsible for a rapidly scaling operations function of 80 people, including our Care Delivery team (Team Managers, Autism and ADHD Clinicians, including assessors and prescribers), the Care Coordination administration team, and our Scheduling, Safeguarding, and Governance teams.

Your mission is to ensure that as we scale to help thousands of families, our service remains high-quality, safe, and efficient. Your role is orchestrating this complex function, ensuring that every step of our care pathway—from the NHS referral to exit—is working in perfect sync.

About you

• You are a leader of leaders: You have a proven track record of managing large, multi-tiered teams. You know how to motivate and develop managers who, in turn, manage our Delivery Team, Care Coordinators, Scheduling, Safeguarding and Governance Teams
• You thrive at scale: Managing a rapidly growing team of over 80 people doesn't intimidate you; you have the organisational skills to keep a large workforce aligned and productive, and are excited to grow the team significantly more.
• You are a systems thinker: You see how a change in scheduling impacts care delivery, and how an update in governance affects the Care Coordination Team. You manage the "ripple effects."
• You are operationally rigorous: You thrive on metrics and KPIs. You use data to identify capacity bottlenecks or potential safeguarding risks before they become issues.
• You are empathetic but decisive: You understand the high-stakes nature of healthcare and can make calm, authoritative decisions that balance patient safety with operational speed.
• You are adaptable: You are comfortable working in a dynamic environment and embrace the fast-paced change of a growing organisation.
• You are mission-driven: You are genuinely excited about using technology and innovation to solve the NHS waiting list crisis.
• You are a hands-on leader: You are willing to dive into operational details and drive tasks yourself when necessary to support and unblock your team.

 

Responsibilities:

• Oversee the integrated Operations function, including:
• Providing strategic direction to the managers of Delivery, Scheduling & Capacity, Safeguarding, and Governance.
• Represent the Operations function at a senior level and work cross-functionally with relevant function leads.
• Maintain accountability for the function's performance and culture. This includes:
• Building relationships and data dashboards (with our Business Intelligence Team) to help you identify operational red flags and address them before they impact service delivery.
• Building a culture of continuous learning, mentoring your direct reports to become the next generation of senior leaders at Paloma.
• Ongoing optimisation and refinement of operational processes together with the relevant teams and stakeholders, for example:
• Administrative processes, e.g. NHS GP referral processing
• Defining the strategic "math" of the service, ensuring you always know the demand forecast and manage scheduling/hiring to meet NHS targets while maintaining staff well-being.
• Ensuring our safeguarding protocols are deeply embedded in every team member's daily workflows.
• Develop robust structures, documentation, processes and communication loops to:
• Grow the team without losing quality or culture.
• Ensure a ‘single source of truth’ for all operational workstreams documentation
• Maintain and implement high-quality policies for complaints, contested outcomes, and quality assurance.

 

Qualifications and experience:

Required:

• At least 7 years of operational leadership experience, specifically in environments with high headcount and complex delivery requirements (e.g., health or other large-scale service operations).
• Proven experience overseeing multi-tiered teams (managing 5+ direct reports who each manage their own large teams).
• Advanced experience in managing capacity and scheduling for a large, varied workforce.
• A track record of "productising" operations—taking a growing service and building the robust structures needed to support 100+ staff members.
• Demonstrable experience of a commercial mindset, meeting financial targets, understanding trade-offs within budgets, and managing team budgets.
• A proven ability to balance high-level strategy with a "lead from the front" mentality, diving into the details to solve problems on the ground.
• Proven experience in being data-driven with decisions, prioritisation, and comfortable providing detailed updates to wider stakeholders at all levels of the business.

Desirable:

• Experience managing a mixed team of clinical and non-clinical staff
• Experience leading a large team through periods of rapid organisational change, e.g. a fast-paced startup/scaleup environment where roles and processes evolve quickly.
• Experience in Data Protection and Data Protection Officer responsibilities

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 all the qualifications, we strongly encourage you to apply. You may be just the right candidate for this role or others!

 

Why join Paloma?

You will be part of a mission-driven organisation that’s transforming access to autism and ADHD care in England. For all employees, 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.
• Competitive compensation, including:
• Salary of £80,000-90,000, depending on experience and working location
• Annual salary reviews, ensuring they are competitive
• 5% employer pension contribution
• Private medical insurance and Employee Assistance Programme (planned in 2026)
• Home Office Equipment Allowance
• 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 (giving you 39 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!)
• 2 days per year of special leave, for those moments that happen in life, whether personal or family-related
• Additional benefits include:
• A premium performance company laptop
• Equity compensation through Share Options in Paloma Health for employees working at least 32 hours per week with Paloma. 
• 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!