Director of Care | Collingwood Executive Search

The Client

Hope House and Tŷ Gobaith Children’s Hospices are among the UK’s leading children’s hospice charities, providing professional care and support to children with life-threatening conditions and their families across Shropshire, Cheshire, North and Mid Wales. The organisation supports over 750 families annually and operates with a dedicated team of nearly 300 staff and over 450 volunteers. Their mission is to ensure that every child with a life-threatening condition lives their best life, with access to care from the point of diagnosis.

The Role

The Director of Care is a pivotal executive leadership role responsible for shaping and delivering the charity’s care strategy. Reporting directly to the Chief Executive, the post holder leads all aspects of care delivery both within the hospices and in the community. The role involves strategic leadership, clinical governance, stakeholder engagement, and the development of high-performing teams. It requires a visible and values-driven leader who can inspire excellence, innovation and continuous improvement in care services. This role was live as the current Director of Care is retiring in February after 30 years with the hospice and as such, it was incredibly important to find the right replacement for the role, but also for the team that she had built over the
years as well.

The Business Challenge

Hope House and Tŷ Gobaith sought to appoint a new Director of Care to lead their care services during a period of strategic growth and transformation. The challenge was to identify a candidate that had previously operated as a nurse but had now grown into senior roles with extensive leadership experience, a deep understanding of children’s palliative care and the ability to influence and deliver change across a multi-site organisation. The successful candidate needed to meet regulatory requirements and embody the charity’s values of trust, support, fairness and continuous learning as the values-based way the hospice operates is incredibly important to them.

We had some flexibility around the need for children’s palliative care experience in aid of widening the talent pool, but we needed to keep close to the above brief as otherwise, the hospice would be missing key elements that are necessary.

The Solution

Our role in this process was to work closely with the ELT to devise a robust, objective interview process to assess credible internal candidates, external referrals and candidates we sourced from a direct headhunt with the same methodology. To do this, we created a detailed, 4 stage process that started after we had generated a detailed longlist of candidates.

Before we started with the candidates, we held discovery sessions with all members of the Senior Leadership Team for multiple reasons. Firstly, we needed to understand their backgrounds, the full scope of their roles and where they crossed over with the current Director of Care, so we could ensure we found a candidate that would add individual benefits to each member as well as the collective team. Secondly, we were keen to understand the different personalities in the ELT so we could assess candidates knowing who they would be working with, and which would fit well with the team but bring points of difference to enable growth and discussion as well.

To complement this process, we also completed individual DISC assessments with each of the candidates, but also the existing leadership team as well. This allowed us to evaluate the current team dynamic and profiles with the previous Director of Care, assess what she contributed and what aspects we would need to replace to improve their efficiency. This gave us a rounded assessment of who in the shortlist would fit well culturally, as well as bringing the correct skill set for the role and hospice.

The first formal stage was a screening call to assess suitability and ensure the practical elements for the role aligned, such as salary, location and to discuss the expected requirements. Next, we held a full competency interview curate a shortlist that included candidates from different backgrounds that were all capable of performing well in the role. This took us into the 3rd stage, this was the first time we invited candidates to the hospice to meet with Andy, the Chief Executive, see the facilities and to have an initial meeting to ensure cultural alignment was there. Finally, we created a bespoke final interview assessment day which we designed to assess the cultural, strategic and leadership related aspects of the role in detail to determine who the best candidate was for the role.

The Result

In summary, the following process took place:

Potential candidates identified following initial research undertaken – 99

Targeted candidates CV’s received – 9

Candidates interviewed by Chris Mayers – 7

Candidates interviewed by client – 5

Candidates taken through to final stage – 3

Candidate offered – 1

The assignment concluded with the successful appointment of a highly qualified Director of Care who met all regulatory and professional criteria. The individual brought strong leadership capabilities, strategic insight and a passion for delivering high-quality care. Their appointment has strengthened the Executive Leadership Team and positioned the hospice to continue its mission of reaching every child and family in need of support. We are all looking forward to seeing their impact when they formally start in their role at the beginning of 2026.