Chief Medical Officer (CMO)Primary Care at Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand South Canterbury, Corporate Services (Gardens Block)

Mō tēnei tūranga mahi | About this role

Chief Medical Officer (CMO) - Primary Care

Te Whatu Ora -  South Canterbury

0.5FTE (Fixed term for 12 months)

Every moment matters - is not only our vision; it is our commitment to enhance the health and independence of the people of South Canterbury. We do things differently at Te Whatu Ora South Canterbury, we believe extraordinary leadership can emerge from anywhere in our workforce, and the best ideas tend to come from staff closest to our patients, and from our patients themselves.

Our two CMOs are central to our joint strategic leadership and medical leadership structures.  Our management structure is deliberately set up to bring a balance between clinical/operational and strategic leadership.  We are committed to truly distributive clinical leadership, and a robust partnership between Primary Care & Secondary Care Services. 

The CMO - Primary Care role is pivotal in this, as it shapes our region - s Primary Health Sector, facilitating a network of stakeholders who actively contribute to policy development and improve service delivery to better meet the health needs of our community.

The CMO provides overarching medical leadership across the health sector, excellence in medical practice and champions a high-trust, continuous learning culture which includes developing open and productive relationships between departments.  As well as serving as the bridge between clinicians and management the CMO must be comfortable with providing mentorship, and supporting teams across clinical disciplines.  Policy and guideline development is a minor but vital part of the role.  Although the CMO position is not primarily a patient-facing one, extraordinary circumstances occasionally require the CMO to step into a direct patient care role, so current Medical Council registration and relevant clinical competencies are favoured but not critical for the applicant.

We seek a practicing general practitioner who models our leadership values of integrity, courage, compassion, health advocacy and collaboration .  It goes without saying that the CMO will be patient-focused and in addition, have clinical and ethical standing amongst our local GPs/NPs and other community-based health service/practices (such as pharmacies and other NGOs).  Reporting to the interim District Director, the role is central to supporting the Director Primary Health Partnerships, the Primary Health Manager, and the primary care support team.

If you are interested in stepping into a CMO role, which will be defined in large part, by the individual who chooses to step into this position, please ring for an informal chat or register your interest online.  ( Enquiries can be made to Human Resources in the first instance on 03 687 2230) 

Please apply for this vacancy online - https://scdhb.careercentre.net.nz

Applications are open (unless a suitable applicant is found earlier)

As part of our duty of care towards our patients, it is crucial that all patient-facing staff be fully immunised. If you have made it to the later stages of recruitment for a role that has vaccination requirements, you will be expected to produce your immunisation records for infection control purposes.