St Joseph’s Hospice Facilities Manager

Client Overview

St Joseph’s Hospice is a long-established provider of specialist palliative care, supporting people with progressive and life-limiting illnesses across East and North London. With a history spanning more than a century, the Hospice plays a vital role in delivering compassionate care to a diverse local community.

Operating from a complex urban site comprising buildings developed over several decades, St Joseph’s Hospice required an experienced Facilities Manager to oversee the safe, compliant and effective operation of its estate while supporting the ongoing development of its services. The Hospice engaged Maxwell Stephens to run the search.

The role was critical to ensuring that facilities, catering, housekeeping, health & safety and estates operations continued to support patients, families, staff, volunteers and visitors.

The Challenge

St Joseph’s Hospice needed a Facilities Manager capable of balancing operational delivery with strategic estate planning within a sensitive and highly regulated healthcare environment. The successful candidate would manage a broad range of facilities services while ensuring compliance with statutory requirements, healthcare standards and Care Quality Commission expectations.

Key responsibilities included:

• Strategic and operational facilities management
• Estate maintenance and lifecycle planning
• Health, safety and statutory compliance
• Care Quality Commission compliance support
• Catering, housekeeping and support services oversight
• Contractor and supplier management
• Budget management and financial control
• Risk management and governance
• Team leadership across multi-disciplinary services
• Development of a long-term site strategy
• Support for patient, staff and visitor experience
• Operational continuity across a live healthcare environment

The role therefore required strong technical facilities expertise, excellent people management skills and a clear understanding of the standards expected within healthcare and care-led environments. Hospice estates add a further dimension: the people using the buildings are living with life-limiting illness, along with their families, so the tone of the facilities service matters as much as its compliance record.

Our Approach

Understanding the Requirement

Maxwell Stephens worked closely with St Joseph’s Hospice to understand the operational complexity of the estate, the sensitivity of the environment and the importance of facilities services in supporting high-quality care. Particular focus was placed on identifying candidates with experience across healthcare facilities management, health & safety compliance, CQC-regulated environments, estate maintenance and development, catering and housekeeping services, contractor and supplier management, budget and resource management, and team leadership and stakeholder engagement.

Targeted Search

Drawing on our specialist facilities management network, we conducted a targeted search for candidates with experience of managing complex estates and support services within healthcare, charitable or similarly regulated environments. We prioritised individuals who demonstrated:

• Strong operational facilities management experience
• Strategic estate planning capability
• Proven leadership of multi-disciplinary teams
• Excellent compliance and risk management knowledge
• Budget management expertise
• A compassionate and service-focused approach

Candidate Assessment

Candidates were assessed against both technical and cultural requirements, to confirm they had the facilities management capability, the leadership style and the personal values needed to succeed within a hospice environment. In our experience the cultural test is the one most often skipped in healthcare FM recruitment, and the one that most often explains why an otherwise strong appointment does not last.

The Outcome

We appointed an experienced Facilities Manager who met the Hospice’s operational, strategic and cultural requirements. The successful candidate brought extensive experience in facilities management, team leadership, budget control and health & safety compliance, alongside a clear understanding of what it takes to maintain safe, supportive and dignified care environments.

They integrated quickly into the organisation and began working closely with the Chief Executive Officer and senior leadership team to support the ongoing management and development of the estate.

Results Delivered

The appointment has given St Joseph’s Hospice a facilities leader capable of supporting both immediate operational requirements and long-term estate development:

• Stronger day-to-day facilities management. The appointed Facilities Manager strengthened the running of the estate, ensuring facilities services operated efficiently and consistently across the site.
• Improved compliance and risk management. Robust health & safety processes, compliance monitoring and risk management helped maintain the standards required within a regulated healthcare environment.
• Stronger support services. Oversight of catering, housekeeping and facilities support functions helped ensure services continued to meet the needs of patients, staff, families and visitors.
• Better contractor and supplier oversight. Closer management of the external contractors and suppliers working across the estate.
• Strategic estate development. The candidate contributed to the development of a long-term site strategy, helping align the estate with the Hospice’s evolving clinical and community needs.
• Team leadership. Clear direction and support for multi-disciplinary teams strengthened service delivery and operational accountability.

Why This Placement Worked

Facilities recruitment for hospices and other care-led organisations sits at the point where operational standards, regulatory compliance and compassion have to work together. Assessing candidates on all three, rather than on technical capability alone, is what produced an appointment that fitted the Hospice’s environment as well as its estate.

If you are recruiting a facilities or estates leader for a healthcare, hospice or care-led environment, Maxwell Stephens can help you define the brief and reach candidates who bring the right combination of expertise and values. Get in touch with our team.