Job Description

An exciting opportunity has arisen within the Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) Team for a dynamic EPRR Officer at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT). The post holder will work across all trust sites, including St Thomas', Guy's, Evelina Children's Hospital, Royal Brompton, Harefield and all community sites to support the delivery of the EPRR agenda.



We are seeking to appoint a high calibre and credible individual. You must be a dynamic, innovative and motivated individual, passionate about Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response, who strives to put the patient experience first and who shares the trust values.



Our EPRR Team have a high-profile role, with trust wide responsibility to ensure the trust remains resilient to incidents and disruptive events. The team function is to enable to organisation as a category 1 responder, to meet the full statutory duties under the CCA 2004, ensuring alignment to emergency preparedness and business continuity statutory and legislative requirements and standards.



The post holder will also be capable of working under pressure, prioritising to deadlines and multi-tasking. Good motivation, persuasion and planning skills are also essential, ideally developed in an NHS environment. You will be able to demonstrate an ability to guide, direct and support the trust and colleagues as circumstances dictate.



The post requires a high standard of communication, analysis, clear thinking, organisational skills, training experience and offers excellent opportunities for career development.



Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust comprises five of the UK's best known hospitals - Guy's, St Thomas', Evelina London Children's Hospital, Royal Brompton and Harefield - as well as community services in Lambeth and Southwark, all with a long history of high quality care, clinical excellence, research and innovation.



We are among the UK's busiest, most successful foundation trusts. We provide specialist care for patients including heart and lung, cancer and renal services as well as a full range of local hospital and community services for people in Lambeth and Southwark.



We have around 23,600 staff, making us one of the largest NHS Trusts in the country and one of the biggest employers locally. We aim to reflect the diversity of the communities we serve and continue to develop new and existing partnerships with local people, patients, neighbouring NHS organisations, local authorities and charitable bodies and GPs.



We strive to recruit and retain the best staff as the dedication and skills of our employees lie at the heart of our organisation and ensure that our services are of the highest quality, safe and focused on our patients.



Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust offers a comprehensive range of benefits and support to its employees, including flexible working, generous annual leave, access to the NHS Pension Scheme and various health and wellbeing initiatives.



Please see the attached job description and personal specification for full details and requirements of the role.



The Emergency Planning Resilience and Response (EPRR) Team manage the EPRR portfolio for the Trust, ensuring the trust remains resilient to incidents and disruptive events. The EPRR Officer will be required to manage and understand complex information and situations relating to this specialised area of work.



The EPRR Team enable the organisation, as a Category 1 responder, to meet the full statutory duties under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, ensuring alignment of the Business Continuity Management System (BCMS) to ISO22301 and NHS England Core standards for EPRR, and to evolving national guidance, supporting the site operations team to manage incidents effectively. The BCMS ensures that threats to operational delivery from both internal and external sources can be managed and business as usual restored effectively. The post holder will play a key role in the maintenance and management of the BCMS.



The EPRR Officer will support the team in the maintenance of emergency preparedness plans, policies and procedures to ensure they are aligned to NHS England EPRR core standards and will embed lessons identified following any incidents and planned exercises. The role will support the development and roll-out of any new EPRR initiatives and support on specific projects as directed by Head of EPRR and key stakeholders.



The EPRR Officer will support the team in the coordination of the internal and multi-agency training and exercise programme for all departments and staff groups across the trust, including the senior leadership teams. They will be the EPRR specialist and advisor to all staff, key stakeholders and interested parties, supporting on EPRR assurance and operational planning in what may frequently be stressful and distressing circumstances.

The EPRR officer will required to:

To work collaboratively with the EPRR Team in the production, review and updating of Trust resilience and emergency response plans, including the Corporate Business Continuity Plan, Major Incident Plan and other supporting functional and risk specific plans. Undertake risk assessments where applicable of potential disruptions to the continuity of normal services and systems of work, which will feed into Trust and EPRR risk registers. In addition, to work with partners within Borough Resilience Forums to identify and mitigate local emergency planning risks with a health-related response or impact. To work directly with directorate management teams and business continuity leads in the on-going implementation of the Trust wide business continuity software system for recording all Trust business continuity plans. To work directly with directorate management teams and business continuity leads with the Trust wide business continuity software system to ensure plans are uploaded, maintained and locally embedded in line with best practice. Provide specialist knowledge, support, advice, training and guidance on matters relating to business continuity management, emergency planning and organisational resilience within the Trust, ensuring that these issues remain a priority for directors, senior managers, clinical and support staff. Be visible and work across all sites covered by GSTT and other Trusts where GSTT provides its services.

The post holder will provide day to day support to the EPRR Managers and deputise as required.



Although GSTT offers opportunities for flexible working, the role of the EPRR Officer will require regular on-site attendance across all GSTT sites for at least 60% of the working week. The post holder must also be flexible to support the delivery of team activities and incident response.