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Job summary

Main area
Emergency Preparedness, Resilience & Response (EPRR)
Grade
NHS AfC: Band 7
Contract
Permanent
Hours
  • Full time
  • Part time
37.5 hours per week
Job ref
196-COF10805-T
Employer
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Based at St. Thomas' Hospital, but requiring attendance at all GSTT sites
Town
London
Salary
£54,320 - £60,981 p.a. inclusive of HCA
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
02/07/2025 23:59
Interview date
14/07/2025

Employer heading

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust logo

Emergency Preparedness, Resilience & Response (EPRR) Officer

NHS AfC: Band 7

Guy’s and St Thomas’ is among the UK’s busiest and most successful NHS foundation trusts. We provide a full range of hospital and community services for people in south London and as well as specialist care for patients from further afield including cancer, renal, orthopaedic, respiratory and cardiovascular services.

Guy’s is home to the largest dental school in Europe and a £160 million Cancer Centre opened in 2016. As part of our commitment to provide care closer to home, in 2017 we also opened a cancer centre and a kidney treatment centre at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup. St Thomas’ has one of the largest critical care units in the UK and one of the busiest emergency departments in London. It is also home to Evelina London Children’s Hospital.

Evelina London cares for local children in Lambeth and Southwark and provides specialist services across south east England including cardiac, renal and critical care services. We lead a number of specialist service networks aiming to ensure children are treated locally where possible, but have access to specialist expertise when they need it. Our community services include health visiting, school nursing and support for families of children with long-term conditions. 

Our adult community services teams deliver care at the heart of the local communities we serve, working in partnership with GPs, local authorities and other healthcare and voluntary sector organisations. Working with our partners in Lambeth and Southwark, we are focusing on new ways of working to improve care for local patients.

In February 2021 the Royal Brompton and Harefield joined Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, bringing together world-leading expertise in the care and research of heart and lung disease. Our merger provides a once in a generation opportunity to build a lasting, world-renowned heart and lung centre, providing the highest quality care for patients and conducting world-leading research.

We have a reputation for clinical excellence and high quality teaching and research. We are part of King’s Health Partners, one of eight accredited UK academic health sciences centres. In partnership with King’s College London we have dedicated clinical research facilities including an MHRA accredited Phase I clinical trials unit.

Patients are at the heart of everything we do and we pride ourselves on ensuring the best possible patient experience as well as safe, high quality care. We are proud to have one of the lowest mortality rates in the NHS. Following a comprehensive Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection in 2019 we maintained our overall rating of ‘good’. Our adult community services achieved a rating of ‘outstanding’.

The commitment of our 23,500 staff is key to our success. We are one of the largest local employers and we aim to develop and support all our staff so they are able to deliver high quality, safe and efficient care. The 2019 NHS staff survey results show that we have one of the most engaged and motivated workforces in the NHS. We know this has a positive impact on the care provided to our patients.

We have one of the most ambitious capital investment programmes anywhere in the NHS.



Job overview

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.  

Main duties of the job

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.

Working for our organisation

 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. 

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

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.

Person specification

Education or experience

Essential criteria
  • Degree level of education and or relevant professional experience in an emergency planning related role
  • DipHEPRR, CBCI, DBCI or other relevant EPRR qualification
  • Evidence of continuous professional development
Desirable criteria
  • Membership of emergency planning society, BCI or other related body

Previous experience

Essential criteria
  • Experience in the NHS / public sector
  • Management of complex situations
  • Development and delivery of training sessions, ideally for NHS staff and in line with and National Occupational Standards for EPRR
  • Design and delivery of emergency preparedness exercises
  • Development of policies and plan in line with local and national guidance
Desirable criteria
  • Acute trust EPRR experience

Skills and knowledge

Essential criteria
  • Understanding of Integrated Emergency management and risk mitigation in the context of governance in the NHS
  • Knowledge of project management methodologies and techniques
  • Excellent organisational skills, including time management and project management with the ability to work to tight deadlines.
  • Interpersonal skill with the ability to influence staff at all levels
  • Use of Microsoft IT packages – excellent knowledge of Outlook, Excel and Word, and Teams

Other

Essential criteria
  • Understanding of Integrated Emergency management and risk mitigation in the context of governance in the NHS
  • Flexibility with regard to working hours and in person attendance at all GSTT sites

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Timewise helps businesses to attract and develop the best talent through flexible working.Care quality commission - GoodDisability confident employer

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Caroline Fiore
Job title
Head of EPPR
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
07809217006
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