Head of Emergency Planning, Resilience and Response

Job summary

Head of Emergency Planning, Resilience and Response (EPRR)

Join one of the South Coast's most ambitious acute Trusts, delivering care across three hospital sites for a population of over 750,000. With major clinical transformation underway and a £500m investment programme, this is an exciting opportunity to shape resilience at the heart of our organisation.

EPRR plays a critical role in ensuring we are prepared to respond to any challenge.

As Head of EPRR you will:

• Provide strategic leadership for EPRR, ensuring the Trust meets its statutory duties under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and NHS EPRR guidance.
• Drive continuous improvement in preparedness, resilience, business continuity and incident response.
• Work with system partners across Dorset to strengthen planning and resilience.
• Act as the Trust's lead expert and principal adviser on EPRR.

Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, you will lead across planning, training, exercising, response, recovery and assurance, embedding learning from incidents to keep the Trust resilient and ready to deliver safe care.

Interview: September 4th

Main duties of the job

The Head of EPRR will provide specialist advice and support to Executive Directors, Senior Managers, Clinical and Operational Leaders and other staff who have a role in incident response, emergency preparedness or business continuity arrangements. The postholder will work closely with internal teams and external partners, including NHS Dorset, local authorities, emergency services and regional NHS England colleagues, to support joined-up planning and response across Dorset and the wider South West.

About us

About us

At University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, our values guide the way we work with patients, colleagues and partners:

We are caring - we treat people with kindness, compassion and respect.

We are one team - we work together, listen to each other and support our colleagues and partners.

We are always improving - we learn, innovate and continually improve the services we provide.

We are committed to helping colleagues balance their work and home lives. We offer a range of benefits, development opportunities and health and wellbeing support to help our staff thrive.

We are committed to inclusion, staff engagement and creating a workplace where everyone feels valued and able to contribute.

University Hospitals Dorset is committed to sustainability and to reducing the environmental impact of the services we provide. Staff are encouraged to support sustainable quality improvement across all areas of work.

UHD are investing, developing and transforming Trust services in line with the New Hospital Programme. As part of this, some services may move site this year or next, either temporarily or permanently. Recruiting Managers will be happy to answer any service-specific questions at interview.

If a role or service relocates as part of a planned move, excess mileage will not be reimbursed. Travel from home to the new work base will be classed as a normal commute. Any other changes will be managed under Trust or national terms and conditions.

Job responsibilities

The postholder will:

• Act as the primary resource and point of contact for EPRR expertise for the organisation using evidence and knowledge to support accurate decision making and advice
• Ensure that the organisation meets its statutory obligations under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, (CCA), and complies with all relevant EPRR guidance for the NHS, including non-statutory guidance that accompanies the CCA and also for business continuity and resilience preparedness
• Maintain a robust decontamination plan and arrangements, including Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) and HAZMAT preparedness, ensuring staff are trained in accordance with their role across all sites
• Provide risk based leadership to EPRR work, being cognisant of national, regional and local priorities
• Develop and deliver the organisations emergency preparedness and resilience function, improve standards of such preparedness across the organisation and provide leadership on specialist emergency preparedness and resilience issues.
• Ensure that EPRR corporate responsibilities are met and provide assurance to the Board of Directors that it complies with relevant legislation and guidance (as summarised by the NHS England EPRR Framework 2022), including the annual assessment against core standards
• Lead the development and implementation of EPRR delivery plans
• Ensure appropriate Trust level representation at local health resilience partnership (LHRP) local resilience fora (LRF) and their associated sub groups and work streams
• Attend national and local events or conferences, as required and disseminate the information to all key and senior staff
• Be a source of expertise for emergency planning, maintaining an appropriate database of incidents, how they were managed, and the learning and action as a result
• Conduct an annual review of major incident and business continuity plans to ensure they are current
• At times deliver service objectives in relation to business continuity or major incident with focus and drive
• As a senior lead working internally and externally deliver projects, initiatives and services to time and in a cost effective way
• Support the identification and sharing of best practice in EPRR to support service improvement

Person specification

Essential

Essential

• First degree or has appropriate level of senior managerial experience
• Emergency Planning and / or Business Continuity Qualification
• Relevant specialist training in emergency preparedness, resilience and response, business continuity, incident command, CBRN/HAZMAT preparedness or major incident management
• Experience of leading and managing EPRR

Desirable

• Experience of managing EPRR compliance submissions, including NHS EPRR Core Standards

Essential

Essential

• Understanding of major incident management, operational pressures escalation, surge planning, risk management, command and control arrangements, and business continuity management