Job summary
This role focuses on leadership for health equity and inclusion health within UKHSA's remit on communicable diseases and external health hazards. The postholder will lead the UKHSA response to systematic, avoidable and unjust differences in health security exposures, experience and outcomes between different groups of people, which can arise due to where individuals are born, grow, live, work and as a result of other key characteristics such as age or gender.The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted previously known inequalities in infectious diseases outcomes and the relationship between health equity, communicable and non-communicable diseases. For example, smoking, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are unequally distributed in our population. These illnesses and their underlying causes are associated with increased risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19.
To ensure more equitable health outcomes, action needs to be taken to address all the factors that contribute to inequalities - reducing differences in risk of exposure, vulnerability, in the consequences of the disease and of the control measures. Although there is a specific role for health and care services, much of the action required will be outside the health sector and both national and local government need to play a strong leadership role in mobilising formal and informal resources needed to mitigate the impact of COVID-19, other infectious diseases and hazards to health.
Main duties of the job
The post is subject to the core competencies as set out by the Faculty of Public Health for Consultant appointments, (or other similar Professional Body if relevant) and the post holder will be expected to demonstrate expertise in all of them (Appendix A).
The post holder is required to:
- Work with directors and divisional deputy directors to develop a clear vision and strategy for health equity and inclusion health in communicable diseases and external health hazards with measurable goals
- Lead partnerships work both within UKHSA and externally with local, regional and national groups working in partnership with government departments (including the Office for Health Disparities, DHSC; DLUHC, DfE), local authorities (including Directors of Public Health), NHSE and the voluntary sector with a clear focus on priority groups
- Support the development of appropriate organisational and system assurance for health equity for the areas of responsibility of UKHSA
- Work across UKHSA and with other partners in academia to develop a systematic approach to advanced public health intelligence (e.g. linked individual data and phenotyping rather than ecological data) and data driven health equity to ensure evidence-based policy development and implementation and ensure that there is timely monitoring and publication across all disease areas on inequalities to monitor whether efforts to reduce them are successful
About us
We pride ourselves as being an employer of choice, where Everyone Matters promoting equality of opportunity to actively encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce.
UKHSA ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all our staff and stakeholders. To create, nurture and sustain an inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our workforce and wider communities. We do this through celebrating and protecting differences by removing barriers and promoting equity and equality of opportunity for all.
Job description
Job responsibilities
- Identify research needs and work with research funders, academia and system partners to enable funding
- Work within UKHSA and the wider system, alongside UKHSAs policy team, to provide cross government leadership to ensure capability is built in all government departments to address wider determinants of health
- Support the development, application and quality assurance of tools to enable the systematic assessment of health equity e.g. Health Equity Assessment Tool, Health Impact Assessment/Equality Impact Assessment
- Work across the public health system to develop comprehensive engagement to magnify the community voice, groups and leadership in the work of health equity and inequalities, focusing on inclusion health groups, protected characteristics and vulnerable people.
- Work with NIHR Health Protection Research Units to ensure consideration of health equity in their aims and objectives, and to support UKHSA in developing further insight and evidence for the impact and management of infectious diseases and health hazards on specific inclusiongroups including those in particular high-risk settings eg Care Homes, the Prison estate etc.
- Work across UKHSA to provide a People and pathogen approach, integrating delivery of services such as TB, blood borne viruses and sexual health for inclusion health groups;for example, by understanding spatial differences including food purchasing and poverty and relationship to gastrointestinal infections, developing interventions to reduce transmission of respiratory infections in multi-generational households and communities etc
- Develop a community engagement and research strategic plan and develop a frameworkfor co-production of interventions for health protection including awareness, immunisations, testing and management of infections
- Develop business cases/proposals for research /evaluation of interventions targeted at inclusion health groups
- As a system leader foster appropriate relationships and collaborations at national, regional and global levels, including building on UKHSAs global work in health and justice to extend this to other areas of health equity and inclusion health.
- Ensure advice and support available to deliver effective publichealth interventions for vulnerable groups, both inUKHSAs day to day and response work.
- Lead and manage a division of approximately 30 40 people and its associated budget covering a range of public health disciplines
- Work closely with the Deputy Director Place & Health Equity Policy to ensure an effective Health Equity Programme and associated Board.
- Participate fully in the development of both the HECG Directorate and CPH Group, as a member of both SLTs
- Participate in emergency response as needed/ appropriate eg as Incident Director or Strategic Response Director.
- Represent the Director or on occasion the CMA, at system- facing and internal meetings as required.
Applicants are strongly advised to use the criteria in the Person Specification of the Job Description as sub-headings in their application to make it clear how they meet each of the selection criteria.
The successful candidate will be appointed to the point of the Consultant salary scale appropriate to their years of seniority or if from a background other than medicine to NHS Agenda for Change Band 9 or Civil Service SCS1.
Inclusion in the GMC Full and Specialist Register with a license to practice (or be eligible for registration within six months of interview) or Inclusion in the UK Public Health Register (UKPHR) for Public Health Specialists (or be eligible for registration within six months of interview).
If included in the GMC Specialist Register/ in a specialty other than public health medicine, candidates must have equivalent training and/or appropriate experience of public health practice.
Public Health Specialty Registrar applicants who are not yet on the GMC Specialist Register must provide verifiable signed documentary evidence that they are within 6 months of gaining entry at the date of interview; all other applicants must provide verifiable signed documentary evidence that they have applied for inclusion in the GMC.
External
Open to all external applicants (anyone) from outside the Civil Service (including by definition internal applicants).
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Inclusion in the GMC Full and Specialist Register with a license to practice/GDC Specialist List (or be eligible for registration within six months of interview) Or Inclusion in the UK Public Health Register (UKPHR) for Public Health Specialists (or be eligible for registration within six months of interview)
- If included in the GMC Specialist Register/GDC Specialist List in a specialty other than public health medicine/dental public health, candidates must have equivalent training and/or appropriate experience of public health practice.
- Public health specialty registrar applicants who are not yet on the GMC Specialist Register/GDC Specialist List in dental public health/UKPHR must provide verifiable signed documentary evidence that they are within 6 months of gaining entry at the date of interview; all other applicants must provide verifiable signed documentary evidence that they have applied for inclusion in the GMC/GDC/UKPHR specialist registers [see shortlisting notes below for additional guidance]
- If an applicant is UK trained in Public Health, they must ALSO be a holder of a Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT), or be within six months of award of CCT by date of interview If an applicant is non-UK trained, they will be required to show evidence of equivalence to the UK CCT [see shortlisting notes below for additional guidance]
- Applicants must meet minimum CPD requirements (i.e. be up to date) in accordance with Faculty of Public Health requirements or other recognised body
- MFPH (or similar Professional Body) by examination, by exemption or by assessment
Desirable
- Masters in Public Health or equivalent
Personal Qualities
Essential
- Able to influence senior members including directors and CEOs
- Able to both lead teams and to able to contribute effectively in teams led by junior colleagues
- Commitment to work within a political system irrespective of personal political affiliations
Experience
Essential
- Delivery of successful change management programmes across organizational boundaries
- Media experience demonstrating delivery of effective health behaviour or health promotion messages
- Experience of using complex information to explain public health issues to a range of audiences
Skills
Essential
- Strategic thinker with proven leadership skills and operational nous
- Able to demonstrate and motivate organisations to contribute to improving the public's health and wellbeing through mainstream activities and within resources
- Ability to lead and manage the response successfully in unplanned and unforeseen circumstances
- Analytical skills able to utilize both qualitative (including health economics) and quantitative information
- Ability to design, develop, interpret and implement strategies and policies
Knowledge
Essential
- In depth understanding of the health and care system and the relationships with both local national government
- In depth knowledge of methods of developing clinical quality assurance, quality improvement, evaluation and evidence based public health practice
- Strong and demonstrable understanding of interfaces between health, social care and key partners (dealing with wider determinants of health)
- Understanding of the public sector duty and the inequality duty and their application to public health practice
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website .
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants .
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website .
Employer details
Employer name
UK Health Security Agency
Address
London or any other UKHSA site / Hybrid
London
E14 4PU