Public Health Strategist PO6

Waltham Forest Council is looking to appoint a permanent Public Health Strategist to join its Public Health team. The role will have responsibility for an exciting portfolio, taking the Strategist lead on civil protection for public health (including business continuity planning) and health protection.

Waltham Forest is a vibrant, diverse home to approximately 275,000 residents in East London, easily accessible from central London by train and underground, and is the current London Borough of Culture for 2019. The Public Health team has well developed relationships across the Council and with partners. Led by the Director of Public Health for Waltham Forest, the team is based in the Families Directorate.

The post holder will join a dynamic team that is well embedded within the Families directorate of the local authority, with excellent working relationships across the Council, as well as with health and wider partners. The leaders of the borough are firmly committed to public health and the principles of early intervention and prevention, making this an excellent place to work in collaboration to achieve genuine improvements for residents.

We are a team committed to providing a stimulating environment within which to work, running monthly reflective practice sessions, journal clubs and providing opportunities for personal development through training, education, shadowing and on-the-job learning. This is highlighted by our success in supporting 4 previous team members in successful applications to the Public Health Training scheme in the last 3 years.

The successful candidate will bring energy, drive and innovation to the role, to improve outcomes for people in Waltham Forest. This role would ideally suit an individual with experience of leading public health projects/programmes and experience of improving outcomes through partnership working.

Key responsibilities of the role include:

• Public health lead for civil protection and business continuity - reporting to a Consultant in Public Health, this will involve being the Strategist lead for: a) producing, updating and exercising the public health business continuity plan and ensuring oversight of business continuity for public health commissioned services; b) producing, updating, implementing and exercising an agreed programme of civil protection plans e.g. hot and cold weather plans; pandemic flu plans and other emergency plans, c) raising awareness of these plans with partners including training and assurance as required.
• Health protection – the Strategist will join a rota of Public Health Strategists and Consultants manning the Public Health Single Point of Access, supporting local settings with public health advice and management of Covid-19. The strategist will also work with partners (including Public Health England) to lead on the development and implementation of local health protection action plans and projects (for example relating to vaccinations including seasonal flu, cancer screening uptake etc).
• Leading public health programmes/projects - The role will work flexibly across the team to deliver public health projects/programmes on priority areas. These could include: supporting delivery of work on NHS Healthchecks uptake; leading work to improve long term conditions outcomes (e.g. diabetes or cardiovascular disease). This would also include leading on Joint Strategic Needs Assessments relating to identified areas.

We invite applications from individuals who are skilled at managing relationships across a wide range of organisations, who understand the challenges faced by local authorities and the NHS, and who will provide strong leadership in contributing to the work of our dynamic public health team.

If you would like to discuss this role informally please contact clare.ebberson@walthamforest.gov.uk. Your application should set out how you meet the job role profile.

Provisional interview dates: TBC