Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response (EPRR) Ops Manager

Job description

Job responsibilities

1. Support the development and delivery of EPRR arrangements, response functions, and associated supporting documentation, ensuring effective arrangements are in place to review these against current guidance and legislation, ensuring arrangements are communicated with response staff, including Senior Managers and Executive Directors, and system leaders as appropriate.

1. Lead the development and implementation of ICB business continuity plans in line with the ICB Business Continuity Policy and Management Systems, to ensure they are robust, effective, and embedded into organisational culture.

1. Contribute to the development and delivery of the annual EPRR / BC work programme for the ICB, horizon scanning for potential opportunities and threats for inclusion in arrangements, flagging these with the EPRR Strategic Lead.

1. Project manage EPRR and BC projects, ensuring all projects are delivered to time in a cost-effective manner. This will include research against national and regional guidance, best practice, and lessons identified, presenting this information to system wide groups through the development and delivery of workshops and task and finish groups working with groups of subject matter experts to ensure plans are appropriate and relevant to ICB, ICS and regional arrangements.

1. Maintain training and exercise records for ICB Tactical and Strategic Commanders, Business Continuity Leads and Loggists, identifying areas for further training and exercising against the NHS minimum occupational standards for EPRR.

1. Develop, deliver, and participate in training and exercises to ensure plans are in-place, robust, and flexible to the needs of the ICB / ICS, ensuring they can be effectively activated and utilised, with exercises involving colleagues across all Directorates including the on-call teams.

1. Develop and deliver advice, guidance, and training opportunities to Loggists within the ICB.

1. Support the Urgent and Emergency Care Team in the management of on-call arrangements, ensuring on-call teams receive timely and relevant information, and the ICB can affect a response to an incident as required 24/7.

1. Produce detailed EPRR reports and papers, presenting these to the ICB EPRR and Business Continuity Working Group.

1. Support the preparation and evidencing of the annual EPRR assurance process (NHS EPRR Core Standards), and support the EPRR Strategic Lead in the confirm and challenge process with Trusts and NHS Providers.

1. Engage in workshops and consultations on ICS and multi-agency plans, providing input to arrangements and representing the ICB, and where applicable ICS, in discussions with system partners.

1. Support the response to and recovery from incidents, analysing and interpreting highly complex and often conflicting or incomplete data from Provider situation reports, and local EPRR arrangements to provide advice and guidance in difficult, challenging, and complex situations to ICB tactical and strategic decision makers alongside the EPRR Strategic Lead. This will include using judgement skills to identify priorities in difficult circumstances, and communicate/present recommendations effectively to decision makers in time-pressured situations.

1. Facilitate and support structured debrief sessions, identifying lessons, and maintaining and monitoring the ICB EPRR lessons register to ensure lessons or audit recommendations are completed within required timeframes.

1. Support preparation for the public inquiries and ICB audits, including the national Covid-19 pandemic inquiry and annual ICB business continuity audit.

1. Ensure the ICB appropriately discharges its duties to warn and inform stakeholders and the public in line with ICB policy.

As part of the Integrated Care System

1. Develop strong and effective working relationships across the System and Midlands Region to enable to continued development and enhancement of EPRR local and regional EPRR arrangements, and sharing of accurate information where required. This will include communication of often highly complex and challenging information to a range of stakeholders of varying seniority.

1. Participate in, and where appropriate, coordinate multi-disciplinary EPRR working groups as part of the ICB and Health Emergency Planning Officers Group, engaging with stakeholders and working collaboratively with system partners on common planning themes. The post holder will undertake matrix supervision and be responsible for leading pieces of work and any colleagues assigned to them where appropriate for delivery of such projects across the ICB/ICS.

1. Support the coordination of risk / plan specific working groups under the Health Emergency Planning Officers Group as necessary.

1. Ensure that NHSE returns and requests for information re. EPRR / BC are collated, logged, and actioned in line with stated timescales, escalating when required.

As part of the Staffordshire Resilience Forum (SRF)

1. Develop strong and effective working relationships with stakeholders across the SRF and Civil Contingencies Unit.

1. Represent the EPRR Strategic Lead at SRF tactical level meetings and working groups as agreed, ensuring information is escalated and cascaded to inform planning and programming of workstreams.

1. Participate in Operational (Bronze) and Tactical (Silver) level multi-agency incident response groups, in a Support Officer or Tactical Advisor role capacity to support ICB Commanders, in agreement with the EPRR Strategic Lead.

1. Participate in multi-agency post incident debriefs, learning and reviews, and ensure both the ICB and the wider health system recognise, and implement lessons and recommendations identified.

1. Participate in a full range of multi-agency EPRR / BC exercises and tests including contributing to exercise design and development.

Information Management

1. Analyse, interpret, collate and present data to highlight issues, risks, and support decision making. This will include interpretation of highly complex and sometimes conflicting or incomplete incident situation reports from across the system to inform a joint response to NHS England and support decision making by ICB and ICS incident commanders during significant/major incidents, maintenance and reporting of key performance indicators for business continuity planning, and interpretation of national/regional guidance into local arrangements to inform plans and brief stakeholders of ranging seniority.

1. Understand and support the arrangements for maintaining EPRR records and information systems in line with organisational policy and the NHS EPRR Framework requirements.

1. Maintain ICB Resilience Direct and EPRR SharePoint sites, supporting On-Call colleagues who utilise the systems less frequently.

1. Plan, develop and evaluate methods and processes for gathering, analysing, interpreting and presenting data and information.

1. Undertake incident response expenditure tracking to support response and recovery arrangements and liaise with the ICB incident management team / finance team for any reimbursement opportunities.

Training and Development

1. To undertake personal development and training to enhance and maintain skills and expertise.

1. Undertake training courses as deemed necessary, including refresher courses, against the NHSE minimum occupational standards for EPRR.

Areas of work also include:

1. During an incident provide colleagues and system partners with assurance and support as incident plans are put into place. Ensure that the incident is treated with appropriate priority whilst not triggering undue panic or alarm, and ensuring all partners and colleagues are alerted as necessary.

1. During an incident where the ICC is established, undertake the role of ICC Room Manager / Support Officer in hours, monitoring the ICC inbox using ICC standard operating procedures. This role will be delivered on a rota basis during prolonged incidents.

1. Where appropriate and depending upon experience, the post holder may be asked to support the role of tactical advisor to ICB tactical commanders during an incident.

1. Monitor the EPRR inbox to provide advice and guidance where required, escalating to the EPRR Strategic Lead as necessary for complex issues.

1. Use ESR, Microsoft Office, Resilience Direct and other systems as appropriate.

1. The job description and person specification are an outline of the tasks, responsibilities and outcomes required of the role. The job holder will carry out any other duties as may reasonably be required by their line manager.

1. The job description and person specification may be reviewed on an ongoing basis in accordance with the changing needs of the Department and the Organisation.

On-Call

All posts at 8c and above will be required to participate in the on-call rota

Notes & Review

This is not an exhaustive list of duties and responsibilities, and the post holder may be required to undertake other duties, which fall within the grade of the job, in discussion with their manager. This job description will be reviewed regularly in the light of changing service requirements and any such changes will be discussed with the post holder.

This job description is intended as an outline indicator of general areas of activity and will be amended in the light of the changing needs of the organisation. It will be reviewed in conjunction with the post holder on an annual basis.

Person Specification

Education

Essential

• Educated to master's degree level (or Diploma in Healthcare Emergency Planning - DIP HEP) or equivalent relevant experience in EPRR related field.
• Maintenance of CPD or Member of relevant professional body (e.g., EPS, BCI, etc.)

Desirable

• Recognised teaching qualification at a minimum of BTEC Level 3 in Education and Training, or equivalent, or willing to work toward this.

Experience

Essential

• Recent experience of working in the NHS or a complex public sector environment for at least 3 years.
• Proven experience of delivering projects / project management within a large complex organisation.
• Experience of working within the EPRR or a related emergency planning field delivering activities in line with CCA 2004 duties.
• Experience of working in a high-pressured environment with rapidly changing priorities.
• Experience in dealing with sensitive and confidential information.
• Experience of communicating with a wide range of staff at all levels and in a range of organisations through a range of methods e.g., face to face, formal presentations.
• Experience of multi-agency planning / training / exercising.
• Experience of delivering business continuity arrangements within a large complex organisation.

Skills, Knowledge & Competencies

Essential

• Detailed EPRR knowledge and understanding of the CCA 2004 and the legislative frameworks for EPRR. Specifically, an understanding of the statutory responsibilities of NHS category 1 responders and how national regional and system command and control arrangements operate during major incidents.
• Able to interpret national and regional policy for local implementation and communicate highly complex information to ensure stakeholders are briefed accordingly
• Demonstrate strong and effective communication and relationship building skills for delivering key messages to a range of stakeholders both internal and external (including outside the NHS) to the organisation, including at a senior level.
• Effective interpersonal, written, and oral communication skills including presentation skills
• Identify risks, anticipate issues, understand a broad range of highly complex information, quickly escalating issues to support decision making / identification of solutions and resolution of problems.
• Able to use Office 365, SharePoint, and Resilience Direct effectively.

Desirable

• Awareness and understanding of the key challenges within the NHS at present

Personal Qualities

Essential

• Work on own initiative and with autonomy, using personal judgement where appropriate.
• Operates sensitively and confidentially where required, both formally and informally
• Deal with complex, sensitive and emotive situations when involved with the response to and recovery from emergency situations.
• Work flexibly under pressure without supervision, prioritising workload and work to tight deadlines, managing conflicting priorities and pressures.
• Resilient, calm and confident approach to emergency situations.
• Engages positively with appraisal and objective setting
• Good problem-solving skills.

Desirable

• Committed to personal development and training in line with the NHS minimum occupational standards for EPRR, or other opportunities.
• Flexibility in approach to meet demands, especially in the event a major incident is declared.

Physical Skills

Essential

• Must be able to travel as there may be occasions when you will be required to attend a hub location or offsite meeting. Usually this will be pre-planned in advance, and with one day notice

Desirable

• Daily use of computer for both short and ad-hoc periods and for longer periods of 2-3 hours without a break

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.

Employer details

Employer name

NHS Staffordshire & Stoke On Trent Integrated Care Board

Address

Home Working Role

Stafford Hub

ST18 0BF

Employer's website

https://www.staffsstoke.icb.nhs.uk (Opens in a new tab)