Job vacancy: Health and Safety Advisor, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, London

Job summary

Main area: Health and Safety
Grade: Band 7
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Monday to Friday)
Job ref: 197-RF5038-A

Employer: Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust
Employer type: NHS
Site: University Hospital Lewisham
Town: London
Salary: £43,742 - £50,056 per annum plus HCAS
Salary period: Yearly
Closing: 05/05/2024 23:59

Health and Safety Advisor

Band 7

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, (LGT), is a community-focused provider of local and acute care, delivering high-quality services to over one million people living across the London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich, and Bexley. We provide whole-life care and are here to support our communities to live healthier lives as well as taking care of them when they need us the most.

Employing almost 7,500 colleagues, affectionately known as Team LGT, we provide services at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, University Hospital Lewisham, and at over a dozen community settings in Lewisham. We also provide some services at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup.

We have recently launched our new vision and values to mark the LGT10 – the tenth anniversary of our Trust forming in 2013. Our trust vision is to be exceptional. In the quality of our patient care; our support for colleagues; and in the difference we make through our partnerships and in our communities.

To achieve this we value Respect, Compassion, and Inclusion; Being accountable over staying comfortable; Listening over always knowing best; and Succeeding together over achieving alone. You can read more about our visions and values here

Our hospitals and community sites provide a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services, as well as emergency and planned care. The Trust is rated as “good” or “outstanding” in over three-quarters of the services inspected by the Care Quality Commission.

Every year our work includes performing 10,000 procedures in our theatres; bringing seven and a half thousand new lives into the world; carrying out 570,000 visits to patients in their homes or communities and providing emergency care for more than 300,000 patients arriving in our busy Urgent and Emergency Departments.

LGT is a centre for the education and training of medical students enrolled with King’s College London’s GKT School of Medical Education. We are a training centre for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals. We are pioneering new roles that will support the changing needs of our patients and are one of the largest employers of physician associates in the country.

We are committed to working with our partners to deliver the best outcomes for our local communities. This means playing an active role in the South East London Integrated Care System (ICS), and in formal partnerships including the South East London Acute Provider Collaborative, provider partnerships with our local mental health trusts and borough-based boards of the ICS in Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To promote and support the implementation of the Trust’s Health and Safety policies and procedures in the designated sites.
To assist in devising, promoting and supporting improvements in health and safety management strategies (policy formulation, organisational structures, planning, implementation of risk control measures, monitoring of performance in health and safety and audit and review).
To provide advice and guidance to the relevant health and safety committees/groups and assist in formulating and organising its plans as a key link in the health and safety management strategy of the Trust.
Provide specialist advice, reports and professional recommendations to managers at all levels on matters of health and safety, to enable the Trust to meet its statutory duties and reduce risks to staff, patients and others. Develop and produce written health and safety standards, systems of work, guidance and risk assessments, ensuring the information is kept up to date and reflects change in operational delivery and legislation. Produce general and specialist risk assessments (e.g. Control of Substances Hazardous to Health, Display Screen Equipment etc.) on own initiative and on request to enable the Trust to comply with statutory health and safety requirements..
To assist with the completion of complex risk assessments relating to individuals, equipment, the environment and tasks.
Lead on serious accident investigations including RIDDOR ensuring root causes are identified, that lessons are learnt and that appropriate measures are implemented in a timely manner.
Ensure all RIDDOR incidents are reported to the Health and Safety Executive timely as per legislation.
Investigate incidents relating to civil and criminal legal cases against the Trust and liaise with other key stakeholders within and external to the Trust (e.g. Legal Services Department, NHS Litigation Authority, appointed Solicitors and representing Barristers etc.)
To work collaboratively with the Estates and Facilities department on road safety, building and construction safety to ensure that appropriate standards are deployed and maintained.
Assist Project Managers to gain assurance that construction phase plans(CPP) and risk assessment/method statements(RAMs) are up to date and robust Provision of information and identifying trends from the incident reporting system to managers and health and safety committees/groups with advice and recommendations as necessary.
To perform audits, compliance monitoring, inspections and investigations to support managers To provide guidance, support and motivation to directorates that will enable them to undertake their specific duties and to enable them to implement their action plans.
Provide summary reports of the audits for the relevant management teams.
Assist to devise, develop and deliver core health and safety training programmes and other specialist health and safety training. Undertake research to identify potential causes of injury and illness on specific subjects and to assist with the future development of risk reduction measures.
Assist in designing, adapting and managing the Health and Safety pages of the Trust Intranet.
Support meetings that will have senior staff attending from across the Trust and chair meeting as required.
Support the effective functioning of the Health and Safety Committee meeting with trade union colleagues.
To create and analyse statistical reports for benchmarking, reports for a range of meetings.
Provide advice and support to the CQC Quality and Compliance lead in regard to assurance of national regulatory requirements that relate to Health and Safety.
To act as a ‘Competent Person’ for health and safety, liaising with the enforcement authority for health and safety- the Health & Safety Executive (HSE), Executive Directors and Directors to ensure the Trust remains compliant with health and safety legislation.
Network with other Risk / Health and Safety Professionals within the NHS and associated organisations and work towards Continuous Professional Development (CPD).
Deputise for the health and safety manager and carry out key responsibilities in their absence.

Person specification

Qualifications and Training

Essential criteria

Equivalent experience/knowledge.
Relevant professional qualifications at Diploma level or above E.g.: NEBOSH National Diploma Parts 1&2 in Occupational Health and Safety, or equivalent or working towards NEBOSH Diploma
Membership of a professional body (e.g.: IOSH/ BSC/ CIMOSH)

Desirable criteria

Teaching/training qualification
Masters

Experience

Essential criteria

Substantial experience working in a healthcare setting with exposure to standard setting and use of a risk register.
Substantial prior experience In a senior Health and Safety Advisory role in a large, complex organisation
Experience in training/teaching in Health and Safety

Knowledge and Skills

Essential criteria

Ability to formulate, plan, develop, organise and implement a broad range of complex activities across the Trust, including adapting and adjusting to deal with uncertainty, as necessary: • e.g.: improving Trust performance with mandatory training in health and safety subjects.
Excellent self and time management

We reserve the right to close the post before the stated closing date, please apply early. We do not contact applicants with the outcome of the shortlisting. If you have been shortlisted, you will receive an invite to an assessment day or interview.

As a local employer and anchor institution we work closely with our community to recruit locally and we welcome applications from the widest variety of people to ensure our workforce are reflective of the local communities which we serve. We encourage all suitable candidates to apply including if you are Black, Asian or other ethnic minorities, live with a disability (visible or not) or are LGBT+. We have a number of active staff networks including Disability, LGBT+, Multicultural Inclusion and Women’s staff networks to bring staff together and celebrate diversity across our whole workforce.

Please note, not all roles will meet the criteria for a skilled worker visa.