Job vacancy: Equalities and Health Inequalities Clinical Fellow, NHS England, Nationally

Job summary

Main area: Clinical
Grade: NHS AfC: Band 8c
Contract: Fixed term: 4 months (Until 31/03/26 (Secondment only for current NHS employees).)
Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref: 990-DCE-18640-E

Employer: NHS England
Employer type: NHS
Site: Any NHSE Office
Town: Nationally
Salary: £76,965 - £88,682 per annum (exclusive of London Weighting)
Salary period: Yearly
Closing: 10/12/2025 23:59

Equalities and Health Inequalities Clinical Fellow

NHS AfC: Band 8c

Our Organisation

The NHS is building a culture that is positive, compassionate and inclusive – and we all have our part to play.

As employers we are committed to protecting and promoting the physical and mental health and wellbeing of all our colleagues. This underpins our values as set out in the NHS Constitution and supports us to be an Employer of Choice, while helping our colleagues to deliver high quality services for our patients and communities.

As a flexible employer, we want to support you to work in a way that is best for the NHS, our patients and you. Talk to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s a job share, part time, hybrid working or another flexible pattern. In addition, although the role advertised may have a ‘home’ office base indicated, we remain committed to supporting flexibility around workplace locations. If it works for the service, we will do our best to make it work for you.

We are an accredited Living Wage Employer which means that every colleague working for our organisation and third-party contractors will earn a real Living Wage. We are one of over 15,000 organisations, who voluntarily chose to pay the real Living Wage.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Part of the recently established Global, Public Health and Emergencies Group, the team has deep links across both NHSE and DHSC programmes, policy and clinical areas and strong connections with external partners and stakeholders.

With a national director driving the programme forward, and an established team to reflect the importance of this agenda, key projects within the portfolio include:

Supporting the reduction in healthcare inequalities through the Core20PLUS5 approach and supporting the government’s three key shifts and the ambitions laid out in the 10 year health plan.

Supporting equitable shift from sickness to prevention through targeted action on Core20PLUS5 populations and interventions

An organisation-wide strategic approach to anchor practice and driving action on health literacy and patient activation.

Transforming accountability and performance through embedding health inequalities key lines of enquiry, metrics and indicators within the NHS oversight framework and other key measurement, quality and performance frameworks, including modern service frameworks.

Ensuring a systematic approach to addressing digital inclusion through the NHS App and Single Patient Record.

Supporting an enabling infrastructure for delivery including the Health Inequalities Improvement Forum (for regional and system health inequalities leads), a National Health Inequalities Improvement Network (for clinical leads) which both feed into a Health Inequalities Improvement Board. We work closely with regional SROs and programme leads for health inequalities to inform our work.

Working with policy areas and programmes across NHSE to hardwire health inequalities improvement into the organisational structures and processes.

About the role:

We have an exciting opportunity for someone to join the Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Team as a Equality and Health Inequalities Clinical Fellow to help play a pivotal role in shaping policy formulation and implementation on healthcare inequalities across the NHS.

As an Equality and Health Inequalities Clinical Fellow, the postholder will work as part of a dynamic team. As clinical leader within the team the poster holder will provide clinical advice, leadership, and expertise to ensure that healthcare inequalities are tackled across national clinical policy and programmes and through the wider health system.

We believe clinical leadership is mission critical to achieving Core20PLUS5. In this role you will:-

Provide clinical leadership to our health inequalities delivery workstreams, including a dedicated focus on Core20PLUS5 clinical areas, and evidence base to support a revised ‘state of the nation’ overview of healthcare inequalities, utilising data and robust evidence

Work as a representative of the Health Inequalities Team on the Modern Service Frameworks lead jointly by DHSC and NHSE.

Programmes in the Core20PLUS5 ecosystem will be part of your role including connecting innovation and health inequalities

Support embedding a focus on healthcare inequalities in NHS work programmes contributing to enhancing Healthcare Inequalities content in clinical education and leadership programmes

Support the leadership, development, and delivery of the Core20PLUS5 delivery, ensuring a robust QI, Clinical and Patient safety approach is embedded in our work.

Collaborate with clinical leaders across the healthcare system to drive forward implementation of Core20PLUS5 in every day clinical work of the NHS, extracting the learning, implementing nationally developed tools and guidance, and evaluating the clinical impact of the work.

Work with National Clinical Audits teams, NICE and HQIP to ensure clinically relevant data on healthcare inequalities improvement is collected, analysed and built into recommendations. Where necessary clinically review guidance and recommendations to ensure healthcare inequalities improvement is central to the guidance.

Liaise with national clinical leaders, clinical senates, and programme directors to support the improvement of healthcare inequalities across England

Engage and collaborate with the stakeholders across NHS England to ensure that incentives to improve clinical outcomes in healthcare inequalities are evidence based, targeted and effective to improve healthcare inequalities

You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.

Secondments

Applicants from within the NHS will be offered on a secondment basis only, agreement should be obtained from their employer prior to submitting the application.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

Clinical or professional qualification

Desirable criteria

Educated to master’s level or equivalent level of experience of working at a senior level in specialist area

Skills Knowledge and Experience

Essential criteria

Experience of taking evidence-based action to promote equality and narrow health inequalities within a clinical area or healthcare setting
Knowledge of causes of inequity and health inequalities and the social determinants of health
Knowledge of current national healthcare policy and legislation, including the Ten year health plan, Health and Social Care Act 2022 and the Equality Act 2010
Ability to build effective cross functional working relationships across a diverse range of stakeholders to drive organisational agenda Inclusive, compassionate leadership adjusting plans to reflect changing circumstances

Desirable criteria

Track record of clinical pathway/policy delivery
Proven senior level experience of leading and delivering complex change and strategy development programmes in a politically sensitive and complex Environment
Project management experience and training understanding of evaluation of policy deliverables QI training and experience

Values and Behaviours

Essential criteria

Commitment to and focused on quality, promotes high standards in all they do
Able to make a connection between their work and the benefit to patients and the public
Works well with others, is positive and helpful, listens, involves, respects and learns from the contribution of others
Demonstrates knowledge and understanding of equality of opportunity and diversity taking into account and being aware of how individual actions contribute to and make a difference to the equality agenda

Desirable criteria

Demonstrable commitment to partnership working with a range of external organisations

Our commitments to you

We are passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity. We know that different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative work environment that delivers better patient outcomes. We strive to ensure our people feel trusted, valued and empowered. We’re passionate about nurturing and developing people. When you join us, we want you to grow and excel, and we offer many opportunities for you to do that. We welcome your talent and enthusiasm irrespective of age, disability, neuro-divergence, sex, gender identity and gender expression, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or other personal circumstances. We have policies and procedures to ensure that all applicants are treated fairly and consistently at every stage of the recruitment process, including the consideration of reasonable adjustments for people who have a disability and/or who are neuro-divergent.

We welcome applications from disabled candidates. If you meet all the essential criteria, you will be guaranteed an interview.

Your application is your opportunity to demonstrate to us how you meet the requirements of the role. Whilst we appreciate that you may have had support with your application (e.g., using AI technology or guidance from a trusted individual), it’s important that the information contained within your application reflects your own knowledge, skill, and experience and we trust that you apply on that basis.

If applying for this role on a secondment basis, please make sure you have obtained prior agreement from your current line manager to apply for this position.

Please note that we currently do not accept applications via recruitment agencies.

To comply with the HM Government Functional Standard GovS 007, and specifically the Personnel Security Standards 2024, individuals employed or contracted by NHS England may be required to undergo a Baseline Personnel Security Standards check, dependent on the role.

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NHS England