Job Specifications
Birmingham, Chilton, Leeds, Liverpool, London (Canary Wharf or Colindale), Porton (Core HQs and Scientific Campus’)
Job Summary
The Pandemic Preparedness and Incident Response Delivery Lead will enhance the Public Health Microbiology Directorate’s Pandemic Preparedness and Incident Response capabilities. The role involves establishing relationships across UKHSA and wider government to develop a comprehensive portfolio of the directorate’s commitments to cross-government strategic programmes and maintaining a forward look for key deliverables. This includes ensuring SMEs are informed of obligations in advance, balancing strategic work with business-as-usual activities, and providing high-quality, aligned input for commissions, ministerial requests, and strategic papers.
In conjunction with the Private Office, acting as the primary point of contact for corporate queries, the role will coordinate responses, draft briefing notes, and maintain an accessible database of strategic inputs. The individual will support incident response preparedness by embedding lessons learned into operational practice, coordinating the establishment and resourcing of laboratory response cells during incidents, and acting as the main contact to ensure timely delivery of key actions. They will provide ongoing incident support, facilitate communication with internal and external stakeholders, and ensure all activities are recorded for continuous improvement. Additionally, the role will collaborate with policy teams to align directorate activities with national priorities, monitor policy developments, and communicate the directorate’s contributions to national and international initiatives.
Working for your organisation
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
Co-ordination of strategic input required for cross-government programmes.
Establish relationships across UKHSA and wider government strategy, policy, and secretariat teams to build a portfolio document of key cross-government and UKHSA strategic programmes that the directorate has commitments to deliver under and establishing a regular forward look timeline of when updates against these deliverables are required.
Ensure that key SMEs are appraised of this forward look and aware of their obligations to input from an early stage so that updates can be provided in a considered manner that balances work required against wider BAU obligations.
Co-ordinate consistent and reflective input into commissions, papers and programmes that specialist microbiology is responsible for, engaging with SMEs to ensure information provided is of high standard, is accurate, is deliverable and responses are prioritised in line with Science strategy priorities where appropriate.
Corporate interactions
In conjunction with the Directorate’s allocated Private Office, the individual will act as a first point of contact when responding to all commissions, ministerial and Executive Committee requests and drafting of PQs and National Audit Office responses that require Directorate wide visibility/input/clearance in relation to the strategic programmes relevant to the directorate.
Work with the Science Group Public Inquiry lead to ensure that responses to rule 9 requests are managed in a co-ordinated manner, ensuring that key SME’s have inputted into/cleared the relevant sections of the response.
Work with private office/Business management team to establish a database record for all inputs/responses relating to key strategic programmes to ensure that all information is held in an easily accessible and transparent manner in line with data handling requirements.
Draft concise and compelling briefing notes, stakeholder engagement materials, and presentation slides to support senior leaders in building partnerships and influencing decisions.
Pandemic Preparedness and Incident response
Lead a programme of work in tandem to the Quality and Risk Assurance Deputy Director to consolidate and embed in operational practice/BAU activity lessons learned from previous incident responses to ensure the directorate is appropriately prepared to stand up diagnostics for a future incident.
Co-ordinate the establishment of the laboratory/virology cell in the event of a future incident; including ensuring the cell is appropriately resourced and on-call rotas are produced providing key SME cover, that the cell is connected to other cells and the central in
About the Company
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is responsible for planning, preventing and responding to external health threats, and providing intellectual, scientific and operational leadership at national and local level, as well as on the global stage.
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