Health Protection Advisor - Nottingham

Health Protection Advisor – Nottingham

Salary: £ 17.51ph

Full-Time (37 hours)

Job Purpose:

To lead the implementation of health protection and infection prevention and control policies, procedures and practices within the public health team.  A key task is to develop a system for advising employees, managers and strategic partners on matters of health protection and wider health, safety and wellbeing in relation to COVID-19.  To recognise the needs of and incorporate setting specific advice including vulnerable groups and educational settings.

The post holder will provide expert health protection and IP&C advice in line with national infection prevention and control guidance to the council and its partners to support the implementation of local and national COVID-19 regulations and the council’s internal policies for dealing with local outbreaks in occupational settings.  This will be achieved by leading and overseeing a small duty team to provide timely, accurate and high quality advice.

The role will function within the context of the local outbreak control plan (LOCP) and the post holder will be responsible for escalating any areas of concern to the internal COVID-19 Programme Delivery Group and COVID-19 Health Protection Board.

Accountabilities:

• To cultivate and lead an impartial professional Health Protection Advice Service to the Council’s employees and partners based on current local and national guidance in order to protect the health and wellbeing of employees and citizens. 

• To be the expert source of specialist knowledge, support and advice to council employees and partners on health protection matters.

• Develop the service to ensure that a full assessment of the situation and risk is undertaken and accurate advice is offered based upon guidance and knowledge of how to mitigate the risks posed.

• Ensure that queries relating to the prevention and control of COVID-19 within council provided, commissioned or regulated services receive a response in a timely manner and are logged and tracked accurately.
• To be the first point of contact for advice on challenging or complex incidents and outbreaks of infectious diseases.  Understand when to escalate and refer to a consultant or other health protection/IP&C system partners as appropriate.
• Refer on requests for advice and escalate suspected outbreaks in specific settings to the appropriate system partner responsible for health protection and IP&C advice such as nursing and residential care homes, hospital settings and schools
• Understand when there is a need or a statutory duty to refer the enquiry on to system partners and take action accordingly.
• Prioritise enquiries according to the potential public health impact or risk to maintaining essential services.
• Utilise an evidence based approach to offering professional and expert advice, synthesising all available evidence and interpreting where there are gaps in guidance.

• Devise and implement a system to quality assure all advice offered against relevant guidance and standards.  Include an incident reporting system within the governance framework for the Health Protection Advice Service.
• Develop good working relationships and align with external infection prevention and control (IP&C) colleagues who are responsible for advice to nursing and residential care homes to ensure that advice offered to social care teams and home care providers is consistent in messaging and quality.
• To keep abreast of new developments in relation to local and national COVID-19 regulations and guidance and interpret it for specific settings.

• To minimise the impact of COVID-19 transmission within employees and contracted services provided by the Council in order to protect front line services delivered or commissioned by the Council.

We offer:

• 24 hour one on one specialist consultant based within your geographical area
• 4Recruitment Services Employee Benefits Programme
• Our own dedicated payroll support ensuring you get the full benefits of your payment

Recruitment is done in line with safe recruitment practices. 4Recruitment Services is an equal opportunities employer.

To discuss this vacancy or other vacancies in your area please contact Max Catherall 020 8514 9176.