Job Description from Civil Service Jobs
There are six roles available.
Roles 1 and 2 are based in the Workforce Planning, Experience and Retention branch of the NHS Workforce Directorate. The branch leads on long term workforce planning; the Government’s 50,000 nurses manifesto commitment; staff experience of working in the NHS; staff retention; temporary staffing; widening participation; union engagement (outside of pay) and coordination across the Directorate.
Roles 3, 4, 5 and 6 are based in the NHS Workforce Supply branch. The branch is responsible for the domestic and international supply of healthcare professionals into the NHS, and involves an annual budget of over £5.5bn. The branch plays a key role in delivery of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan (LTWP), a historic and high-profile plan to put NHS staffing on a sustainable footing and improve patient care. It also supports developing countries manage their health workforce. All four roles have substantial discrete responsibilities, but with up to 25% of each role likely to be focused on wider work in the branch – to support capacity in a very busy work area, and to enrich the experience of the postholders.
Role 1 – Temporary Staffing and Widening Participation Policy Advisor
This role will focus on temporary staffing and widening participation in the workforce. This will include playing a central role in managing the department's programme to help bring people from disadvantaged backgrounds into the NHS workforce. The successful candidate will have exposure to high-level discussions and will work closely with a range of colleagues both in DHSC and Arm’s Length Bodies. They will work with stakeholders and evidence to build knowledge and develop strategy supporting decision-making and providing expert advice. They will also lead on briefing and parliamentary work in these areas.
Role 2 – Staff Engagement Policy Advisor
This role will focus on improving the experience of staff working in the NHS and engagement with NHS workforce representatives. This includes working closely with NHS England to help make the NHS a better place to work, by promoting staff health safety and wellbeing, tackling racism and discrimination and improving culture and leadership. The successful candidate will also work with NHS Employers and NHS Trade Unions (and NHS England), providing the secretariat function for a high-profile workforce stakeholder engagement forum - the Social Partnership Forum (SPF), which is chaired by a health minister. The SPF brings together DHSC with those partners to discuss the development and implementation of policy priorities where there are implications for the workforce, including the NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan and the NHS People Plan/Promise. The postholder will support ministers, senior officials and the SPF co-chairs in delivering the SPF meetings and work programme.
Role 3 - Medical Education and Training Policy Advisor
Role 4 - Clinical Education and Training Policy Advisor
We are advertising two roles leading medical education and training policy - one focusing on doctors, and the other focusing on clinical staff (nurses, midwives and Allied Health Professionals).
Both roles will drive delivery of highly challenging and high-profile commitments in the Long Term Workforce Plan - including unprecedented increases in the number of healthcare professionals that we train, and ambitious reforms to how they are trained. They will play a central part in ensuring that the NHS has a medical and clinical workforce of the right size, practicing in the right parts of the country and with the right capability to meet the country’s needs.
The post-holders will primarily support delivery of the LTWP, working with partners to deliver and track highly ambitious and high-profile commitments on the education and training of doctors and the clinical professions. Priorities include doubling of medical school places in England and almost doubling the number of adult nurses training places; ensuring that healthcare professionals are training in the parts of the country that need them most; shortening training times; and widening access to healthcare careers, including radically increasing the number of staff who train as apprentices.
The roles will entail leading policy work and delivering in partnership with others. This will require close work with health and education partners including NHS England, the Department for Education and the Office for Students; with HMT and No10 and with senior and highly influential stakeholders in the wider health and education sectors.
Role 5 - Education and Training Funding Policy Advisor
This role will sit across both the medical and clinical education and training work of the branch. Provision of funding is the key delivery lever for education and training, including delivering the LTWP, and this role will play an integral part in delivering policy objectives in these areas.
The postholder will lead a range of policy development work to ensure that the substantial Government investment in education and training delivers value for money and supports policy objectives – e.g. through incentivising students to undertake healthcare courses and the NHS to deliver training. This will entail working closely with finance and analytical colleagues and a range of external partners - including NHS England, the NHS Business Services Authority, the Department for Education and HM Treasury.
Responsibilities will include leading on NHS Bursary policy to ensure that medical students receive the support they need to undertake their studies (e.g. though fee payments, maintenance grants, and travel and accommodation expenses). The postholder will also lead policy work on the education and training tariff, which is the mechanism for funding the clinical placements that are integral to healthcare courses.
The ideal candidate will be comfortable in a 'numbers-heavy' role and capable (but not necessarily with prior experience) of working in a finance context - e.g. with the ability to understand complex number flows.
Role 6 - Global Health Workforce Policy Adviser
This role is in the International Workforce Team, working on cross-cutting international policy to boost the international workforce across the NHS and globally. It has significant interest across government. International recruitment into the NHS is a key part of the Long Term Workforce Plan and developing the global health workforce is a key commitment in the International Development Whitepaper.
The successful candidate will work across a number of priorities. They will programme manage the £20m Global Health Workforce Official Development Assistance (ODA) Programme, that supports the health workforce of 6 sub-Saharan African countries through strategic support and health partnerships with the NHS. They will support the development of proposals for the next Spending Review period to extend the programme. They will work with governments internationally to support implementation of government-to-government agreements on ethical international recruitment into the NHS, including supporting an evaluation of the effectiveness of the agreements and next steps on a recruitment pilot with Nepal. They will also provide secretariat to the Global Health Workforce Advisory Group, which provides strategic vision, advice and challenge to the DHSC on its work to support ethical international workforce practices. The role may involve some international travel.
For further information on specific roles please contact:
Role 1 - Faye Bunch (faye.bunch@dhsc.gov.uk)
Role 2 - Andrew Morris (andrew.morris@dhsc.gov.uk)
Roles 3 and 4 - Amy Howells (amy.howells1@dhsc.gov.uk)
Role 5 - Caitlin Hooper (caitlin.hooper@dhsc.gov.uk)
Role 6 - Emma Sass (emma.sass@dhsc.gov.uk)