Pandemic Preparedness

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 342110**Salary**:

- £32,188 - £38,628- Leeds: £32,188-£35,005; London: £36,244-£38,628- A Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%**Job grade**:

- Higher Executive Officer**Contract type**:

- Permanent
- Loan
- Secondment**Length of employment**:

- This role is being advertised on a permanent basis. If preferable, Loan or Secondment options will also be available for existing Civil Servants (Loan) and applicants from accredited NDPBs or any other employer (Secondment).**Business area**:

- DHSC - Global Health - Emergency Preparedness & Health Protection**Type of role**:

- Policy**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time**Number of jobs available**:

- 3Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- Leeds, LondonAbout the job

**Job summary**:
In DHSC, we are proud of our purpose - to enable everyone to live more independent, healthier lives for longer. To achieve this, and create a great place to work, we have four values: we are inclusive, we constantly improve, we challenge, and we are agile. If this sounds like an environment you’d like to work in, we’d love to hear from you.

The Emergency Preparedness and Health Protection Directorate, within the Global Health and Health Protection Group, plays a vital role in preparing for and responding to all types of national incidents, such as disease outbreaks or terrorist attacks. This busy Directorate leads a great range of policy, covering everything from infectious disease planning and response including Ebola and pandemic flu, to health security, anti-microbial resistance, vaccination and immunisation policy, and counter terrorism preparations and response.

The UK Health Security team is responsible for ensuring that we have effective UK-wide health protection capabilities that can prevent, prepare for, and respond to all types of communicable diseases and threats to health.

**Job description**:
We are recruiting for multiple HEO roles in the team, across several of the team’s key work areas mentioned above.

We are a policy team, bringing together experts, partners, and delivery teams to develop, agree, and oversee implementation of policies to protect the UK against infectious diseases.

Our work includes:

- Ensuring that we have the right medicines, vaccines, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to respond to outbreaks and pandemics of known diseases
- Supporting the 100 Days Mission to build the research, development, and manufacturing capacity to make diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines available within 100 days of a novel pandemic threat being detected
- Preparing options for non-medical interventions and legislation in case of a disease outbreak or pandemic
- Strengthening our existing legislation to bolster our health protection capabilities, for example by making certain diseases legally notifiable or improving our ability to detect and manage diseases at the border
- Working with the chairs and secretariats of expert advisory committees on novel respiratory viruses (NERVTAG), dangerous pathogens (ACDP), antimicrobial resistance (APRHAI) and zoonotic diseases (HAIRS) in our sponsorship role to ensure our policy-making is supported by independent expert advice
- Developing policy on infection prevention and control and tackling the growing burden of antimicrobial resistance, including developing a new National Action Plan
- Working internationally to strengthen our pandemic preparedness including by supporting negotiations on an international pandemic accord.

**Person specification**:

- Role responsibilities_

The roles will each involve some of or all the below:

- Working closely with expert advisory committees and public health advisers (including the Chief Medical Officer and their deputies) to ensure our policies are underpinned by sound scientific evidence
- Collaborating with colleagues in DHSC, UKHSA, and NHSE to agree and deliver a coordinated approach across the health system; across government with other departments including Cabinet Office and Defra; and across the UK with the Devolved Governments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland
- Working with analytical, finance, commercial, and legal teams to understand the impacts, costs, affordability, and routes to delivery for policies in development
- Project management of key aspects of policy development, such as consultations or analyses
- Writing briefings and submissions for senior officials and ministers on our policy areas
- Ensure high-quality public and parliamentary accountability, including PQs, debates, briefings and stakeholder engagement supporting Parliamentary business, and answering Freedom of Information requests in a timely and quality manner
- Key skills and experience required for this role_

We are looking for people who care about protecting the UK from infectious diseases and are looking for a policy-focused role