Healthwatch North East Lincolnshire

**Job description - Project Officer**

Responsible to - Healthwatch Delivery Manager

Hours - part time and full time roles available - Permanent

Salary £21000 -full time, pro rata for part time.

(Equivalent £11.54 p/h)

**Scope**

Healthwatch was established as a statutory service in April 2013 with the purpose of being the consumer champion for local health and social care provision. Healthwatch has a wide remit and has a number of legal powers to help ensure that patient and public voice is at the heart of how health and care services are designed and delivered. Each Local Authority area in England has its own Healthwatch service, and our Group (Hull CVS and MNH) holds the contracts for all Healthwatch in the Humber region.

**Overall objective**

The overall objective of the role of Project Officer is to lead on all engagement, patient experience and intelligence gathering related to one of the following designated care areas of work in the Healthwatch locality.
- Primary Care
- Secondary Care and Mental Health
- Community services
- Adult Social care, LD and SEND

The post holder will work closely with the Healthwatch Manager and wider team to effectively represent the patient and public voice and contribute towards the implementation of improvements to one of the above service areas.

**Main duties-**

Act as main point of contact for feedback and enquiries related to one of the above service areas.

**Specific Duties and Responsibilities**:
**Intelligence gathering**
- Responsible for collating patient experience and feedback related to designated care area.
- To work with fellow team members, the external NHS Complaints Advocacy Service and other external partners to ensure the triangulation of all patient feedback mechanisms in designated care area.
- Responsible for attending meetings related to designated care area to share feedback and gather further intelligence.
- Contribute to monthly intelligence reports all data around designated care area.
- To analyse, interpret and present the results of the patient experiences collected, and ensure information collected is feeding in to Healthwatch research, investigations and workplan setting.
- To lead on the collection of statistical data and background information in designated care area that will support investigations and research projects.
- Leading on investigation of issues where appropriate, including development of surveys, delivery of focus groups and report writing with support from the Healthwatch Manager.

**Engagement and communications**
- Act as main point of contact for feedback and enquiries related to one of the above designated health and care service areas.
- Responsible for leading all engagement with designated care area including face to face engagement activity at a range of settings to raise the profile of Healthwatch and ensure members of the public understand its role and remit.
- Responsible for ensuring the hardest to reach and seldom heard groups are aware of the work of Healthwatch and how they can have their voices heard.
- Working with volunteers to involve them in engagement activity, and where appropriate utilise the enter and view function with volunteer support.
- Work with colleagues to coordinate social media communications around designated care area and contribute to external communications such as the Healthwatch newsletter.

**Wider responsibilities**
- Contribute to the information and signposting function of Healthwatch by responding to requests for support, and where required, refer to other services.
- Lead on initiatives that actively promote patient rights and choices; and helps improve public knowledge of today’s care services and routes to access.
- To produce periodic reports about patient experiences gathered and trends identified, and to contribute to Healthwatch quarterly and annual reports.
- Project Officers will be required to support the work of their colleagues and as such will be expected to be involved in projects outside of their remit from time to time as the needs of the service change.

**General Duties**:

- To ensure that members of your team and wider Meeting New Horizons/Hull CVS are kept adequately informed of your work as appropriate and that information is provided as requested by your line manager.
- To participate in planning and team building activities within Meeting New Horizons/Hull CVS.
- To take part in supervision / appraisal meetings as agreed in line with Meeting New Horizons/Hull CVS policy.
- To undertake in-service training as appropriate.
- To respect confidentiality of all information acquired through working at Meeting New Horizons/Hull CVS within the framework of the confidentiality policy.
- To work in a self-servicing capacity.
- To adhere to Meeting New Horizons/Hull CVS policies and procedures.

To undertake any other duties commensurate with the level of responsibility of this post which you may be asked to undertake by the Meeting New Horizons/Hull