Immunisation Policy Lead

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

- 338296**Salary**:

- £53,116- Leeds - £53,116 / London - £57,114- A Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%**Job grade**:

- Grade 7**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 - Immunisation and Vaccination Policy**Type of role**:

- Policy**Working pattern**:

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

- 1Contents

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.

After clean water, vaccination has had the biggest impact on global public health of any intervention, and the UK has one of the best immunisation and vaccination programmes in the world. The current vaccination programme in England protects the population against over 16 different diseases including meningitis, measles, shingles, and HPV, and has an annual budget over £500m.

The vaccines team delivers effective policy in collaboration with partners, to enable timely and equitable deployment of the vaccination programme and oversight of the continual changes to maximise health outcomes across the nation. We work closely with Ministers and key stakeholders, including NHS England (NHSE), the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, Devolved Governments and other departments and industry, to ensure that our health and social care systems can successfully provide vaccines to those eligible.

**Job description**:
This is a busy, high profile and rewarding role, where policy advice can deliver tangible benefits in terms of improving the nation’s health.

The post holder will be responsible for a wide portfolio of work across the different national vaccination programmes including providing policy advice on new or updated programmes, based on advice from the independent expert JCVI, working with NHSE and the UKHSA to ensure effective implementation and oversight of programmes, including improving uptake, reducing health disparities and making getting vaccinated easier for all. The work is cross cutting and therefore involves forging strong relationships with stakeholders and across government departments, as well as good policymaking and communications skills.

The post holder will work to develop a working knowledge of vaccination policy. The roles sit within the Health Protection Strategy and Vaccines Directorate and may require the post holders to work flexibly across wider directorate priorities.

**Person specification**:
Duties include:
Leading policy development related to our vaccine programmes and helping to deliver policies against a fast-changing and dynamic landscape. This requires interesting and creative policy making across a range of vaccine deployment issues.

Providing high quality advice to ministers and senior officials to ensure they understand the benefits and risks of policy proposals, as well as providing written and verbal briefings to senior officials and ministers on the latest policy developments.

Building, strengthening and maintaining relationships with NHSE, UKHSA, other government departments, our counterparts in the Devolved Governments, as well as a range of other stakeholders and industry partners.

Overseeing briefings and responses to parliamentary requests for information related to the policy portfolio.

Providing direction, guidance and support to a diverse team in a hybrid environment, including line management and matrix management across your remit. You will promote a positive working environment, motivating the team to deliver and providing development opportunities.

**Key skills and experience required for the role**

Essential:
Strong communication skills, written and oral, with an ability to tailor messages to meet the needs of different audiences. The ability to grasp complex issues quickly and communicate advice clearly to experts and non-experts.

The ability to collaborate with and successfully manage relationships with a range of multi-agency stakeholders to effectively develop policy.

Delivery at pace, managing competing priorities effectively across a diverse portfolio of work, providing supportive leadership in a fast-paced environment.

Experience of effective policy dev