Patient and Public Engagement Specialist

Job description

Job responsibilities

Trust patient and public engagement policy and strategy

• To be responsible for supporting the development of, and providing specialist knowledge, support and advice on the objectives of the Trust's forthcoming Patient and Public Engagement Strategy, related policies and key projects and services, as required, across the Trust.
• To gather evidence that demonstrates excellent performance in patient and public engagement against the requirements of our regulators, in particular the Care Quality Commission.
• To support the Head of Patient and Public Engagement to monitor and provide assurance to the Chief Strategy Officer (the accountable Director) and the Trust Board on the Trust's legal duty to involve patients and the public.
• Be responsible for the maintenance and updating of the Trust PPE model, as a means of gathering and maintaining information about the services currently involving patients and the public, e.g. and transformation programmes, service improvement projects, patient feedback, and capital schemes or other such activities. This includes analysing audit data to provide evidence to the Board on how the Trust is meeting its duty to involve and the extent of engagement across clinical groups and corporate functions.
• Support the development, review and implement Trust policy on the reimbursement and reward of stakeholders who participate in patient and public engagement. This includes agreeing on processes with the Finance directorate. Provide advice and guidance to other departments/services on the application of the above-mentioned policy.
• To plan and coordinate a broad range of complex activities or programmes across all parts of the organisation, balancing conflicting requirements to reach consensus, and seeking senior-level approval where appropriate. This will also include the presentation and exchange of complex specialist information with a range of internal and external stakeholders.
• To support senior managers to keep the Board of Directors, the Council of Governors and the Trust Management Executive regularly informed of the patient and public engagement strategy and policy implementation
• To develop, report and disseminate appropriate performance information to promote continuous improvement, including executive committee reports.

Patient and public engagement in strategy, service delivery, transformation and capital investments schemes

• To lead patient and public engagement for the Trust, particularly regarding clinical service transformation, working closely with relevant clinical teams to ensure that all relevant stakeholders' views are taken into consideration in the design and delivery of schemes.
• To work with colleagues in the Patient Experience Team to interrogate existing patient experience survey data (local and national) that may help to inform improvements and changes to services.
• To work with colleagues in capital project design teams to assure that engagement plans and activities are undertaken, in compliance with internal policy and relevant legislation, advise on the appropriate engagement methods, and where necessary worth together to deliver engagement activities
• To ensure, through appropriate consultation with key corporate departments, internal stakeholders and staff, that engagement plans reflect business needs, legislative guidance and best practice. Specifically, to ensure that all engagement plans, materials, or other resources, particularly those relating to patient and public involvement are compliant
• To project manage and facilitate patient and public engagement activities, including arranging events, designing surveys, developing copy, writing and producing presentation materials, and facilitating focus groups and workshops.
• To evaluate, audit and report on the delivery and effectiveness of patient and public engagement projects and plans
• To interpret and communicate information (sometimes highly complex and/or politically sensitive) to a range of stakeholders including, patients, the public, senior clinical and management staff, using complex skills including persuasion and negotiation, training, enabling them to agree and/or co-operate in culture and behaviour change

Training, education and development for the patient and public stakeholder engagement

• To develop and maintain learning resources and planning tools for Trust staff to help them engage effectively with patients and the public. This will include ongoing development and maintenance of the Patient and Public Engagement Hub and any other tools as necessary.
• To develop training and support for patients, carers and members of the public that supports their involvement in Trust activities
• To ensure Trust colleagues are briefed on patient and public engagement policies and procedures as an integral part of their induction process and training provided as appropriate

IT, communications and administration

• To support senior managers to keep the Board of Directors, the Council of Governors and the Trust Management Executive regularly informed of patient and public engagement in service improvement, changes and transformation, by contributing to the preparation of formal reports.
• To develop and maintain appropriate project information systems that support the teams work
• To be responsible for managing and editing the content of the Patient and Public Engagement Teams pages on the Trust intranet (GTi) and to work together with the Communications Department contributing to information to be displayed on the public website, where appropriate.
• To be responsible for the ongoing development and maintenance of the Patient and Public Engagement Hub, ensuring its content is updated and technical functionality
• To develop and maintain a database of internal and external stakeholders which can be used to support communications and engagement activities (e.g. Patient-Led Assessment of the Care Environment)
• To be responsible for the servicing and administration of any project / working groups related to the work of the Patient and Public Engagement Team.

Stakeholder relations, communications and professional networks

• To maintain and develop partnerships with external bodies such as NHS and local authority commissioners, Healthwatch, and local community voluntary sector, to act as a representative of the Trust, and make presentations to, a range of audiences, including local stakeholder groups and organisations.
• To be responsible for writing and producing communications materials for patients, staff and other stakeholders as appropriate, including information for individual projects, liaising with the Communications Department where necessary.

Please take time to read the full Job Description and Person Specification for more details about the duties and responsibilities of the role. Your applications must demonstrate how you meet the essential criteria.

Person Specification

Qualifications / education

• Degree level or equivalent experience in a directly relevant area

• Academic background in social policy / science or social / statistical research

Experience

• Significant proven experience of planning and delivering patient and public engagement in at least two of the following areas, including strategy development, major service change / transformation programmes, capital or digital programmes.
• Significant experience of the broader patient and public engagement agenda and relevance to a variety of public sector organisations

Knowledge and skills

• Specialist knowledge across a range of stakeholder engagement practices, techniques and approaches underpinned by theoretical knowledge from study and relevant practical experience preferably in a social / market research or academic environment.
• Strong working knowledge of relevant national legislation, policies and local guidance and how these should be applied to stakeholder and public engagement activities
• Strong working knowledge of basic statistical concepts - analysis of quantitative and qualitative data

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website.

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants.

Employer details

Employer name

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

200 Great Dover Street

London

SE1 4YB

https://www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/careers/careers.aspx