Public Health Consultant Health Improvement

Public Health Consultant Health Improvement

Hours per week: 37 hours

Interview date: Thursday 16 January 2024

Public Health Consultant - Championing Well-being across Wiltshire

Wiltshire Council is seeking to recruit a Generalist Public Health Consultant, leading on Health Improvement to help us put public health at the heart of all public services.

Our vision is to create stronger and more resilient communities and to ensure people in Wiltshire have healthy, active, and high-quality lives. Our highly successful public health team works to deliver this vision by improving health and wellbeing across the county, reducing health inequalities, and protecting the most vulnerable.

The portfolio area for this Consultant post is Health Improvement.

We are looking for a forward-thinking Generalist Consultant, who has a proven track record working across all domains of public health. An established leader with drive and highly developed public health skills to help shape decisions over a range of public health functions, operating and influencing across the system to achieve a significant impact for improving health and wellbeing of the Wiltshire population.

Main duties of the job

As Health Improvement lead, you will work in partnership with senior leaders across the Council, with the Integrated Care Board and place-based Integrated Care Alliance, our three acute trusts, the voluntary sector as well as other partner agencies to improve health outcomes and make a positive difference to the lives of people in Wiltshire.

You will provide leadership and direction to a team of practitioners and specialists, with support from a public health principal. This portfolio includes an operational team of health coaches, providing behaviour change advice and support to Wiltshire residents.

As a member of the senior management team, you will help to lead public health and support the Director of Public Health in realising the ambition to ensure that public health is well placed to support the wider system for improved services and efficiencies. You will influence and inform local policy on health improvement and behaviour change, linking across all domains of public health activity.

If you're a progressive leader in public health, where your commitment and stamina and agility to work in a fast-paced environment will be rewarded by the diversity of the role, to lead in a supportive environment, whilst developing your own public health career within a passionate team, we would very much like to hear from you.

About us

Wiltshire Council is a friendly, welcoming place to work, with a 'One Council' ethos. That's why we focus on getting the things that matter to our people right.

Job responsibilities

Specific duties and responsibilities include:

• Demonstrating expertise across the full range of relevant competencies as set out by the Faculty of Public Health (Appendix 1) and taking responsibility for resolving operational issues in relation to the services commissioned within the public health grant.
• Demonstrating both generalist expertise and developing topic-based expertise as required by the Director of Public Health (DPH) and deputising for the DPH as required.
• Taking responsibility for a range of public health issues and working across organisational and professional boundaries, acting as a change agent managing complexity, ensuring prevention is embedded across the system and delivering improvements in health and wellbeing.
• Providing briefings on the health and wellbeing needs of local communities to Councillors, Council Officers, Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), the third sector, the public, and partners.
• Taking responsibility for development, implementation, and delivery of policies, including leading in developing detailed inter-agency and interdisciplinary strategic plans and programmes based on needs assessments.
• Providing expert public health support and whole system leadership to ensure an evidence-based approach for commissioning and developing high-quality equitable services.
• Utilising information and intelligence systems to underpin public health action across disciplines and organisations.
• Supporting the DPH in the development and implementation of robust strategies for improving the health and wellbeing of local communities.
• Providing the key local authority link to the research community and influencing research programmes to address local authority needs.
• Taking responsibility for the training obligations of the directorate, including Education and Activity Supervisor duties.

Underpinning these duties are public health tasks such as:

• Undertaking health needs assessments to enable evidence-led actions for improving the health of the local population.
• Developing prioritisation techniques and managing their application to policies and services.
• Effectively communicating complex concepts and data to a range of stakeholders.
• Applying scientific knowledge on public health to policies and services necessary for health improvement.
• Understanding human and organisational behaviour to achieve change.
• Inspiring commitment to public health outcomes and prevention as a core feature of public sector reform.
• Leading on health protection issues, ensuring good links with relevant bodies.

National performance standards or statutory/legal responsibilities applicable to this role include:

• Participating in the organisation's staff appraisal scheme and quality improvement programme.
• Contributing to the training programme for Foundation Year Doctors, Specialty Registrars in Public Health, and management trainees.
• Undertaking an annual professional appraisal and completing a programme of continuing professional development (CPD).
• Practising in accordance with relevant sections of the General Medical Council's Good Medical Practice and Faculty of Public Health's Good Public Health Practice.
• Contributing to medical professional leadership within the health system.
• Maintaining effective public health advocacy.