Remote Health Inequalities and Involvement Lead at Blood Cancer UK

Only considering candidates eligible to work in London, UK ??

Our vision is that no-one dies of their blood cancer or their treatment. However, despite all the progress we have made so far, we know through our Blood Cancer Action Plan, blood cancer survival rates in the UK are not keeping up with countries of similar wealth and health and there are clear disparities in outcomes depending on geographic location and ethnicity. The blood cancer community deserves better.

The focus of the Health Inequalities and Involvement Lead is to be the subject matter expert on health inequalities and involvement for the charity. They will lead our strategic approach to equality, diversity and inclusion, and reducing health disparities. They will provide operational support to ensure we meet our ambitions to increase our reach into under-represented communities across all areas of our work across direct support and systems-influencing to improve survival.

The majority of our roles can be performed hybrid which means you will be required to attend the London office 1 or 2 times per month in addition to regular in-person engagement with relevant community groups.

We are committed to actively promoting equality, diversity, and inclusivity. In line with our strategy we welcome approaches from individuals from underrepresented groups, including minority communities, and applicants with a disability, to better reflect the community we serve and help broaden our perspectives.

We are open to applicants wishing to work a 4-day week (28 hours). Please specify in your cover letter.

Application Deadline: February 28, 2025
Department: Research, Policy & Services
Employment Type: Permanent
Location: London/Hybrid
Workplace type: Hybrid
Compensation: £52,000 - £57,000 / year

Key Responsibilities:

1. Grow and diversify our cross-organisational Involvement Network to ensure we have a broad range of voices affected by blood cancer directly shaping everything Blood Cancer UK does.
2. Oversee the co-creation of our involvement strategy to ensure we are able to deliver a programme of work that aligns with our organisational mission.
3. Drive forward the development of our Involvement Network.
4. Support the team to develop policies and processes that allow effective recruitment, onboarding and stewardship of a diverse group of people to involve in our work across the organisation.
5. Increase the accessibility and range of opportunities available to our Involvement Network to better accommodate the needs and motivations of the broadest range of people.
6. Work with communication and marketing teams to maximise recruitment opportunities.
7. Drive forward organisation understanding of the benefits and opportunities to involving diverse groups of people affected in our work.
8. Support the team to develop and share impact measures for our involvement work and work with our Health Data and Insights Team to demonstrate how effectively we are driving real-world change.
9. Provide supportive line management of your direct reports to ensure they are effectively delivering all relevant activity.
10. Support the organisation to deliver current projects aiming to reduce health inequalities which actively involve people from underserved communities with a higher incidence, lower survival and/or poorer experience of blood cancer.
11. Build and maintain strategic relationships with community leaders and grassroots or community-based organisations where our aims could align and our messages can be amplified.
12. Work with project leads to understand and deliver on requirements for current activities, particularly around designing our services to improve access to services.
13. Hold a strategic overview of all mission team projects to ensure involvement opportunities are aligned where needed and people can be stewarded effectively through these activities.
14. Support your team and the wider project teams to coordinate all involvement opportunities effectively.
15. Support Mission Team Leads and broader Leadership and Executive Teams to develop our EDI Strategy to develop a pipeline of activities working towards reducing health inequalities.
16. Be a strong subject matter expert on health inequalities and involvement for the charity.
17. Be a committed member of the EDI steering group, working alongside our Exec EDI Lead and strategy group to develop our EDI strategy.
18. Align our EDI strategy with our broader involvement proposition that streamlines our focus to reducing health inequalities within all activities across our mission teams and wider organisation.
19. Keep constantly up to date with best practice and landscape review across the sector and beyond to ensure our work in this space is as ambitious as we are as an organisation.

THINGS WE ALL DO:

1. Promote Blood Cancer UK’s vision, mission and core values.
2. Support Blood Cancer UK’s commitment to actively promoting equality, diversity and inclusivity.
3. We’re all fundraisers. This is slightly different for all roles, and your team will have fundraising KPIs and objectives we all work to.
4. Attend and assist at Blood Cancer UK events and activities as required (NB this involves evening and weekend work).
5. Be an effective ambassador for Blood Cancer UK at any activity you attend.
6. All staff are expected to adhere to Blood Cancer UK’s policies and procedures.
7. Do any other reasonable things your manager needs you to do.
8. We work in partnership with our community by actively involving people affected by blood cancer in the decisions we make about our work.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise:

1. Expert knowledge of health inequalities and ED&I principles.
2. Significant experience of managing involvement networks and an understanding of best practice in policies and procedures.
3. Significant experience in working in patient and public involvement, and expertise around the impact it can have on delivering the organisation's strategic objectives.
4. Experience in building relationships with community-based networks and organisations.
5. Demonstrable experience in collaborating with internal teams to design effective involvement opportunities.
6. Understanding of the importance of regular impact analysis and evaluation.
7. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with demonstrable ability to communicate succinctly face to face, over the phone, and online with a wide range of stakeholders internally and externally.
8. Ability to work independently and within a team to plan and prioritise activities across multiple projects.
9. Experience of report writing, incorporating quantitative and qualitative feedback in analysis and using this to drive strategic change where necessary.

About Blood Cancer UK:
FLEXIBLE WORKING & OUR BENEFITS:
We welcome conversations about part-time working, job shares, and all forms of flexible working right from application stage. You can get in touch with us at [email protected] if you want to ask us anything about flexible working.

Benefits:

1. 30 days annual leave PLUS bank holidays.
2. Generous pension scheme and Life Assurance.
3. Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption leave, as well as study leave and a day off to move house.
4. Wellbeing is a priority for us, we offer a wide range of individual and team support in our Wellbeing Hub.
5. Our Academy is our in-house Continued Professional Development (CPD) learning and development programme, including an internal mentoring scheme. We have organisation-wide focus days, which are days set aside for you to focus on your own development, without being interrupted by emails and meetings.
6. Cycle to work and season ticket loans.
7. Opportunity to take sabbaticals.

You can find full details about our benefits on our website.

Location: Working agile means we changed from having a culture where people are expected to be in the office from 9am to 5pm to one where we’re much more focused on what they deliver. We've built a positive culture where autonomy, trust, wellbeing and flexibility allow us to recruit and retain the very best people. We recognise that teams still need to come together regularly to develop relationships and strengthen collaborative working. Therefore, for the majority of roles, your contractual place of work will be one of our offices. The expectation for how often you will be required to attend the office is outlined in the job profile and will be discussed with you. Details about our hybrid and agile working approach (including how travel expenses work) can be found on our website.

How To Apply:
We ask you to send us a CV and cover letter. In your cover letter, we'd like to know why you're interested in working with us at Blood Cancer UK. It's also helpful if you tell us why you think you are a great candidate for this role based on the skills, knowledge and expertise section above. Your cover letter doesn't have to be too long, 1-2 pages is ideal. Please don't add photos or graphics to your CV, as we use blind shortlisting at this stage of the process.

Full details about our recruitment processes, including how we use blind shortlisting and what to expect at each stage of the process can be found on our website. Sometimes we close our vacancies early, usually because we have had a lot of great applicants, so we'd always encourage you to apply early rather than wait until the deadline.

WHY WORK AT BLOOD CANCER UK?
We're the 9th best charity in the UK to work for according to Best Companies 2021!

We started because of Susan, we'll get there because of you. Blood Cancer UK was started by one family who lost their daughter, Susan, to blood cancer, and that history and sense of family continues to shape who we are today. When you join Blood Cancer UK, you don’t just become an organizational employee you become part of a collaborative community dedicated to funding research into beating blood cancer that includes some of the most inspiring people you'll ever meet.

And we're not that far away from beating blood cancer. We're confident we can do it within the next generation, and this makes us hugely ambitious and gives us a sense of real urgency. It also means we're changing quickly as an organisation as we constantly challenge ourselves and strive to become more and more effective. This pace of change means working here isn't for everyone. But if you're excited by the chance to work in a fast-paced, agile and supportive environment with the focus and ambition to beat blood cancer this could be the place for you! We focus on results rather than time spent at a desk, so we deliver more for people affected by blood cancer.

Blood Cancer UK offers the chance to work for and with people affected by blood cancer, and the opportunity to advance your career and develop your skillset whilst taking on exciting new challenges and making your mark.

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION:
We are committed to actively promoting equality, diversity, and inclusivity. Read our statement which reflects our strong drive to change in this area.

To this end we would welcome approaches from individuals from underrepresented groups, including minoritised communities, and applicants with a disability, to better reflect the community we serve and help broaden our perspectives.