Head of Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response

Job overview

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust is delighted to offer a fantastic opportunity to work with us.

Job Title: Head of Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response

Contract Type: Permanent

Please be advised that this vacancy may close earlier than stated if we receive a large number of applications.

This is an exciting opportunity to join our team as Head of Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, providing Trust-wide leadership to protect patients, sustain essential care and strengthen organisational resilience.

You will shape how UHS prepares for, responds to and recovers from significant incidents, ensuring resilience informs strategic decisions, service development and everyday operations. This senior role combines professional leadership and executive advice with the judgement to support effective decisions during disruption.

Main duties of the job

Reporting to the Associate Director of Operations, you will lead and develop the EPRR team and programme of work, and act as the principal specialist adviser to the Accountable Emergency Officer, Executive Team and senior clinical and operational leaders. You will build the relationships and confidence needed to influence decisions, challenge constructively and establish shared responsibility for preparedness across the Trust.

Your remit will encompass incident response and command, business continuity, evacuation and shelter, and preparedness for other significant threats. Working with senior colleagues across clinical services, operations, estates, digital and security, you will ensure these arrangements are coherent, proportionate and capable of supporting safe care under pressure.

You will strengthen leadership capability through training and exercising, ensure learning leads to sustained organisational improvement, and provide authoritative advice during incidents and recovery. Through robust EPRR assurance, you will give senior leaders a clear understanding of the Trust’s readiness, material risks and priorities requiring their attention.

Representing UHS with NHS partners, emergency services, local authorities and wider resilience networks, you will influence joint preparedness and ensure the Trust’s responsibilities, capabilities and dependencies are understood within the wider system.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

In this role, your key responsibilities will include:

• Setting the strategic direction for EPRR across UHS, assessing emerging threats and critical service dependencies, and establishing a prioritised programme that supports patient safety, organisational resilience and the Trust’s strategic objectives.
• Establishing clear expectations for preparedness across divisions and corporate services, constructively challenging gaps in capability and providing executive and Board assurance processes with a clear assessment of readiness, outstanding risks and decisions required.
• Advising executive and senior clinical and operational leaders on complex resilience issues and significant incidents, interpreting incomplete or conflicting information and explaining the implications of decisions for patient care, service continuity and recovery.
• Influencing joint planning with NHS leaders and resilience partners, ensuring UHS requirements inform wider arrangements and leading improvements where exercises or incidents reveal weaknesses that cross organisational boundaries.

You will need to demonstrate:

• Significant senior leadership experience in emergency preparedness, resilience, incident response or business continuity within a complex, service-critical organisation, with education to master’s level or equivalent senior specialist experience and continued professional development.
• Framework and Core Standards, supported by experience of applying these requirements to organisational governance, risk management and assurance.
• The judgement and credibility to advise senior decision-makers, negotiate competing priorities and secure action beyond your direct management authority, including when circumstances are uncertain, time-critical or subject to professional challenge.
• A record of developing people, leading organisational change and building effective multi-agency partnerships, supported by practical experience of planning, business continuity, exercising and translating incident learning into sustained improvement.
• You must be able to travel to UHS services across Hampshire and attend meetings and activities with partner organisations.