Health and Safety Officer

Job overview

The Health & Safety Officer will support the delivery of the Health & Safety service across Calderdale and Huddersfield Solutions (CHS) and Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust (CHFT).

This is a development role for someone wishing to establish and progress a professional career in health and safety.

Working alongside the Group Health & Safety Manager and Health & Safety Adviser, the postholder will take responsibility for defined areas of H&S activity while progressively developing the knowledge, experience and professional competence required to progress towards a Health & Safety Adviser role.

Main duties of the job

The postholder will undertake a varied range of operational H&S duties including workplace inspections, audits, incident investigations, DSE assessments and compliance monitoring.

They will coordinate and monitor actions arising from incidents, risk assessments and inspections; maintain H&S records and electronic monitoring systems; support COSHH management arrangements; and prepare reports, dashboards and management information.

The postholder will also provide practical H&S advice to managers and staff within their level of competence and escalate more complex or specialist matters to senior members of the H&S team

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Detailed Job Description

• The Health & Safety Officer will hold operational responsibility for a number of defined H&S compliance workstreams, including the Trust-wide DSE programme, action tracking systems, electronic compliance monitoring and elements of COSHH quality assurance.
• The postholder will independently manage a varied workload across multiple departments, engage directly with managers and staff to resolve compliance issues and progress corrective actions, and undertake lower and medium-complexity investigations within their competence.
• They will analyse information from incident and compliance systems, identify trends and areas requiring intervention, contribute to organisational assurance reporting and identify opportunities to improve the effectiveness and consistency of H&S systems and processes.

Main Responsibilities

• The postholder will be responsible for managing allocated H&S workstreams and ensuring that associated assessments, records and actions are appropriately monitored and progressed.
• They will exercise judgement in determining priorities and appropriate follow-up action, challenge unsafe practices where identified, and escalate significant or complex concerns appropriately.
• The role requires regular engagement with staff and managers across CHS and CHFT and increasing day-to-day autonomy as competence develops.
• The postholder will be expected to actively participate in training, mentoring and professional development, with the longer-term objective of developing the professional competence and qualifications necessary to undertake a broader Health & Safety Adviser role

Applicant requirements

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.