Health Improvement Lead Nurse

Job summary

Are you passionate about protecting population health, preventing infection and improving outcomes for local communities?

We are seeking an experienced and motivated Health Improvement Lead Nurse to join our Health Protection and Improvement Team. Working across Birmingham, the Black Country and Solihull, you will lead programmes to prevent communicable diseases and healthcare-associated infections, improve infection prevention and control standards, and strengthen system-wide health protection arrangements.

You will work with NHS providers, the UK Health Security Agency, NHS England, local authorities, primary care, community services and other partners. You will provide specialist leadership and advice on infection prevention and control, communicable disease management, immunisation and vaccination, incidents, outbreaks, surveillance and health inequalities.

Combining strategic leadership with operational delivery, you will analyse complex health intelligence, support incident and outbreak management, influence service improvement, provide expert clinical advice, and contribute to assurance and quality improvement. If you are a highly motivated registered nurse committed to partnership working and better community outcomes, we would love to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

As a Health Improvement Lead Nurse, you will support health protection and improvement priorities across Birmingham, the Black Country and Solihull. Working within the Health Protection and Improvement Team, you will lead programmes to prevent and manage communicable diseases, reduce healthcare-associated infections, strengthen infection prevention and control, and protect local communities.

You will provide specialist clinical advice on health protection, infection prevention and control, immunisation and vaccination, environmental health threats, and outbreak management. You will analyse surveillance and quality data, identify emerging risks and develop evidence-based interventions to improve outcomes and reduce inequalities.

Working with providers, commissioners, NHS England, the UK Health Security Agency, local authorities and wider partners, you will support the management of outbreaks, incidents and patient safety concerns. You will lead audits, assurance visits, policy development, training and quality improvement initiatives, ensuring learning is shared across the system.

You will also contribute to governance and reporting, present complex information to senior stakeholders, and support safe, effective services that improve population health and reduce the impact of infectious disease.

About us

Birmingham, Black Country and Solihull Integrated Care System bring together the NHS, local authorities and voluntary sector to serve 2.7 million people. Our vision is to be the healthiest place to live and work, improving life chances and reducing inequalities.

You will model system values, champion inclusion and actively address health inequalities, helping create an environment where everyone can thrive. In return, the Cluster offers a supportive, ambitious and inclusive environment with opportunities to develop and work across partners to deliver meaningful change.

The ICB is committed to having a workforce which is representative of the population of Birmingham, Black Country, and Solihull Cluster. Our current staffing profile demonstrates that we are not as representative as we would like to be at this level within the organisation. We would actively welcome applications from women and people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds for this role.

The ICB is registered as a Disability Confident Employer. We actively welcome applications from applicants with a disability and commit to shortlisting all such suitable applicants who meet the essential criteria for an interview. Please let us know of any reasonable adjustments you require to participate in the recruitment process.

Details

• Date posted: 04 September 2026
• Pay scheme: Agenda for change
• Band: Band 7
• Salary: £49,387 to £56,515 a year
• Contract: Permanent
• Working pattern: Full-time
• Reference number: D9118-26-0044
• Job locations: Black Country Integrated Care Board, Wolverhampton Civic Centre, St Peter's Square, Wolverhampton, WV1 1SH, United Kingdom, Birmingham & Solihull Integrated Care Board, Alpha Tower, Suffolk Street Queensway, Birmingham, B1 1TT, United Kingdom

Job responsibilities

The postholder will be accountable for:

• Supporting the Health Improvement and Protection Senior Clinical Lead in identifying potential threats to health from communicable diseases, environmental hazards and major incidents; and to deliver measures to protect the health and wellbeing of the public from these threats.
• Supporting the CCQO/CNO to fulfil their mandatory role around health protection, providing oversight of the effectiveness of the local health protection system and will deliver practical support and challenge to local partners in fulfilling their responsibilities for protecting health, by developing effective partnerships and working relationships.
• Supporting/promoting infection prevention and control standards, ensuring the risk of health care acquired infections is reduced; supporting the effective commissioning ensuring that IPC standards are considered in the process, delivery of immunisation services to ensure the risk from vaccine preventable disease is reduced; and, supporting the investigation and management of health protection outbreaks and incidents ensuring lessons are learned to reduce the likelihood of those risks occurring in the future.
• Providing education, specialist advice, support and expertise in the field of health protection and infection control measures across the ICB and wider system.
• Provide specialist clinical advice and practical support on issues relating to health protection including communicable disease, infection prevention and control, addressing inequalities in immunisation uptake, environmental threats to health, management of health protection incidents, to specialist and non-specialist staff in a wide range of settings including early years, schools, NHS, local government and independent health and social care.
• Analysing and interpreting complex information about potential threats to health from communicable disease, environmental hazards and major incidents; providing specialist advice to clinicians for individuals and groups about potential threats and the measures needed to protect the health and wellbeing of the public
• Leading the successful delivery of designated objectives as agreed each year with the Health Assurance Improvement and Protection Senior Lead Nurse to reflect the priorities in the public health business plan and be responsible for the delivery of the agreed health protection elements of the annual partnership agreement between the Local Authorities and ICB.
• Develop and maintain effective delivery partnerships and working relationships with key health protection stakeholders including UKHSA ,NHS England, NHS and other healthcare providers, adult and childrens social care commissioners and providers, Public Health England, other public sector agencies such as the police and fire services, the voluntary sector, patients and the public.
• Support and deputise for the Health Assurance Improvement and Protection Senior Lead Nurse as required.
• Leading on investigations of health protection and infection control related standards in designated premises and practices, actively challenging unacceptable standards and taking appropriate action to support quality improvement and address health and safety issues.
• Production, development and delivery of specialist audits of health protection and infection control related standards in local authority, health and social care settings; reporting potentially highly contentious findings both internally and externally.
• Working collaboratively with commissioners and contracting teams to integrate health protection and infection control measures into service specifications, contracts and performance management arrangements to ensure providers deliver their health protection responsibilities.
• Leading on planning, delivery and evaluation of specialist education sessions on health protection and infection control issues for health and social care staff and others as required.
• To undertake and support the effective investigation and management of health protection incidents using specialist methods including Patient Safety Incident Investigations (PSII), After Action Reviews (AAR) and Significant Event Analysis process (SEA); be responsible for designated cases, initiate and implement the process and ensure completion and evaluation of actions.
• Work collaboratively with the Patient Safety Team to ensure accurate reporting of incidents, implementation of action plans and ensuring quality improvement measures are developed and monitored to ensure shared learning in a variety of health and social care providers
• Lead on the collection, interpretation, analysis and presentation of complex information about potential threats to health as part of the health protection surveillance system. Ensure information is appropriately managed and best practice is shared across the team, directorate and the wider health and social care system.
• Work collaboratively with stakeholders, professionals, the voluntary sector and community groups to address health protection related inequalities in health as agreed with the Health Assurance Improvement and Protection Senior Lead Nurse. Examples include increasing uptake of immunisation in underserved groups, exploring the health screening of homeless people and supporting communities in deprived areas be resilient to the impact that major incidents could have on their health.
• Responsible for the management and mentorship of any junior members of the Health Protection Team or trainees on placement with the public health team as required, providing clinical supervision and specialist education as required.
• Responsible for the development of specialist evidenced and researched based policy and guidance, providing written briefings for elected members and senior offices of the council and the NHS, making recommendations for the successful implementation of guidance across the council and NHS partners as required.
• Attend meetings on behalf of the ICB concerning health protection and infection control issues with external partners.
• Actively maintain up to date specialist knowledge of health protection and infection control practices by undertaking continuing professional development
• Deputise for the Health Assurance Improvement and Protection Senior Lead Nurse
• Support the sharing of recurrent themes and learning from healthcare infection incidents across the wider health economy.
• Actively participate within other quality monitoring and assurance activities, as required, to support the wider system Quality and Patient Safety Team and will assist with triangulation of data to identify themes, trends hot spots and risks across a wide range of strategically commissioned care environments, including Care Homes, GP surgeries and hospitals.

Please refer to the full job description attached.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).