Business Continuity Lead

Additional Information

The health and wellbeing of our staff is at the forefront of everything we do. We are proud to be able to offer our staff some fantastic benefits including our on-site Nursery, access to our free Beach Hut for those long summer days, our on-site Wellness Centre including a gym and a swimming pool, access to our fantastic staff networks including LGBTQ, Race Equality and DisAbility, and awards ceremonies to recognise your achievements. We believe we can offer support to all of our staff when they need it the most.

We welcome the unique contributions that you can bring in terms of your education, opinions, culture, ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity and expression, nation of origin, age, languages spoken, veteran’s status, colour, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and beliefs. 

For more information, please see our People and OD Strategy 2026

Smoke Free Policy: 

All of our hospitals operate a strict no smoking policy. Smoking cigarettes or tobacco products is not allowed on any of the grounds or in any of the buildings run by us. This applies to patients, staff, carers and visitors to Trust premises.

Our goal is to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone we care for and, by making sure that our NHS services are smoke-free, we benefit the health of people who use our services as well as the health of the people who work for us.

Company Description

Here at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, we are proud to provide expert, compassionate care for our local population. We are ranked as the third in the country for research, embedding education and training across the organisation. Our main hub is the Queen Alexandra Hospital, which is one of the largest hospitals on the south coast employing over 8,700 staff.

Our patients come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds because it makes our hospital stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for getting it right for patients, colleagues, and our community, you will find a home at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.

Job Description

NHS Band 6 Salary:   £39,959 - £48,117 per annum

Hours Per Week:  37.5 hrs

Contract Type:  Permanent

Job summary

The post holder of this role will deliver the programme of Business Continuity (BC) for the organisation, working within the Trust EPRR team and alongside equivalent roles at partner organisations, to strengthen the Trust’s emergency preparedness, resilience and response (EPRR) arrangements.

They will provide project management of BC, working and supporting Divisional BC leads to embed preparedness against disruption at the frontline for all services. They will coordinate these activities across services and Divisions to build a broader depth of interdependent preparedness. They will drive continuous improvement and establish robust assurance of local plans through collaborative planning, training and exercising.

This role as part of the EPRR team also champions a culture of resilience across the Trust.

Main duties of the job

The Business Continuity Lead for Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust (PHU) provides subject matter programme management across the Acute organisation to ensure statutory compliance with the Civil Contingencies Act (2004) and NHS EPRR Core Standards requirements.

The role will provide leadership to the design and delivery of the Trust BC programme, aligned with partners at the Isle of Wight NHS Trust, within the overall Group structure. They will take ownership in ensuring organisational compliance, assurance, programme delivery, and continuous improvement of the BC programme, ensuring local plans are owned, current, tested and aligned to ISO22301 standards.

Key Responsibilities

• Working within a specialist team in driving forward an ambitious programme of delivery of ever-improving standards of resilience against disruption at PHU.
• Provide incident support and preparedness assurance to the EPRR Lead, the Group Head of Resilience, and more broadly to key decision-makers for the organisation
• Ensure alignment with statutory obligations, NHS planning requirements and system objectives.
• Working with a wide range of organisational partners to champion and embed Business Continuity at all levels.
• Contribute effectively to collaborative working across heath sector providers and other partners, to ensure consistent organisational preparedness.
• Support clinical and operational partners to embed resilience, learning and risk mitigation in frontline service delivery.
• Support the EPRR teams long-term strategic planning and delivery of BC programme workstreams through supported delivery of planning, training and exercising, ensuring arrangements are forward-looking and aligned to emerging risks and national priorities.
• Ensure systems for lessons learned, debrief, assurance and improvement following Business Continuity disruption are embedded and reported.
• Support the production of formal EPRR documentation including compliance of core standards, plans, policies, risk assessments, performance reports and briefing papers.
• Contribute to management of allocated programme budgets, business cases and procurement decisions to ensure compliant, value-for-money delivery.
• Promote a collaborative, improvement-focused culture and transfer specialist knowledge across teams.
• Review, interpret and update BC plans, policies and procedures to reflect national policy, good practice and lessons identified, acting as the professional lead for BC within the organisation.
• Undertake audit, benchmarking and evaluation to support continual improvement and system learning.

For full job details and person specifications please refer to enclosed job description.

Qualifications

Essential

• Educated to degree level in Business Continuity or relevant subject area, or able to demonstrate at least 2 years specialist knowledge acquired through substantial leadership experience in emergency preparedness

Desirable

• Level 4 Diploma in Health Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (DipHEPRR) or equivalent specialist qualification/experience working towards
• Training or teaching qualification.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of EPRR, business continuity, incident response and NHS EPRR assurance frameworks developed through substantial exposure in NHS and multi-agency environments or equivalent sectors.
• Demonstrable experience leading BC workstreams including planning, training,  and exercising.

Desirable

• Evidence of professional development in the field of EPRR and/or Business Continuity.

Skills and Knowledge

Essential

• Able to lead BC programme across a busy and demanding Acute Hospital situation with many competing demands on Divisional leads time and resources
• Able to design, deliver and evaluate local BC training and exercising programmes.
• EPRR and BC responsibilities under the Civil Contingencies Act and NHS assurance framework.
• Knowledge of business continuity methodology and organisational resilience principles.