Job Description
About the Trust
The Christie is one of Europe’s leading cancer centres, treating over 60,000 patients a year. We are based in Manchester and serve a population of 3.2 million across Greater Manchester & Cheshire, while also acting as a national specialist with approximately 15% of our patients referred from other parts of the country.
We provide radiotherapy through one of the largest radiotherapy departments in the world; chemotherapy on site and through 14 other hospitals; highly specialist surgery for complex and rare cancers; and a wide range of support and diagnostic services. We are also an international leader in research, with world‑first breakthroughs for over 100 years, and run one of the largest early clinical trial units in Europe with over 300 trials every year.
Role Overview
We are looking for an individual with leadership experience and in‑depth knowledge of emergency preparedness, resilience, and response within the public sector. This position will be accountable to the Chief Operating Officer.
Applicants must demonstrate that they meet the key requirements as outlined in the personal specification.
The main duty is to provide leadership within the Trust to fulfill the emergency planning standards and the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) 2004, ensuring adequacy of local emergency plans, preparedness, and business continuity arrangements. The post holder must interpret the Act, its current and future regulations, in a local context and devise and coordinate strategies, policies, and procedures for the Trust.
Responsibilities
1. Ensure the Trust complies with statutory obligations under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and its regulations.
2. Lead planning, training, and exercising work for Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR), Business Continuity, and System Resilience.
3. Represent the Trust in a broad multi‑agency environment and manage relevant multi‑agency projects and workstreams, liaising with TCFT clinical and corporate services, commissioners, Health Care Providers and other partners to ensure TCFT is fully involved and supportive of health economy resilience planning and response.
4. Ensure TCFT’s interests are fully represented and advanced.
5. Maintain strong communications between TCFT and its stakeholders.
6. Lead the development and coordination of major incident and emergency planning for the Trust and its contracted services, facilitating and supporting the Trust’s response to major incidents and emergencies as appropriate, acting as a specialist knowledge resource.
7. Manage EPRR corporate processes to provide assurance to the Board that it complies with relevant legislation and guidance identified by the NHS Core standards for EPRR.
8. Lead research and develop programs to advance emergency planning and a health context, acting as a professional point of contact for Emergency Planning and Business Continuity across the organization.
9. Develop and maintain systems, processes, and policies so that the Trust is fit for purpose in emergency planning and Business Continuity.
10. Work with key managers to develop, produce and update business continuity plans and associated documentation such as plans, emergency response procedures, call lists and action cards.
11. Ensure arrangements are in place for the Trust to establish a command‑and‑control room (major incident room) as needed, embedded into localities as required.
12. Ensure training, infrastructure and exercises enable the Trust to respond effectively to:
Internal or external major incidents.
Flood.
Heat wave.
Extreme weather conditions.
Pandemic/flu.
Lock‑down.
Site‑specific service, geographical hotspot or trust‑wide business continuity risks or incidents.
13. Lead and coordinate the development, monitoring and updating of Business Impact Assessments (BIA) / Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) across the Trust.
14. Build and maintain professional relationships within the Organization, with commissioners and NHS‑funded organizations and multi‑agency partners to facilitate ongoing EPRR development such as local resilience forums.
15. Ensure representation at local health resilience partnerships (LHRP), Local resilience groups and workstreams.
16. Guarantee the major incident plan facilitates joint working with local NHS economies, providing an effective NHS response to any major incident or business continuity risk affecting the Trust.
17. Ensure plans are compatible with those of the emergency services, local council and other partner agencies.
18. Identify national, regional and local policy changes that impact the Trust, translating them into operational practice.
19. Collaborate with estates, IT, Human Resources, switchboard and communications teams to keep communications systems and equipment fit for purpose, regularly tested and aligned with emergency planning responsibilities.
20. Plan and implement desktop scenarios to test local emergency plans at least annually, incorporating lessons learned into planning arrangements.
21. Liaise with and support Directors, Divisional Leadership Teams and other senior managers to ensure they understand their responsibilities during major/critical incidents.
22. Assist with crisis management when business interruptions occur.
23. Develop and implement a review and governance framework for revising and updating the Trust emergency plans, engaging staff across divisions with clear lines of accountability.
24. Oversee the retention, analysis and reporting of communications during exercises, arranging debriefs and review sessions and submitting to legal entities when required.
25. Develop, manage, and coordinate the delivery of a rolling three‑year test and exercise schedule (including communication tests and control centre establishment tests) to build skill and awareness across all sites and services.
26. Coordinate training of key Trust staff and contracted services for major incidents and emergency planning and response.
27. Identify training needs and deliver appropriate training programmes, ensuring Trust staff understand and can perform their major incident and emergency planning responsibilities.
28. Ensure emergency planning training is available to relevant staff and coordinate their involvement in planning and response roles.
29. Act as an educational resource for induction and ongoing training updates, aligning programmes with organisational needs.
30. Provide expert advice, information and support to senior managers, clinicians and committees on matters relating to the remit, keeping the Trust informed of national and regional strategic issues.
31. Undertake personal development training to enhance skills and stay up to date with national guidance and best practice.
32. Contribute to the design, implementation and monitoring of internal metrics enabling the Trust to improve performance in quality, risk, business continuity, safety and compliance.
33. On occasion, work outside normal office hours and travel regularly due to the nature of resilience planning and response.
Training and Education Coordination
The post holder is responsible for developing, managing and coordinating a rolling three‐year test and exercise schedule, training key Trust staff and contractual services, identifying training needs, delivering appropriate training programmes, ensuring that the training is widely available, and maintaining an educational resource for induction and updates.
General Professional Duties
Provide expert advice to senior managers, clinicians and committees; pursue personal development training; contribute to the design and monitoring of performance metrics; and be prepared to work beyond normal hours and travel as required.
This advert closes on Friday 9 Jan 2026.
#J-18808-Ljbffr
