Occupational Health Adviser

Job summary

We have an exciting opportunity to join our Health, Safety and Technical Training Team as an Occupational Health Adviser.

The Health, Safety and Technical Training (HSTT) team has a focus on managing risks to our staff, volunteers, contractors and visitors. Ensuring competence at all levels including operator, management and leadership skills. HSTT work closely with function heads, team leaders and staff groups to evaluate compliance, health and safety priorities and training needs across the organisation.

Forestry England manages the public forest estate on behalf of the Forestry Commission in England. The 254,000-hectare estate is the largest single landholding in the country, comprising over 15,000 separate properties, including some of the finest woodlands, forest and open land in England, a wide range of housing and commercial property and a variety of recreation/leisure businesses. The properties are spread across England with management centred on 6 Forest Districts, supported by specialist business units and the National Office teams.

You would be joining a family of approximately 1,200 colleagues and approximately 3,000 volunteers working across a broad range of roles to help us manage the estate, spanning forestry and land management, timber harvesting, property development, recreation and events and the management of 27 visitor centres.

What you’ll do…

Please see the job description below for more information and details about what we need from you.

Job description

Key responsibilities & accountabilities

• Lead the Forestry Commissions Annual Health Surveillance Programme the annual health surveillance programme cycle end-to-end (planning, delivery and evaluation).
• Develop and manage programme plans, timelines, milestones and risk mitigation actions, ensuring provider readiness and operational resilience ahead of programme delivery.
• Liaise with the external provider, local coordinators, line managers and the HSTT to identify and facilitate participation in the programme.
• Utilise the external providers systems and processes to manage the Health Surveillance programme. Collating data and ensuring the accurate records are maintained.
• Support the delivery of key occupational health communications in a creative and engaging way.
• Ensure health surveillance arrangements align with statutory requirements and HSE guidance, maintaining appropriate governance, assurance and audit-ready records.
• Monitor programme performance, including compliance levels, utilisation and trends, and provide regular reports and insights to Health & Safety, Wellbeing and HR stakeholders.
• Lead resolution and escalation of operational issues affecting programme delivery, including clinic disruption, capacity issues or provider performance.
• Evaluate programme outcomes and lead lessons-learned activity to drive year-on-year improvements in efficiency, user experience and compliance.
• Provide support to line managers and frontline delivery staff on practical implementation occupational health arrangements across a range of topics and work areas. Including COSHH, Noise & Vibration.
• Develop and maintain and occupation health risk profile for a range of roles and tasks across the organisation.
• Build strong working relationships in order to uncover areas of challenge relating to occupational health arrangements and facilitate problem solving and adjustments to current working practice in order to support teams to work safely.
• Support the development and review of new or existing health and safety policies, procedures and guidance as directed by the Health, Safety & Technical Training team.
• Liaise with the HR team on Occupational Health matters, reviewing results/ required action from health surveillance, case work and support attendance.

And any other tasks, reasonably requested by your line manager.

Person specification

Skills, knowledge & experience

Essential experience

• Experience working in an Occupational Health role;
• Experience of managing an occupational health surveillance programme;
• Experience of building strong working relationships to support problem solving, working through challenges and developing alternative strategies to overcome concerns;
• Experience of applying organisation policy to ensure compliance with legislation;
• Experience of case management;
• Proven ability to manage a changing workload.
• Ability to use full range of Microsoft Office software packages

Desirable experience

• Knowledge and understanding of occupational health issues in forestry or similar organisations

Essential Competencies and Behaviours

The successful candidate will need to demonstrate:

• Excellent negotiation & communication skills;
• Good problem-solving abilities;
• Ability to question, analyse, & investigate incidents;
• Good team player but equally motivated to work on own initiative.

As the post involves dealing with contacts across the UK, travel with overnight stays away from home is requirement of the post.
The duties of this post require the applicant to have a full current driving licence that enables them to drive in the UK.

Qualifications

Essential

• Professionally qualified in Occupational Health Nursing (Degree or Diploma)
• Member of or working towards FOH Associate or NMC Nurse
• Evidence of maintaining your own CPD

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Managing a Quality Service
• Working Together
• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £33,854, Forestry Commission contributes £9,807 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours.

How to apply…

We cannot accept applications via email. Please follow the steps outlined below. Any CVs and/or personal statements sent outside the system will not be considered for shortlisting.

You will be asked to write a 200 word statement on your relevant experience and career history, along with a personal statement of no more than 500 words. You will be assessed on both during sifting. More details about how to apply are listed on the application form.

The Behaviours being assessed at interview are –

• Managing a quality service
• Working together
• Communicating and influencing
• Delivering at pace

You may also be assessed on Experience, Strength based questions, and/or the Technical Success Profile at the interview. The technical element could include a presentation, practical or written task.

Interviews are scheduled for Monday 23 November.

Successful candidates will undergo a criminal record check and the government baseline personnel security standard check.

If you require any reasonable adjustments, please email fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk.

If you're planning to use AI to support your application, please ensure you've read our guidelines here first.

Read more about our application process and working with us on the Forestry England website.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : FC Recruitment Team
• Email : fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk

Further information

Our recruitment process is underpinned by the principle of appointment on the basis of fair and open competition and appointment on merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles.If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact FCE by email: englandhr.services@forestryengland.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can contact the Civil Service Commission, which regulates all Civil Service recruitment.

Attachments

Forestry England Job Description - Occupational Health Adviser (PB5) Opens in new window (pdf, 170kB)