Senior Public Affairs OfficerNHS

Job summary

Are you passionate about politics, health and care? Do you want to help shape national conversations about the future of the NHS and influence the decisions that matter? If so, this could be the role for you.

As a Senior Public Affairs Officer, you will support engagement with parliamentarians, policymakers and key health stakeholders to advance the NHS Alliance's influencing priorities. You will also:

• Monitor and analyse political and policy developments, providing timely intelligence, briefings and advice to colleagues and senior leaders.
• Build and maintain effective relationships across government, Parliament, the NHS and partner organisations.
• Support the development and delivery of public affairs campaigns, events and stakeholder engagement activity.
• Draft high-quality briefings, select committee submissions, correspondence and political messaging on complex health and care issues.

Main duties of the job

The Senior Public Affairs Officer supports the organisations engagement with central government, parliamentarians, political parties and national stakeholders. The postholder helps deliver public affairs activity that informs policymaking, strengthens the organisations influence, and enhances its profile across the political and stakeholder landscape.

Working within the public affairs team, the Senior Public Affairs Officer provides political monitoring and analysis, drafts briefings and correspondence, supports parliamentary engagement, and contributes to the delivery of key political moments including select committee inquiries, government consultations and the party conferences. The role offers the opportunity to contribute to the organisations influencing priorities, support campaigns, and work with colleagues across the communications department and wider organisation.

Job description

• Support the delivery of the organisations public affairs strategy, helping to engage MPs, peers, government officials and political influencers in a timely and targeted way.
• Monitor political, policy and stakeholder developments and draft briefings that can inform the organisations advocacy, external engagement and support for its members.
• Provide high quality political, parliamentary and stakeholder advice to colleagues, escalating issues to more senior colleagues, as required.
• Support parliamentary engagement activity including preparing submissions to select committee inquiries, briefing spokespeople, and drafting briefings and correspondence aligned to the organisations influencing priorities.
• Help to maintain effective relationships with key external stakeholders including Royal Colleges, professional bodies, think tanks, government departments, Arms-Length Bodies and patient charities.
• Contribute to planning and delivering the organisations engagement at political party conferences, including fringe events, stakeholder engagement, and logistical support.
• Serve as communications lead for some of the organisations key work programmes, campaigns and policy topics as part of the departments account management model.
• Participate in the press office on-call rota so that the organisation can provide a 24/7 service to the media, members and senior colleagues, as well as supporting the media team during busy periods.
• Support the development and delivery of the organisations communications agency, HealthCommsPlus. This could include providing specialist public affairs / communications support, client account management and other commercially oriented activities, subject to business need.
• Assist with administrative and operational support in the department, as required. This could include supporting the director of communications with diary management, booking travel and accommodation, processing purchase orders and invoices, formalising minutes and action logs, preparing internal papers, supporting the onboarding and induction of new starters, and providing logistical support at away days and other departmental events.

About us

The NHS Alliance is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive environment for our staff. A place where we can all be ourselves and succeed on merit. We offer a range of inclusive employment policies including family friendly policies and flexible working and we have range of channels to support staff from different backgrounds including our staff networks and a staff forum.

The NHS Alliance is committed to being a flexible employer. We understand the value and benefit to our employees being able to work flexibly and our agile working principles are designed to empower our people to work with optimal flexibility and minimal constraints to support a work life balance and take care of employee health and wellbeing.

You will receive an excellent benefits package, including 30 days annual leave (plus bank holidays), pension scheme, cycle to work scheme, salary sacrifice schemes and travel season ticket loans.