South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust

EPRR Assistant

The closing date is 03 January 2026

Job summary

37.5 hours per week

As an EPRR Assistant in our Mental Health Trust, you'll play a vital role in strengthening our resilience and ensuring we can respond confidently to incidents. Working closely with the Emergency Planning Adviser, you''ll help deliver the EPRR work programme and support our compliance with the NHS England Core Standards each year. You'll take a proactive approach to promoting a positive culture of emergency preparedness and business continuity, contributing to continuous improvement across the organisation. This role is ideal for someone organised, calm under pressure, and eager to make a meaningful impact. Join us and be part of a collaborative, supportive Trust that values your growth, ideas, and commitment to protecting the wellbeing of our communities.

At the time of advertising, this role does not meet the minimum requirements set by UK Visas and Immigration to sponsor candidates to work in the UK. For this reason, we are unable to sponsor anyone for a skilled worker visa for this role.

We are happy to accept applications from candidates who can prove their right to work in the UK or via alternative visa routes. Such applications will be considered alongside all other applications.

Main duties of the job

In this role, you'll provide essential coordination and administrative support across all areas of EPRR. You'll help gather evidence, maintain audit schedules, and manage action plans that keep our standards on track. You'll support the delivery of business continuity tests and exercises, assist with drafting key plans and reports, and help manage training records to ensure our teams are always prepared. You'll handle sensitive information, keep on-call resources up to date, support the readiness of our Incident Coordination Centre, and maintain accurate intranet and Resilience Direct content. You'll also represent the team at internal and regional meetings. Strong organisation, attention to detail, clear communication and a proactive, calm approach are essential to succeeding in this varied and impactful role.

All employees of the Trust are strongly encouraged to have their up-to-date flu vaccination to protect staff and patients.

We are aware that an increasing number of applicants are using AI technology to generate responses on NHS Job application forms. We strongly discourage this and will conduct a thorough screening process before selecting candidates to progress to the next stage. If you are using AI to enhance your application, please disclose this in your NHS Jobs application form.

About us

We are a specialist NHS Foundation Trust that provides community, mental health and learning disability services for the people of Barnsley, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield. We also provide low and medium secure services and are the lead for the west Yorkshire secure provider collaborative.

Our mission is to help people reach their potential and live well in their communities, we do this by providing high-quality care in the right place at the right time. We employ staff in both clinical and non-clinical services who work hard to make a difference to the lives of service users, families and carers.

We encourage and welcome applications from all protected characteristic groups, we value diversity and want our workforce to be reflective of our communities.

Being a foundation Trust means were accountable to our members, who can have a say in how were run. Around 14,300 local people (including staff) are members of our Trust.

Join us and you will be one of over 4,500 staff committed to supporting and improving the mental, physical and social needs of the thousands of people we meet and help each year.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all colleagues and volunteers to share this commitment.

We do reserve to right to close vacancy before the advertised closing date if necessary, so please apply as soon as possible.

Details

Date posted

10 December 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 4

Salary

£27,485 to £30,162 a year

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time, Flexible working

Reference number

C9378-QA01431

Job locations

Fieldhead Hospital

Ouchthorpe Lane

Wakefield

S Yorkshire

WF1 3SP


Job description

Job responsibilities

The post holder will work closely with the Emergency Planning Adviser to facilitate supporting works to achieve compliance against the NHS England Core Standards for Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) each year.

The post holder will adopt a proactive approach, promote a positive Business Continuity and Emergency Preparedness culture within the Trust.

KEY RESULT AREAS:

1. Assist in the compliation and co-ordination of evidence to support the annual NHS England Core Standards for EPRR, including report writing to the Board and wider audiences.

2. Administer action plans and schedules to support works to achieve compliance against non or partial complaint standards from the NHS England Core Standards for EPRR.

3. Update audit schedules for Business Continuity Plans (BCP), supporting the maintenance of a database of plans, authors, locations and BCP test dates.

4. Manage the administration of a local testing and exercising schedule for BCPs, providing physical support in delivery of live and table top exercises, collating responses and assist in the writing of test reports and action plans.

5. Assist in the preparation of the Trust Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response Policy, along with the EPRR Suite of Plans for the Trust Board and update the document as required (in consultation with the Emergency Planning Adviser).

6. Support the organisation and implementation of a Trustwide training programme for EPRR to ensure Training Standards are adhered to, by delivering EPRR training packages to staff across all levels of the Trust, both virtually and physically.

7. Receive and distribute sensitive information from NHS England, the Department of Health and other agencies relating to emergencies, threats and risk assessments, where necessary.

8. Manage the central administration of the Annual Staff Flu Campaign, including the organisation and minute taking of meetings, organisation of vaccinator training, distribution of resources and provision of information on the Flu pages on the Trust Intranet.

9. Manage the review, update and cascade of the Director and Manager on Call Packs to ensure that they are fit for purpose at all times. This includes the undertaking of quarterly out of hours communications tests and subsequent reports to the Safety & Resilience TAG.

10. Act as an official Decision Making Loggist on a rotational basis, in the event of a Major/Critical Incident and the establishment of an Incident Control Centre (ICC).

11. Manage the content of the Trust Battle Box for use in the activation of the ICC, ensuring contents are up to date and in good working condition.

12. Support additional administrative tasks in the event of an incident occurring.

13. Write reports for a variety of audiences both internal and external, following the completion of exercises, tests and training.

14. Circulate Weather Alerts when received in the Trust, maintaining distribution lists to ensure accurate distribution.

15. Update the Trust EPRR Intranet pages and Resilince Direct pages as directed by the Emergency Planning Adviser, ensuring all information is up to date.

16. Support the Emergency Planning Adviser to administer lessons learned on the Joint Online Learning (JOL) module on Resilince Direct on behalf of the Trust.

17. Attend local and regional meetings with Local Authorities, neighbouring Trusts and NHS England as and when required to support the Emergency Planning Adviser.

  1. Assist in the preparation of an annual report on the EPRR for the Trust Board, providing details pertaining to achievements and lessons learned during the previous 12 months along with planned objectives for the following 12 months .

  1. Ordering of goods including fridges and stationery items for the flu campaign and local department.

  1. Any other appropriate duties in consultation with the post holder.

Trust Values:

The Trust is committed to ensuring the highest standards of care and treatment and expects that all staff treat people e.g, service users, their carers, relatives, friends, colleagues, visitors etc, with dignity and respectat all time. The post holder must all time act in accordance with the Trusts Values:

Honest, open, transparent

Respectful

Person first and in the centre

Improve and be outstanding

Relevant today, ready for tomorrow

Families and carers matter

Safeguarding:

Report any concerns regarding the safety or wellbeing of children, adults service users, members of their families etc, in accordance with Trust Policy.

Prevent and respond appropriately to abuse and understand own role in this by undertaking Safeguarding training.

Trust policies and commitments to be read in line with the relevant Trust Policy:

All staff employed by the Trust must comply with the Trusts policies and procedures, undertake appropriate training required for their role and commit to:

ensure they are aware of the Whistleblowing Policy and how they raise concerns;

maintain confidentiality, in line with the Trusts Confidentiality Policy and Code of Conduct;

understand their personal responsibilities with regards to data quality for any information which they create, use or process in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Trust Data Protection Policy;

comply with the provisions of The Trusts Health and Safety Policy and Protocol. Ensuring their own safety and that of colleagues, service users and visitors. Know the action to be taken in the event of a fire and must undertake fire training annually;

receive supervision in line with the Trusts Supervision Policy and an annual Appraisal in line with the Trusts Appraisal Policy, during which mandatory, role specific and personal development needs should be identified and agreed;

understand their responsibilities under the Trusts Equal Opportunities in Employment Policy and ensure that they adhere to the provisions of the policy;

recognise, respect and support the equality diversity of staff, colleagues, service users, carers and the public. Contribute to a working environment which promotes and responds positively to difference and diversity;

ensure they carry out their duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people under the age of 18 years, as issued under Section 11 of The Children Act 2004, by being familiar with and adhering to Trust safeguarding policies and participatingin relevanttraining;

comply with their professional responsibilities to develop their practice and deliver care through a Clinical Governance framework (i.e. CPD, Audit, Supervision);

demonstrate, through practice and practical understanding, the importance of the continual development of individual, team and service wide quality improvement;

abide by relevant codes of professional practice, with the organisation taking action when codes of conduct are breached;

work flexibly to meet the needs of the service/organisation, whilst working within a culture of progressive employment practices and commitment to the Investors in People (IiP) Standards.

adhere to the Trusts smoke free policies, which prohibits smoking anywhere on Trust grounds;

being socially responsible by complying with measures that support the Trust in reducing or offsetting our environmental impact;

Identify and report risks, hazards, incidents, accidents and near misses promptly;

In addition to the Trusts own responsibilities under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, Code of Practice on the prevention and control of infections and related guidance, for your safety, ALL staff (and contractors) are responsible for ensuring their work adheres to this Code in the delivery of safe patient care.

This job description is an outline of the main duties of the post. The postholder will be required to undertake other duties commensurate with the band as directed. The content of this post will be reviewed in consultation with the postholder when necessary and in line with the service developments

For full details of the role please see the supporting documents attached.

Job description

Job responsibilities

The post holder will work closely with the Emergency Planning Adviser to facilitate supporting works to achieve compliance against the NHS England Core Standards for Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) each year.

The post holder will adopt a proactive approach, promote a positive Business Continuity and Emergency Preparedness culture within the Trust.

KEY RESULT AREAS:

1. Assist in the compliation and co-ordination of evidence to support the annual NHS England Core Standards for EPRR, including report writing to the Board and wider audiences.

2. Administer action plans and schedules to support works to achieve compliance against non or partial complaint standards from the NHS England Core Standards for EPRR.

3. Update audit schedules for Business Continuity Plans (BCP), supporting the maintenance of a database of plans, authors, locations and BCP test dates.

4. Manage the administration of a local testing and exercising schedule for BCPs, providing physical support in delivery of live and table top exercises, collating responses and assist in the writing of test reports and action plans.

5. Assist in the preparation of the Trust Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response Policy, along with the EPRR Suite of Plans for the Trust Board and update the document as required (in consultation with the Emergency Planning Adviser).

6. Support the organisation and implementation of a Trustwide training programme for EPRR to ensure Training Standards are adhered to, by delivering EPRR training packages to staff across all levels of the Trust, both virtually and physically.

7. Receive and distribute sensitive information from NHS England, the Department of Health and other agencies relating to emergencies, threats and risk assessments, where necessary.

8. Manage the central administration of the Annual Staff Flu Campaign, including the organisation and minute taking of meetings, organisation of vaccinator training, distribution of resources and provision of information on the Flu pages on the Trust Intranet.

9. Manage the review, update and cascade of the Director and Manager on Call Packs to ensure that they are fit for purpose at all times. This includes the undertaking of quarterly out of hours communications tests and subsequent reports to the Safety & Resilience TAG.

10. Act as an official Decision Making Loggist on a rotational basis, in the event of a Major/Critical Incident and the establishment of an Incident Control Centre (ICC).

11. Manage the content of the Trust Battle Box for use in the activation of the ICC, ensuring contents are up to date and in good working condition.

12. Support additional administrative tasks in the event of an incident occurring.

13. Write reports for a variety of audiences both internal and external, following the completion of exercises, tests and training.

14. Circulate Weather Alerts when received in the Trust, maintaining distribution lists to ensure accurate distribution.

15. Update the Trust EPRR Intranet pages and Resilince Direct pages as directed by the Emergency Planning Adviser, ensuring all information is up to date.

16. Support the Emergency Planning Adviser to administer lessons learned on the Joint Online Learning (JOL) module on Resilince Direct on behalf of the Trust.

17. Attend local and regional meetings with Local Authorities, neighbouring Trusts and NHS England as and when required to support the Emergency Planning Adviser.

  1. Assist in the preparation of an annual report on the EPRR for the Trust Board, providing details pertaining to achievements and lessons learned during the previous 12 months along with planned objectives for the following 12 months .

  1. Ordering of goods including fridges and stationery items for the flu campaign and local department.

  1. Any other appropriate duties in consultation with the post holder.

Trust Values:

The Trust is committed to ensuring the highest standards of care and treatment and expects that all staff treat people e.g, service users, their carers, relatives, friends, colleagues, visitors etc, with dignity and respectat all time. The post holder must all time act in accordance with the Trusts Values:

Honest, open, transparent

Respectful

Person first and in the centre

Improve and be outstanding

Relevant today, ready for tomorrow

Families and carers matter

Safeguarding:

Report any concerns regarding the safety or wellbeing of children, adults service users, members of their families etc, in accordance with Trust Policy.

Prevent and respond appropriately to abuse and understand own role in this by undertaking Safeguarding training.

Trust policies and commitments to be read in line with the relevant Trust Policy:

All staff employed by the Trust must comply with the Trusts policies and procedures, undertake appropriate training required for their role and commit to:

ensure they are aware of the Whistleblowing Policy and how they raise concerns;

maintain confidentiality, in line with the Trusts Confidentiality Policy and Code of Conduct;

understand their personal responsibilities with regards to data quality for any information which they create, use or process in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Trust Data Protection Policy;

comply with the provisions of The Trusts Health and Safety Policy and Protocol. Ensuring their own safety and that of colleagues, service users and visitors. Know the action to be taken in the event of a fire and must undertake fire training annually;

receive supervision in line with the Trusts Supervision Policy and an annual Appraisal in line with the Trusts Appraisal Policy, during which mandatory, role specific and personal development needs should be identified and agreed;

understand their responsibilities under the Trusts Equal Opportunities in Employment Policy and ensure that they adhere to the provisions of the policy;

recognise, respect and support the equality diversity of staff, colleagues, service users, carers and the public. Contribute to a working environment which promotes and responds positively to difference and diversity;

ensure they carry out their duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people under the age of 18 years, as issued under Section 11 of The Children Act 2004, by being familiar with and adhering to Trust safeguarding policies and participatingin relevanttraining;

comply with their professional responsibilities to develop their practice and deliver care through a Clinical Governance framework (i.e. CPD, Audit, Supervision);

demonstrate, through practice and practical understanding, the importance of the continual development of individual, team and service wide quality improvement;

abide by relevant codes of professional practice, with the organisation taking action when codes of conduct are breached;

work flexibly to meet the needs of the service/organisation, whilst working within a culture of progressive employment practices and commitment to the Investors in People (IiP) Standards.

adhere to the Trusts smoke free policies, which prohibits smoking anywhere on Trust grounds;

being socially responsible by complying with measures that support the Trust in reducing or offsetting our environmental impact;

Identify and report risks, hazards, incidents, accidents and near misses promptly;

In addition to the Trusts own responsibilities under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, Code of Practice on the prevention and control of infections and related guidance, for your safety, ALL staff (and contractors) are responsible for ensuring their work adheres to this Code in the delivery of safe patient care.

This job description is an outline of the main duties of the post. The postholder will be required to undertake other duties commensurate with the band as directed. The content of this post will be reviewed in consultation with the postholder when necessary and in line with the service developments

For full details of the role please see the supporting documents attached.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

  • NVQ 3 in Business Administration or equivalent.
  • RSA II Word Processing.
  • Advanced European Computer Driving License (ECDL).
  • Level 4 in Education and Training or demonstrable experience.

Desirable

  • Willingness to gain suitable qualifications to expand the role.

Experience

Essential

  • Experience of handling multiple stakeholders independently.
  • Experience dealing with sensitive information.
  • Experience of writing reports and analysing data.
  • Experience of project management.
  • Experience of delivering training/exercise programmes.
  • Experience of communicating effectively with peers at varying levels.

Desirable

  • Experience & knowledge of current Health & Safety legislation.

Special Knowledge/Skills

Essential

  • A sound working knowledge of Microsoft Office and the ability to produce reports and other documentation to a high standard of presentation.
  • Substantial experience of managing projects from their commencement to end product.
  • Ability to prioritise own workloads and work on own initiative with minimum supervision.
  • Excellent planning skills.
  • Able to communicate and influence effectively both orally and written.
  • Flexible approach to meeting workloads and deadlines, with competing demands causing interruptions.
  • Sound independent judgement.
  • Ability to critically examine a wide range of confidential and critical documentation.

Desirable

  • Understanding of NHS EPRR arrangements.

Training

Essential

  • Willingness to undertake additional role specific training such as Decision Making Loggist Training.

Physical Attributes

Essential

  • Ability to undertake the duties and demands of the post. A satisfactory sickness record over the previous 2 years (subject to the need to act with fairness and equality of opportunity, particularly where the sickness is related to a disability and/or pregnancy).
Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

  • NVQ 3 in Business Administration or equivalent.
  • RSA II Word Processing.
  • Advanced European Computer Driving License (ECDL).
  • Level 4 in Education and Training or demonstrable experience.

Desirable

  • Willingness to gain suitable qualifications to expand the role.

Experience

Essential

  • Experience of handling multiple stakeholders independently.
  • Experience dealing with sensitive information.
  • Experience of writing reports and analysing data.
  • Experience of project management.
  • Experience of delivering training/exercise programmes.
  • Experience of communicating effectively with peers at varying levels.

Desirable

  • Experience & knowledge of current Health & Safety legislation.

Special Knowledge/Skills

Essential

  • A sound working knowledge of Microsoft Office and the ability to produce reports and other documentation to a high standard of presentation.
  • Substantial experience of managing projects from their commencement to end product.
  • Ability to prioritise own workloads and work on own initiative with minimum supervision.
  • Excellent planning skills.
  • Able to communicate and influence effectively both orally and written.
  • Flexible approach to meeting workloads and deadlines, with competing demands causing interruptions.
  • Sound independent judgement.
  • Ability to critically examine a wide range of confidential and critical documentation.

Desirable

  • Understanding of NHS EPRR arrangements.

Training

Essential

  • Willingness to undertake additional role specific training such as Decision Making Loggist Training.

Physical Attributes

Essential

  • Ability to undertake the duties and demands of the post. A satisfactory sickness record over the previous 2 years (subject to the need to act with fairness and equality of opportunity, particularly where the sickness is related to a disability and/or pregnancy).

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer details

Employer name

South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust

Address

Fieldhead Hospital

Ouchthorpe Lane

Wakefield

S Yorkshire

WF1 3SP


Employer's website

https://www.southwestyorkshire.nhs.uk (Opens in a new tab)


Employer details

Employer name

South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust

Address

Fieldhead Hospital

Ouchthorpe Lane

Wakefield

S Yorkshire

WF1 3SP


Employer's website

https://www.southwestyorkshire.nhs.uk (Opens in a new tab)


Employer contact details

For questions about the job, contact:

Jennie Byron

jennie.byron@swyt.nhs.uk

07920008231

Details

Date posted

10 December 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 4

Salary

£27,485 to £30,162 a year

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time, Flexible working

Reference number

C9378-QA01431

Job locations

Fieldhead Hospital

Ouchthorpe Lane

Wakefield

S Yorkshire

WF1 3SP


Supporting documents

Privacy notice

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