Job title: Communications Manager
Salary: £34-38,000 plus pension
Location: Feering, Essex
Background
Healthwatch Essex is an award-winning charity that aims to be
‘ an independent voice for the people of Essex, helping to shape and improve local health and social care services ’. As a young and innovative organisation, with powers and responsibilities set in law, we have a vital role to play in helping to change the future of health and social care. We will do this by making sure that the voice and lived experience of all people in Essex is taken account of by the people who commission and deliver local NHS and social care services.
We are a team of around fifteen professionals, who, alongside a thriving network of volunteers, undertake work that includes engaging the public in innovative and effective ways (such as through films, podcasts and engagement projects) as well as carrying out high-quality social research. We also provide a telephone- and webbased Information Service to help the public access and understand the NHS and social care services. Above all, we aim to influence the decisions made by local health and social care authorities. Our success depends on building constructive partnerships with the NHS, local councils, and voluntary and community organisations.
Our ambition is to be an effective agent of local change, and to reflect the highest standards of national and international best practice.
Healthwatch Essex was created as a result of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, and the G overnment’s aim of ‘putting patients and the public first’ through strengthening their collective voice. The Act created a national network of local
Healthwatch organisations, as well as national umbrella organisation, Healthwatch
England. The Act also gives local Healthwatch organisations certain powers in law to carry out their role, as well as certain obligations.
For more information about Healthwatch Essex, visit www.healthwatchessex.org.uk
, or contact the CEO, Dr Tom Nutt on 01376 572829 or thomas.nutt@healthwatchessex.org.uk.
1

The role
As Communications Manager for Healthwatch Essex (HWE), it is your responsibility to ensure that HWE communicates its activities in a way that is engaging and effective.
As a member of the Executive Team, you will develop and deliver a communications strategy and operational plan that covers the full spectrum of communications activities and disciplines, including production of written materials and outputs, social and digital media (including the website), branding and style, advertising and marketing and media and press relations. Much of this work you will undertake yourself; other aspects may be delivered by members of the HWE team or by external partners or specialists. Your role is to ensure that HWE communications are always pro-active, high quality, effective, and in keeping with the overall aims and objectives of the organisation. This role reports to the CEO.
Key accountabilities
- To develop and maintain an overall communications strategy for Healthwatch
Essex, including delivery of an annual operational plan and budget. These should enable you to: o set out a long-term vision for HWE communications, and balance this with the delivery of day-to-day communications activities and a capacity to react to unforeseen events and opportunities; o work with all members of the HWE team, ensuring that good communications supports and enables the achievement of their own and wider HWE aims and objectives; o identify and exploit opportunities to raise the profile of HWE and to publicise our activities and outcomes. This covers a wide and complex array of stakeholders and audiences, including local, national and sector-specific media; NHS and social care partner organisations and professionals; politicians and policy makers; local and national voluntary and community organisations, and the general public of Essex – approximately 1.5m people; o create a balance between delivery of communications activities undertaken
‘in house’ by HWE, or delivered by external organisations, partners, or specialists.
- To work with the HWE staff team to develop clear and effective communications plans for individual projects and work streams.
- To develop and oversee the production of content and material across a range of traditional and digital platforms, ensuring that language and branding reflects a consistent style and tone, and is commensurate with overall HWE aims and objectives.
- To develop and produce specific written materials and outputs, including key publications such as the HWE Annual Report, as well as regular communications
2

bulletins for HWE members and stakeholders, such as our fortnightly ‘Bitesize’ bulletin and quarterly e-news newsletter.
- To maintain and develop our presence in social and digital media (including the
HWE website), ensuring that content is written and sourced in way that is commensurate with HWE aims and objectives.
- To manage all aspects of media relations, including production of press releases and media responses. This will entail developing pro-active relationships with media organisations and professionals, and acting as a first point of contact for media enquiries received by HWE.
- To develop and deliver an appropriate approach to marketing and advertising, identifying and exploiting opportunities to effectively publicise the work of HWE, whether through traditional or digital media.
- To develop and support current and new approaches to different and innovative forms of audio-visual communications, such as films, podcasts and creative arts.
- To develop and maintain networks with external communications professionals
(such as from the NHS, social care and voluntary and community organisations), ensuring that HWE is represented appropriately in meetings and forums, and ensuring that HWE is able to contribute to system-wide projects where appropriate and where it advances HWE’s aims and objectives.
- To monitor and evaluate the impact of communications activity, such as through audience metrics and feedback, and to ensure that this is reported appropriately to the HWE Executive team, and externally to funders and other stakeholders.
- To design and provide a lead to internal communications principles and activities.
- To keep up-to-date with legislation, ethics and policy around media and related aspects, ensuring that HWE communications activities are always high quality and reflect best practice.
- To work with the CEO, HWE staff and the Board of Directors to develop opportunities for diversifying revenue streams for HWE, whether through traded or commissioned activities, such as training, research and public engagement, or the exploration of opportunities outside the county of Essex.
- To conduct other tasks and duties as considered reasonable by the CEO.
Person specification
You will be an experienced communications professional, mostly likely with management experience, but certainly with a good insight into what constitutes effective communications across different audiences and channels. You will be enthusiastic about working within a small and ambitious team, and willing to take a lead in driving forward the communications of Healthwatch Essex. This will mean – at
3

the current time – being the sole dedicated communications professional within the organisation, and so comfortable undertaking a wide spectrum of communications tasks and activities.
As you will have responsibility for the development and delivery of an overall communications strategy for HWE, you will work across the HWE staff team and assist them to understand, shape and realise their own aims and objectives. This could include delivering both ‘in house’ communications activity, or sourcing expertise from external partners or contractors. You will therefore be comfortable developing different kinds of working relationships, and be willing to exploit the benefits of networking externally and building close relationships with partner organisations.
Needless to say, you will have excellent written and verbal skills, and be an effective communicator yourself. You will have a high regard for the sensitivities of working within health and social care, including with volunteers, and be able to demonstrate a commitment to advancing the interests of patients, service users and the public within the changing landscape of health and social care. You will understand and be able to communicate the values and principles of HWE, and be willing to work flexibly to achieve the organisation’s strategic objectives.
Knowledge, skills attributes and experience
Essential
You will:

Be educated to degree level, or have equivalent experience or related qualifications.

Be an effective and imaginative communicator, in verbal and written forms.

Have knowledge and experience of successful communications within a health/social care or voluntary and community sector, or related fields or disciplines.

Have knowledge and experience of social media and its applications.

Have knowledge and experience of effective media engagement.

Have knowledge and experience of using creative ways to interact with an audience, such as audio-visual material and digital formats.

Have knowledge and experience of project planning and management, within the context of communications.

Have experience of working in a fast-paced office environment, managing a potentially unpredictable workload.

Have knowledge and experience of using IT-systems, including Microsoft
Office and the internet.

Willingness to travel across Essex, and undertake occasional evening work.
Desirable

Experience of communicating applied social research.

Experience of community outreach and engagement.
4

Closing date for applications: 12 noon on 4 December 2015
Interview date: 15 December 2015 final
5