Are you an experienced and visionary health and safety leader looking to make a significant impact at scale?
Yorkshire Ambulance Service is seeking an exceptional individual to join our senior leadership team as Head of Health and Safety. This is a rare opportunity to lead the strategic direction of health and safety across one of the UK's largest ambulance services, shaping a culture where the safety, wellbeing and protection of our people is a fundamental priority.
As the Trust's most senior health and safety professional, you will lead an ambitious programme of safety transformation and continuous improvement, ensuring we meet the highest standards of legal compliance, governance and organisational learning while fostering a proactive and positive safety culture. Working closely with Executive Directors, senior leaders and frontline teams, you will influence strategic decision-making, drive innovation and embed health and safety excellence across every part of the organisation.
We are looking for a credible, experienced health and safety leader who can combine strategic vision, along with enabling a large organisation through the practical steps of delivery. The successful candidate will have a proven track record of leading organisational improvement within a challenging and complex environment, and be experienced in influencing at Board level and engaging effectively with leaders to make improvement happen. They will bring the ambition, resilience and emotional intelligence required to lead transformational change, lead and inspire the safety team, and foster a positive safety culture and ensure the safety, health and wellbeing of our people remains at the heart of everything we do.
The Head of Health and Safety provides strategic and professional leadership for health and safety, violence prevention and reduction, and manual handling services across Yorkshire Ambulance Service. You will lead a specialist multidisciplinary team of Subject Matter Experts and act as the Trust's senior expert advisor on all matters relating to occupational safety and health.
Key responsibilities include:
Leading the development and delivery of the Trust's health and safety strategy and improvement programmes.
Providing expert advice and assurance to the Trust Board, Executive Directors and senior leadership teams, developing the infrastructure, products and tools that enable good governance and good practice.
Driving organisational change to strengthen safety culture, staff engagement and learning.
Ensuring compliance with all relevant health and safety legislation and regulatory requirements.
Overseeing health and safety governance, incident investigation, risk management and assurance systems.
Leading and owning key relationships with relevant regulators, trade unions and external partners in respect of safety.
Influencing service transformation, workforce initiatives, estates developments and operational decision-making to ensure safety considerations are embedded from the outset.
Developing leaders and managers across the Trust to create safer working environments and improve organisational capability.
Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) NHS Trust geographically covers nearly 6,000 square miles of varied terrain, from isolated moors and dales to urban areas, coastline and inner cities.
We serve a population of over five million people across Yorkshire and the Humber and strive to ensure that patients receive the right response to their care needs as quickly as possible, wherever they live.
We employ more than 7,100 staff, who together with over 1,300 volunteers, enable us to provide a vital 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, emergency and healthcare service.
Our ambition is to be an employer of choice, and we are continuously working across our partnership to improve our collective offer to staff in areas like health and wellbeing, benefits and flexible working incl. hybrid working.
Benefits:
- Flexible working including part-time hours, job shares and flexible hours, agile working (role dependant)
- 27 days annual leave, increasing to 33 with service.
- Contributory Pension.
- NHS Discounts including shops, restaurants, gyms etc.
- Car lease and other salary sacrifice schemes.
- Dedicated employee assistance and counselling service.
- Opportunities for research participation, career progression and ongoing development.
- Well respected, committed and supported staff networks for our workforce.
This is a highly influential leadership role for an individual who is passionate about creating safer workplaces and enabling organisations to thrive through continuous improvement. As a key senior leader of the Clinical Quality Directorate, the post holder will provide strategic leadership for all aspects of health and safety management, ensuring Yorkshire Ambulance Service continues its journey towards becoming a high-performing, learning organisation where staff safety is valued as highly as patient safety.
The successful candidate will lead the development of modern, evidence-based health and safety systems that support operational excellence across a complex and dynamic emergency service environment. They will champion a culture of openness, learning and accountability, ensuring that risks are identified early, lessons are learned effectively, and improvements are sustained over time.
Working in partnership with Executive Directors, clinical and operational leaders, staff representatives and external regulators, the post holder will provide visible leadership and expert advice on complex health and safety matters. They will oversee organisational compliance, investigations, audits, assurance processes and strategic improvement programmes while ensuring health and safety considerations are integrated into every aspect of service delivery and transformation.
This role offers the opportunity to influence organisational strategy, shape future services, and leave a lasting legacy by helping create an environment where every member of staff can work safely, confidently and effectively while delivering outstanding care to the communities we serve.
