Group Health & Safety Manager / Competent Person
Crescent Pharmaceutical Group
£45,000–£65,000 per year, dependent on experience
Permanent | Full-time
Multi-site UK role
About the Role
Crescent Pharmaceutical Group is recruiting an experienced Group Health & Safety Manager to lead health and safety across our UK operations and formally act as the Group's Competent Person for health and safety purposes.
This is a senior, hands-on role with genuine ownership and visibility across the business.
We already have a corporate health and safety governance structure in place. We are now looking for a suitably qualified and experienced professional to take ownership of that framework, ensure it operates effectively, identify weaknesses and drive continuous improvement across the Group.
Our operations include pharmaceutical manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, laboratories, engineering and office environments. We are not looking for someone whose approach to health and safety is simply to produce paperwork or restrict operations.
We want a commercially aware health and safety professional who understands how to manage risk properly, proportionately and practically – protecting our people and the business while enabling operations to perform effectively.
Key Responsibilities
As Group Health & Safety Manager, you will:
- Act as the Group's Competent Person for health and safety, providing competent advice and assistance to senior management and operational teams.
- Lead and continuously improve the Group health and safety management system and governance framework.
- Provide senior management with clear, evidence-based advice on significant health and safety risks and priorities.
- Establish and maintain Group health and safety policies, standards, procedures and controls.
- Ensure responsibilities and accountabilities for health and safety are clearly understood throughout the organisation.
- Lead the Group risk assessment framework and ensure assessments are suitable, sufficient, current and translated into effective controls.
- Review higher-risk activities and provide practical advice on appropriate risk reduction.
- Maintain oversight of areas including COSHH, PUWER, LOLER, DSEAR, workplace transport, manual handling, working at height, contractors, fire safety and other applicable workplace risks.
- Establish effective inspection, audit and assurance programmes across Group sites.
- Ensure identified deficiencies are recorded, risk-ranked, assigned to accountable owners and tracked through to effective closure.
- Lead or oversee investigations into significant accidents, incidents and near misses.
- Ensure investigations identify genuine root causes and result in appropriate corrective and preventive actions.
- Determine whether incidents require statutory reporting, including under RIDDOR, and ensure appropriate action is taken.
- Identify incident and near-miss trends and ensure learning is shared across relevant sites.
- Develop and maintain meaningful Group health and safety KPIs and dashboards.
- Provide concise monthly reporting to senior management covering performance, significant risks, incidents, trends and overdue actions.
- Escalate significant risks and persistent non-compliance appropriately.
- Lead health and safety governance meetings and ensure actions and decisions are properly tracked.
- Maintain awareness of changes to UK health and safety legislation and assess their implications for the business.
- Develop and deliver an annual Health & Safety Improvement Plan.
- Support and coach managers to strengthen health and safety ownership within their own operations.
- Promote a positive reporting culture where incidents, near misses and unsafe conditions are identified, investigated and learned from.
- Liaise with regulators and external specialists where required.
- Drive measurable improvement in the maturity and effectiveness of health and safety management across the Group.
Competent Person Responsibilities
The successful candidate will be appointed to provide the organisation with the competent health and safety assistance required to support compliance with applicable UK health and safety legislation.
You will be expected to have the knowledge, experience and professional judgement necessary to:
- Identify and understand the significant risks arising from our operations.
- Advise senior management on appropriate and proportionate controls.
- Identify shortcomings in existing arrangements.
- Recommend and drive improvements.
- Escalate unacceptable risks appropriately.
- Ensure appropriate monitoring and review arrangements are established.
- Maintain sufficient professional knowledge to provide competent advice.
- Recognise where specialist external expertise is required and ensure it is obtained.
This appointment carries significant professional responsibility and applicants should be comfortable operating with the independence and authority expected of a senior health and safety professional.
Operational managers will remain accountable for safely managing their respective operations. The Group Health & Safety Manager will provide the governance, competent advice, challenge, oversight and assurance required to ensure the overall system remains effective.
Minimum Requirements
Please do not apply unless you meet the essential requirements below.
Essential
- NEBOSH Diploma / Level 6 Occupational Health & Safety qualification, or recognised equivalent.
- Significant professional health and safety experience within a complex operational environment.
- Demonstrable experience of leading or owning a health and safety management system, rather than working solely in an advisory or administrative capacity.
- Experience within manufacturing, pharmaceutical, chemical, engineering, logistics, warehousing or another comparable operational environment.
- Strong working knowledge of UK health and safety legislation.
- Demonstrable experience undertaking and critically reviewing risk assessments.
- Strong accident and incident investigation experience, including root-cause analysis and corrective actions.
- Experience establishing and monitoring health and safety KPIs.
- Experience conducting audits and workplace inspections.
- Evidence of personally leading meaningful health and safety improvements.
- Ability to communicate effectively and credibly with employees, operational managers and senior leadership.
- Confidence to challenge unacceptable risk while developing practical solutions with operational teams.
- Strong organisational skills and ability to track multiple actions through to completion.
A NEBOSH General Certificate alone will not normally be sufficient for this position.
Highly Desirable
- CMIOSH or actively progressing towards Chartered status.
- Pharmaceutical or GMP-regulated manufacturing experience.
- Multi-site health and safety management experience.
- ISO 45001 experience.
- Formal incident/root-cause investigation training.
- DSEAR experience.
- Machinery and engineering safety experience.
- Warehouse, FLT and workplace-transport risk-management experience.
- Fire safety qualification or substantial practical fire safety experience.
What We Are Looking For
We are looking for someone who takes ownership.
You should be equally comfortable reviewing governance with senior management and walking an operational area with supervisors and employees to understand how work is actually being performed.
You will need to distinguish between meaningful risk and unnecessary bureaucracy.
Where an activity presents unacceptable risk, we expect you to challenge it.
Where an activity can be undertaken safely with sensible controls, we expect you to help the business find the solution rather than simply saying no.
You should be analytical, organised, persistent and comfortable holding people accountable for agreed actions.
Most importantly, you should want to leave the organisation demonstrably safer and better controlled than you found it.
What We Offer
- £45,000–£65,000 salary, dependent on qualifications and experience.
- Permanent, full-time position.
- A senior role with genuine ownership of the Group health and safety framework.
- Direct engagement with senior management.
- The opportunity to influence health and safety across a growing UK pharmaceutical group.
- An established governance structure from which to drive further improvement.
- Scope to develop systems, KPIs, standards and improvement programmes rather than simply maintain existing processes.
Job Types: Full-time, Permanent
Salary: £45,000–£65,000 per year
Work Location: Basingstoke RG21
Job Types: Full-time, Permanent
Pay: £45,000.00-£65,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Free parking
- Life insurance
- On-site parking
Experience:
- health and safety/competent person: 7 years (required)
Licence/Certification:
- NEBOSH Diploma/L6 Occupational H&S or equivalent. (required)
Work Location: In person
