Communications and Engagement Officer

The Communications and Engagement Officer plays a vital role in the Comms and Engagement Team. The role includes planning, organising and delivering straightforward communications tasks, events and projects, and contributing to larger and more complex campaigns and consultations.

Like all members of the team, the Officer is responsible for seeking out new and exciting stories across the Trust for our internal and external communications channels, and creating compelling content from these.

Other key tasks may include monitoring the mailbox, triaging requests, updating planning grids, logging media requests, monitoring and evaluating data from our activity, and compiling and sending out regular roundups to internal and external groups.

Reporting to the Communications and Engagement Manager, the post holder will develop strong working relationships with staff across the Trust and wider health and care system. Success in this post relies on good interpersonal skills, the ability to priorities and balance a large and diverse workload.

Above all, the Communications and Engagement Officer will be keen to get involved, to learn from the rest of the team and to share their own skills and knowledge, to support Whittington Health’s vision of helping local people to live longer, healthier lives.

Please download the Job Description and Person Specification PDF for a full description of this role.

External communications

• Seek out potential good news stories across the Trust that might be useable externally.

Take photographs and capture audiovisual material to be used internally and externally, and ensure appropriate consent for photography and video use is captured.

Draft content for regular proactive stories including media releases, web copy, tweets, and Facebook posts.

Support the team to respond to media requests in a timely way, working with senior and/or clinical staff where required, issuing corrections when appropriate.

Use excellent judgement to appropriately deal with information of a sensitive nature.

Liaise with designers and print agencies, including drafting briefs, gathering quotes, preparing content and final production of materials.

Internal communications

• Draft the Trust’s weekly staff email roundup, liaising with contributors to ensure information is provided in an accurate and timely manner.
• Update content on the Trust intranet, liaising with key staff across the organisation to deliver an effective communication tool for the organisation.
• Support the running of internal in-person and digital meetings and events.
• Use new templates and distribution platforms for staff newsletter(s), working with other directorates to provide professional expertise to train them in producing high quality and engaging content for their staff.

Distribute communication and campaign materials, such as posters, leaflets and other publications.

The Communications and Engagement Team supports the 5,000 staff and the 500,000 people the Trust cares for and supports at our hospital site and across the community. The team also builds and maintains positive relationships with regional and national health and care organisations and commissioners, local authorities, councillors and MPs, other local partner organisations, and local, regional and national media.

The Team plays a key role in managing and enhancing the reputation of the organisation. It leads and/or contributes towards campaigns, media management, communications with staff and external stakeholders, community engagement, corporate publications, patient information, service changes and major incidents.

The members of the Communications and Engagement Team also exemplars of the best of the Trust’s culture, living the organisation’s ICARE values and underpinning all their work with Equity.

For further details / informal visits contact: Name: Mike Smith Job title: Head of Communications and Engagement Email address: mike.smith37@nhs.net Telephone number: 020 7288 3131