Independent Member (Life Sciences)
- Body
- Public Health Wales NHS Trust
- Appointing Department
- Welsh Government
- Sector
- Health and Social Care
- Location
- The successful candidate will be required to travel to all parts of Wales, although a significant number of meetings and Board related events will be held at the Headquarters in Cardiff. Some overnight stays will be required.
- Number of Vacancies
- 1
- Remuneration
- £9,360 per annum
- Time Requirements
- 4 days per month
Campaign Timeline
-
Competition Launched
13/02/2019
-
Closed for Applications
TBC
-
Panel Sift
TBC
-
Final Interview Date
TBC
-
Announcement
29/03/2019
Announcement
An announcement has been made on the outcome of this appointment.
Minister for Health and Social Services agreed to advertise for a Non-executive Director (Life Sciences) to Public Health Wales NHS Trust. Subsequently, on advice from the Chair of Public Health Wales NHS Trust, the Minister agreed to withdraw this vacancy due to a lack of applications for the role. As a result, the post will be re-advertised the vacancy as a generic role in the near future in order to receive wider breadth and greater diversity of applications.
Date: 29/03/2019
Vacancy Description
Function of body
Public Health Wales is an organisation with amazing talent amongst its people. It is the National Public Health Institute for Wales. Public Health Wales’ vision is “Working to achieve a healthier future for Wales”, working across the life course to create an environment and society in Wales in which making healthy choices means making the easy choices. Public Health Wales works locally, nationally and internationally to improve the health and wellbeing of the people of Wales and to reduce health inequalities.
Public Health Wales has approximately 1,500 staff working in 51 locations across Wales and has a core budget of £117m.
Role description
Role and responsibilities
Independent Members will among other things:
- Discharge effective governance of the organisation, in all its integrated forms. You will take an active part in discussions, providing your opinion and challenge, and support to the Board on key issues.
- Contribute to the development and maintenance of a healthy culture across the organisation’s functions and services.
- Contribute to the work of the Board based upon your independence, your past experience and knowledge, and your ability to stand back from the day to day operational management.
- Contribute to and accept corporate decisions to ensure a joined up, robust and transparent decision making process by the Board.
- Be expected, in time, to fully understand the business through active involvement to enable the effective performance of the organisation.
- Work closely with other public, private and voluntary organisations ensuring that the views of patients, carers and families are fully involved in helping to shape, develop and improve services.
- Analyse and critically review complex information and contribute to sound decision-making.
- Oversee the effective stewardship of resources, ensuring openness and accountability in the allocation and utilisation of resources.
- Welsh language skills
Welsh language skills – Desirable
Person Specification
Independent Members will demonstrate the following qualities:
Essential criteria
Knowledge and Experience:
- An understanding and an appreciation of public and population health issues
- Ability to contribute effectively at Board level
- Ability to understand the role and work of the organisation and ensure the Board is central to the delivery of its services
- Experience in analysing complex information and contributing to sound evidence-based informed decision making
- Ability to work with the Executive Directors and other Board members, as a unitary Board, to ensure effective Board level leadership. Where necessary you will demonstrate skills that will enable you to hold the Executives to account, with appropriate challenge, for performance whilst maintaining a constructive relationship
- Ability to contribute to the governance of the organisation, ensuring it is open and honest in its work by contributing fully in the decision making process
- Ability to provide a knowledgeable, impartial and balanced perspective on a range of sensitive and complex issues
- Broad understanding of the governance requirements which need to be in place to comply with legislation, for example Data Protection Act (DPA), health and safety at work.
- Appreciation of the requirements of the Well-being and Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the influence that this must have on ensuring a “Healthier Future for Wales” for the population of Wales and future generations.
Personal Attributes and Skills
The organisation has defined a set of shared core values – Working together – with trust and respect – to make a difference. To help demonstrate your commitment to these values you will need to be able to demonstrate the following:
- Good communication skills and the ability to engage with staff and staff representatives at all levels within the organisation
- Ability to act as an ambassador for the organisation and to represent Public Health Wales at various events and conferences
- Skills and ability to work as part of a team and in partnership with other key organisations.
To be considered, you must be able to demonstrate that you have the qualities, skills and experience to meet all the essential criteria for appointment.
Role Specific Criteria
Public health affects all communities and individuals and we are therefore seeking applications from people from a wide variety of different and diverse backgrounds. For example, we would welcome applications from people with:
- a genuine desire to improve the health and wellbeing of the people of Wales
- an appreciation of the wider determinants of health
- experience of working with communities and community groups
- experience of providing and/or ensuring quality services and informed advice. This need not necessarily be in a health environment.
Desirable criteria
Knowledge and Experience:
For this role, it is also desirable for the independent Member to have experience in the area of adopting and exploiting innovative approaches and new technologies with particular experience in the Life Sciences field.
Additional Information
The following two documents should be uploaded to the “Reasons for applying” section of the online application form.
Personal Statement
Your personal statement is your opportunity to demonstrate how you meet each of the criteria as set out in the questions below. How you choose to present this information is up to you. However, you should aim to provide detailed examples that demonstrate how your knowledge and experience matches each of the criteria and which describe what your role was in achieving a specific result.
Please also note that your evidence will also be assessed against whether you have the necessary level of experience to effectively operate at Board level.
It will also benefit the selection panel if you can be clear which particular evidence you provide relates to which criteria. Providing separate paragraphs in relation to each criterion is common practice.
Finally, provide a brief paragraph that outlines why you applied for the role and what benefits would you be able to bring to the Public Health Wales Board.
Questions to answer as part of your application in your personal statement:
- Please describe your understanding of the public health challenges, opportunities and priorities in Wales and how these would apply within Public Health Wales.
- Please outline how you see innovation and new technologies being applied to improving health and well-being in Wales and what experience you have had, if any, in adopting new technology – particularly in the area of Life Sciences.
- Please give a specific example or examples of when you have had to analyse complex information to contribute to sound decision-making.
- Please describe an occasion when you have worked with someone on an important matter where your perspectives may have differed, but still maintained a constructive relationship.
- Please provide evidence of your communication and engagement skills. Provide one specific example outlining your approach in communicating and engaging with people at any level, what skills and methods you used and the outcome achieved.
- Please describe a specific example, or examples, where you have involved various teams, partners or stakeholders to improve a service or process. Please outline your personal contribution and the outcome.
- Please outline how you meet the role specific criteria as set out on page 7 of the Candidate Information Pack.
Curriculum Vitae (CV)
Please ensure your CV includes brief details of your current or most recent post and the dates you occupied this role. Please identify any past or present Ministerial appointments.
How to Apply
To apply for this role, click on the ‘Apply’ button on the Welsh Government on-line recruitment system. The first time you apply for a post, you will need to complete a registration form for the Welsh Government’s online application system. You will only need to register once, and you will be able to keep yourself updated on the progress of your application, and any other applications you make, via your registered account.
Once you’ve registered, you’ll be able to access the application form. To apply you will need to submit two supporting documents. The first, a document outlining how your knowledge, skills and experiences meet the criteria for the role as outlined in the information for candidates. This document should be no more than 2 sides of A4. Your application may be rejected if you exceed this limit. The second document is a full, up to date CV. The two documents should be uploaded to the ‘Reasons for applying’ section of the online application form.
In your application, you will also be asked to provide details of any activities which have helped you to develop skills that would be useful in a public appointment role, and list the organisations for which you undertook these activities. We also need to know about any political activity that you’ve undertaken over the last 5 years.
It is recommended that you register for an account and access the application form as soon as possible so that you see how the application form is structured, before starting to prepare your evidence. You don’t have to complete the application form all in one go. You can save your responses, and log in and out as required, until you’re ready to submit – just follow the guidance in the application form.
If you’d like to apply for this opportunity in Welsh, please use the ‘Newid Iaith / Change Language’ link at the top of this page, to take you to the Welsh version of this advert, from which you can apply in Welsh.
If you need any further assistance in applying for this role, please contact the Welsh Government’s Public Appointments Unit on 03000 616095 or PublicAppointments@gov.wales.