Health Equity and Involvement Manager (maternity cover)

Health Equity and Involvement Manager (maternity cover)

We're the UK's specialist blood cancer charity and our vision is clear: we’re here to beat blood cancer. We fund world-class research; provide information and support to patients and their loved ones; and raise awareness of blood cancer. This is an exciting opportunity to shape our approach to health equity and involvement across Blood Cancer UK. As part of our Health Systems Improvement Team, you’ll help develop a new programme of work focused on improving health systems and services, ensuring the voices and experiences of people affected by blood cancer, particularly those from underserved and under-represented communities, meaningfully influence the change we want to see. You’ll be our go-to expert on health equity, inclusion and involvement, providing advice and support across the organisation. You’ll identify inequalities in access, experience and outcomes, help teams understand the barriers faced by different communities, and ensure an equity lens is embedded across our programmes, services and partnerships. You’ll also lead our organisation-wide approach to involvement, working with our Involvement Network and EDI Community Voices Group to ensure people affected by blood cancer have meaningful opportunities to shape our work. You’ll oversee the development and continuous improvement of our approach, champion best practice across the organisation and line manage our Involvement Officer.
This is a hybrid role, with an expectation of travelling to our office and attending meetings across the UK approximately 2–4 times per month. We are committed to actively promoting equality, diversity, and inclusivity. In line with our strategy we welcome approaches from individuals from underrepresented groups, including minority communities, and applicants with a disability, to better reflect the community we serve and help broaden our perspectives. Department Research, Policy & Services Employment Type Fixed Term Contract Location London/Hybrid Workplace type Hybrid Compensation £48,000 - £52,000 / year

Key Responsibilities

• Identify and translate health inequities in access, experience and outcomes for blood cancer patients using available lived experience insights, services data and external evidence, internal insights, highlighting priority populations, unmet needs and structural barriers across the patient pathway.
• Apply an equity lens across all system innovation programmes and partnerships, working closely with the Health Systems Programme Lead to ensure initiatives are designed to reduce, not reinforce, inequities.
• Ensure lived experience is meaningfully incorporated into programmes and projects through delivering and overseeing delivery of high-quality involvement activity. Provide guidance on proportionate, inclusive and effective approaches to involvement, and ensure lived experience perspectives are clearly represented in programme design, decision-making and evaluation.
• Oversee and deliver on the development and continuous improvement of the organisation-wide involvement programme, embedding involvement principles, standards and approaches across senior stakeholder groups and health equity initiatives. Line manage and develop the Involvement Officer to implement best practice and areas of continuous improvement to deliver organisational involvement priorities
• Provide expert guidance on inclusion, accessibility and reducing disparities in proposed interventions, supporting internal teams and external partners to identify equity risks and opportunities including within the development of the systems change programme.
• Develop and apply approaches to assess the equity impact of programmes and system change, contributing to evaluation frameworks that measure outcomes across different population groups.
• Capture and articulate learning on what works to reduce inequities, supporting thought leadership to inform internal strategy and external influence.
• Build understanding and confidence across teams and external partners in applying an equity lens to their work, developing practical tools, guidance and resources to support equitable programme design, and promoting equity and involvement across the organisation.
• Line manage and develop the Involvement Officer to ensure excellent levels of engagement and performance and that objectives are achieved.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

Knowledge

• Strong understanding of health inequalities and their drivers (e.g. socio-economic, demographic, structural barriers to care)
• Understanding of inclusion, accessibility and culturally competent practice
• Expert knowledge of approaches to involvement and co-design principles

Skills

• Ability to clearly articulate inequities and lived experience in a way that drives action
• Ability to spot exclusion risks and apply inclusive thinking across varied programmes, including those with a systems change focus

Experience

• Experience working in health inequalities or inclusion roles
• Experience embedding lived experience to inform service or programme design
• Experience contributing to or advising on service improvement, transformation or programme development, preferably applying an equity and inclusion lens to complex or systems-focused work.
• Experience working with multiple stakeholders in complex environments

About Blood Cancer UK

HOW TO APPLY
We ask you to send us a CV and cover letter. In your cover letter, we'd like to know why you're interested in working with us at Blood Cancer UK. It's also helpful if you tell us why you think you are a great candidate for this role based on the skills, knowledge and expertise section above. Your cover letter doesn't have to be too long, 1-2 pages is ideal. Please don't add photos or graphics to your CV, as we use blind shortlisting at this stage of the process.

Full details about our recruitment, including how we use blind shortlisting and what to expect at each stage of the process can be found on our . Sometimes we close our vacancies early, usually because we have had a lot of great applicants, so we’d always encourage you to apply early rather than wait until the deadline.

WHY WORK AT BLOOD CANCER UK?

We're the 9th best charity in the UK to work for according to Best Companies 2021!

We started because of Susan, we’ll get there because of you.
Blood Cancer UK was started by one family who lost their daughter, Susan, to blood cancer, and that history and sense of family continues to shape who we are today. When you join Blood Cancer UK, you don’t just become an organisational employee – you become part of a collaborative community dedicated to funding research into beating blood cancer that includes some of the most inspiring people you’ll ever meet.
And we’re not that far away from beating blood cancer. We’re confident we can do it within the next generation, and this makes us hugely ambitious and gives us a sense of real urgency. It also means we’re changing quickly as an organisation as we constantly challenge ourselves and strive to become more and more effective. This pace of change means working here isn’t for everyone. But if you’re excited by the chance to work in a fast-paced, agile and supportive environment with the focus and ambition to beat blood cancer this could be the place for you! We focus on results rather than time spent at a desk, so we deliver more for people affected by blood cancer.

Blood Cancer UK offers the chance to work for and with people affected by blood cancer, and the opportunity to advance your career and develop your skillset whilst taking on exciting new challenges and making your mark.

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
We are committed to actively promoting equality, diversity, and inclusivity. Read our which reflects our strong drive to change in this area.To this end we would welcome approaches from individuals from underrepresented groups, including minoritised communities, and applicants with a disability, to better reflect the community we serve and help broaden our perspectives.

You can read some examples of how we can support you through the application and interview process

Documents

Healthy equity and involvement manager Click to view Health equity and involvement manager job packClick to view

Our Hiring Process

Don't worry if you don't see any roles you want to apply for now. Register your interest to allow us to contact you when a suitable role meeting your criteria comes along. Please note that at the present time, Blood Cancer UK is unable to offer work experience placements or internships.