NHS Scotland is committed to encouraging equality and diversity among our workforce and eliminating unlawful discrimination. The aim is for our workforce to be truly representative and for each employee to feel respected and able to give their best. To this end, NHS Scotland welcomes applications from all sections of society.

Team Lead – Field Epidemiology

About the Organisation:

Public Health Scotland is a new organisation, set up to improve the lives of people in Scotland, to reduce health inequalities that persist in many of our communities. It’s an exciting time to join the organisation, with PHS at the forefront of Scotland’s efforts to tackle Coronavirus and its implications across society.

The Post:

The role of the Clinical and Protecting Health Directorate is to protect the people of Scotland from infectious and environmental hazards; enable high-quality clinical and public health knowledge, research and innovation; and change clinical and public health practice by using audits at a national and local level.

An exciting and novel opportunity has arisen with the Clinical and Protecting Health Directorate of PHS, who are creating a Field Epidemiology Team. The FET will provide a national service primarily to support NHS Boards, other partners and the national response to new infectious disease outbreaks. These include SARS-CoV-2 variants or mutations but also a range of other pathogens and public health incidents including environmental or chemical incidents.

The post holder will be an enthusiastic, flexible individual who will provide leadership on epidemiological, microbiological, infectious disease and data science capacity and skills to ensure the team aid and deliver incident and outbreak investigations of the highest quality.

The Candidate:

You will be responsible for developing a new team to deliver and work collaboratively with colleagues both internal and external. You will lead on the epidemiologic analyses of the data, coordinating advice and guidance on specialist aspects of the analyses from topic teams where relevant.

You will have strong communication skills, as you will have overall responsibility for interpreting and preparing timely communications about the status of the investigations as well as scientific reports and published articles of the results.

The successful candidate will be required to undergo a PVG Scheme/Disclosure Scotland check. Any candidate who has lived/worked overseas for more than 12 months in the preceding 5 years will also be required to provide a criminal record check from the appropriate overseas agency.

Location and Working Pattern:

Gyle Square, Edinburgh or Meridian Court, Glasgow - please note, the Glasgow location will change to another Glasgow location approximately July 2023.

Work pattern - Monday to Friday, 37.5 hours per week.

PHS operate a hybrid working model with a mixture of working at home and days in the office each week.

There will be an expectation to travel to local areas for some meetings and events.

This post will be included in the out of hours rota and will be recompensed under Agenda for Change terms and conditions.

Salary placement will start at the bottom point of the scale unless individuals have previous NHS experience.

During times of public health emergency, or other urgent business need, you may be required on a temporary basis to work your normal contracted working hours over 7 days including weekends, in order to meet the needs of the service.

It is a condition of this employment that you must live and remain a resident within the UK for the post in which you will be employed with PHS.

Benefits:

Our benefits package includes pension scheme, comprehensive range of work life balance policies, occupational health services, learning resource centres and discounted leisure, financial and shopping benefits

Further Information:

For an informal discussion on the post, please contact Fiona MacKenzie on fiona.mackenzie13@phs.scot or Maria Rossi on maria.rossi@phs.scot

Closing date for completed applications is 26 May 2023.

Further information on PHS is available from: www.publichealthscotland.scot

Please note that the majority of correspondence is sent by e-mail only, so please check your e-mail regularly (including junk folders).

Public Health Scotland is an equal opportunities employer and as such guarantees to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for our vacancies