St John Ambulance Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

Appointment of

Chief Operating

Officer June 2018

Appointment of

Chief Operating Officer June 2018

St John Ambulance Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. The role

3. The person

4. Terms of appointment

5. How to apply

“As the nation’s

leading first aid

charity, we want to

teach everyone

simple, life saving

skills.”

St John Ambulance Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

INTRODUCTION

St John Ambulance Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

INTRODUCTION We are St John Ambulance, the charity that steps forward in the moments that matter to save lives and support

communities. Our highly trained volunteers keep people safe at events nationwide, springing into action to help

with medical incidents and emergencies. We also help the NHS by responding to some 999 calls as well as

transporting patients safely. And every year around 500,000 people, including children and young people, learn how

to save a life through our first aid training. We have saved lives and relieved suffering for 140 years, but we still have

much to do.

Our vision

Everyone who needs it should receive first aid from those around them. No one should suffer for the lack of trained

first aiders.

Our mission:

Is to:

• provide an effective and efficient charitable first aid service to local communities

• provide training and products to satisfy first aid and related health and safety needs for all of society

• encourage personal development for people of all ages, through training and by volunteering within our

organisation.

Our values

Our values guide our thinking and actions – they set out the ‘way we do things’.

Humanity – Treating others with compassion and respect

Excellence – Pride in doing an excellent job

Accountability – Delivering what we promise

Responsiveness – Continuously learning and improving

Teamwork– Working together effectively

Collectively, our values spell out HEART – people are at the heart of St John

Ambulance.

St John Ambulance Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

St John Ambulance Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

Our key activities

Event Services

Our first aid services are relied upon at thousands of events every year. We are on hand at events across the

country, from major sporting fixtures (including Wimbledon, Premier League matches, the London Marathon and

horse racing meets) to music festivals, carnivals, exhibitions and expos, air shows, horticultural shows and county

fairs.

Our resources include:

the largest fleet of Cycle Responder units in Europe, often arriving first on the scene in a crowded situation;

companion cars and mobile treatment units for large events;

resilient radio communications and mobile command centres;

mobile treatment centres and field hospitals;

a nationwide fleet of professionally-equipped ambulances; and

the latest equipment, including oxygen therapy, defibrillators, carry chairs and stretchers.

Ambulance Service

St John Ambulance is a leading not-for-profit provider of specialist patient transport services across England. We

build, mobilise and equip professional ambulance crews, providing out-of-hospital care to over 125,000 patients

across the country, every year.

Our services include:

Non-emergency patient transport

Complex needs – bariatric transfers

Paediatric and neonatal transport

Repatriations

Accident and Emergency (A&E) discharge

GP urgent transport

Emergency response and major incident support

On-demand private ambulance service

Emergency Response

In times of crisis, emergency support from St John Ambulance can be the difference between lives lost and lives

saved.

Whether responding to a national disaster or an individual medical emergency, St John Ambulance personnel form a

vital part of the nation’s emergency response system, working on the front line alongside the emergency services.

We work in conjunction with other charitable, voluntary and statutory organisations to provide a high quality service

(often through Local Resilience Forums) and by using the ResilienceDirect network.

In severe winter weather conditions, volunteers crew 4x4 vehicles to help patients that couldn’t be reached by

traditional ambulances, and transport community nurses who would otherwise be unable to reach patients relying

on them for their routine care and medication.

Our volunteers are fully-trained and always on hand to offer assistance and support to those in need. We respond

quickly, providing vital help for major emergencies, road accidents, weather incidents and fires.

St John Ambulance Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

In recent years, we have:

supported the 999 emergency service, allowing the NHS focus on major transport accidents;

mobilised ambulances, 4x4 vehicles and command and control vehicles at times of severe weather

including snow and storms;

provided first aid cover at evacuation centres and a house-to-house welfare service in areas of inland

flooding or at risk of flooding – such as during the 2015 winter floods;

evacuated residents from care homes where a utility failure has occurred; and

responded to support A&E departments where an ‘internal major emergency’ has been declared due to

exceptional demand.

Community First Responders

Our community first responders (CFRs) respond to local emergency calls and provide life saving first aid in those

vital minutes before an ambulance arrives.

Community first responders are trained to assess the situation, providing immediate first aid if needed, and

establish the patient’s previous medical history. Sometimes they can simply be a very vital second pair of hands to

an ambulance crew when they arrive. Having someone in the community who has been trained in first aid and can

reach the patient quickly makes all the difference.

The schemes operate as a community partnership between St John Ambulance and local ambulance service trusts.

We have over 300 community first responders volunteering in communities across England.

Volunteers operate as part of a rota system from their own home or place of work. They are dispatched at the same

time as an ambulance via ambulance control to attend Category A 'immediately life-threatening' calls. These calls

can include:

cardiac arrest

diabetic emergency

unresponsive patient

breathing difficulties

seizures

Community Projects

In addition to the first aid activities and services that we undertake, we also run a range of community support

programmes, which focus on health and social care in the community.

These programmes only run in selected local areas, as specified below:

The homeless service (Sussex)

St John Home (Whitstable)

The Priory Nursery (Stevenage)

Day Care Centres (North East)

Quality Assurance We are regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and put patient and volunteer safety at the heart of

everything we do. To this end, we continue to drive increased consistency of practice across our operational activity,

all volunteers and staff undertake robust safeguarding training. We make efforts to learn from incidents that occur

and have identified the need to support a learning culture throughout the organisation.

St John Ambulance Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

Financial Performance St John Ambulance continues to be in a strong financial position despite significant funding restrictions across the

charitable sector and the NHS. In the calendar year 2017, we achieved a net surplus of £5.0m (2016: £3.9m). Our

total income in 2017 was £101.8m (2016: £102.2m), which was similar to the previous year.

For more information, please see our annual report: SJA Annual Report .

Organisational Structure Our leadership team is made up of the following:

Chief Executive: Martin Houghton-Brown

COO: TBD

Director of Fundraising: TBD

Director of People and Organisation: Steve Foster

Director of Training and Enterprise: Mel Fox

Director of Priory: TBD

Director of Strategy and Communications: James Radford

Director of Quality and Standards: Roxy Boyce

Director of Finance and Corporate Services: Jo Keaney

Our boards of trustees are led by our Chair, Surgeon Rear Admiral Lionel Jarvis.

The Future

St John Ambulance is at a pivotal point in its history and we are building on strong foundations. We have a real

ambition to grow and evolve to make a further contribution, building on committed, highly skilled, volunteers and

high-quality services. Across the country, there remains a need to provide relief to people in sickness, distress,

suffering or danger. However, as circumstances around us change, we need to focus on where and how we can

make the most difference. At the start of this year, we welcomed our new Chief Executive, Martin Houghton-Brown,

who is leading us to the next point of our development. As a part of this, we are reviewing our strategy to ensure St

John Ambulance continues to be there for people when they need us most. To be successful, St John Ambulance

must continue to provide services locally, but we believe we can play a part in building safer communities for the

future and creating the right opportunities for all our people to develop with us and in their wider careers. A key

part of our onward strategy will be on shining a brighter spotlight on the value we bring to local communities,

reconnecting us with both our roots and the people we serve. With the NHS under ever-increasing pressure, St John

Ambulance has the potential to instantiate the idea of a volunteer health service – something the right Chief

Operating Officer will help make happen.

In this environment, the importance of robust operational leadership is crucial. Reporting to Martin, the Chief

Operating Officer will be at the centre of delivering an innovative, resilient, and safe quality service.

The Chief Operating Officer will have a wide range of responsibilities, including::

Ambulance Partnerships;

Community Resilience;

First Aid at Events;

Volunteering;

Young People’s programmes;

St John Ambulance Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

Clinical Services;

Facilities, Logistics and Fleet.

It is equally important that the Chief Operating Officer is a collaborative corporate leader who will contribute fully as

a member of the executive team in formulating strategy, policy and the delivery of all objectives in these changing

and exciting times.

THE ROLE The Chief Operating Officer provides executive leadership to the Health Services Division incorporating the

Ambulance, First Aid, Volunteering, Youth & Community, Clinical and Asset Management Directorates. This pivotal

role organizes and integrates current Health Services operating systems, programmes, initiatives, policies and

procedures, and communications on operating issues to ensure St John Ambulance is able to deliver high impact for

public benefit.

This person will be responsible for:

identifying and articulating the vision and strategic direction of the Health Services Division, and

collaborating on the implementation of strategies to achieve them;

advising and collaborating with the Chief Executive Officer and the Chair of Trustees/Prior on strategic

issues involving current and new Health Services programmes;

developing and improving directorate performance and outcomes, and ensuring policies and procedures

are in alignment with contractual obligations, regulatory frameworks and the St John Strategic Plan;

providing executive leadership on new Health Services programmes, operations, projects, policies and

procedures to ensure high quality results;

identifying opportunities for efficient and effective operations within and between Health Services

directorates, especially ensuring the volunteer experience is central to our capabilities and rewarding to

volunteers;

supervising Directors in setting goals, objectives and standards, implementing work plans, monitoring and

evaluating performance, and making corrective actions;

anticipating and forecasting health sector trends affecting Health Services and fully participating in the

strategic planning and performance measurement of St John;

delivering sound financial management in accordance with the budget, business plan and financial controls

policy and procedures;

coordinating relationships with clinical; charitable and statutory agencies, and document protocols for

agency communications and inter-agency working;

fully using the Charity’s unique community foot print, historical position in society and volunteers to ensure

that the ethos, culture and values of St John remain the guiding distinctiveness of all that the charity

delivers;

providing the Chief Executive Officer and the Chair of Trustees/Prior with operational analysis, information

and advice which will assist them in mitigating operational risks, in maintaining overall operational control,

and in monitoring St John Ambulance performance, particularly in line with legislation and Care Quality

Commission requirements;

attending Trustee meetings and committees to provide board members with analysis, strategy and risk

analysis;

deputising for the Chief Executive Officer, providing resilience for the charity and supporting the CEO as

required, including chairing senior leadership meetings in the CEO’s absence; and

St John Ambulance Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

performing any other duties commensurate with these responsibilities, the band of the post and skills and

qualifications of the post-holder.

St John Ambulance Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

PERSON SPECIFICATION The Chief Operating Officer will likely be educated to graduate level with, ideally, a second relevant degree or

professional qualification.

Candidates should be able to demonstrate:

a proven track record of leadership in the health services sector;

thorough knowledge of the principles and practices of programme development and management and

strategic planning;

robust and rigorous analysis of operational performance and successes to date, at both short term and

strategic levels;

management of large, multi-function and geographically-dispersed teams; and

volunteering experience either as a volunteer or in working with volunteers.

Candidates will bring the following skills:

confidence and effectiveness in working in a matrix management model;

experience of developing employees and Charity-wide volunteers in partnership with other senior

managers;

excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to influence effectively at all levels;

ability to lead and manage people in different functions toward achieving challenging goals;

ability to manage and resolve conflicting priorities and stakeholder concerns;

working knowledge of the principles and practices of public policy and the regulatory issues in health care;

and

demonstration of continuous learning within the health sector.

St John Ambulance Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

All candidates must be:

passionate about the work of St John including respect for the values, heritage and history and

prepared to travel and work flexible hours including evenings and weekends.

TERMS OF APPOINTMENT

This appointment is full-time and the location is flexible; however, this person will be expected to spend two days a

week in London.

Remuneration/benefits

The 6-figure salary for this role will be commensurate with the skills required to contribute effectively in such a large

and complex organisation.

Private healthcare through Aviva is available to the employee at St John's cost. Partners /children may be added at

employees cost

Other benefits (as part of our wellbeing programme) include discounted gym membership, cycle to work scheme,

access to Workplace Wellness' employee assistance programme and the Revitalised Wellbeing Zone.

Pension Scheme

We have a defined benefit pension scheme. Employees can choose between a 4% and 5% contribution which St John

Ambulance matches.

Annual Leave

25 days per year, going up to 30 days after 5 years.

HOW TO APPLY Saxton Bampfylde Ltd is acting as an employment agency advisor to St John Ambulance on this appointment.

Candidates should apply for this role through our website at www.saxbam.com/jobs using code TAAAOA.

Click on the ‘apply’ button and follow the instructions to upload a CV and cover letter, and complete the

application and equal opportunities monitoring* form.

The closing date for applications is noon on 11th July 2018.

If you are unable to apply through the website, please email belinda.beck@saxbam.com quoting reference

TAAAOA.

* The equal opportunities monitoring online form will not be shared with anyone involved in assessing your

application. Please complete as part of the application process.

St John Ambulance Appointment of Chief Operating Officer

Saxton Bampfylde

LONDON

9 Savoy Street

London WC2E 7EG

EDINBURGH

46 Melville Street

Edinburgh EH3 7HF

saxbam.com

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