An exciting opportunity has arisen for a full-time experienced competent Fire Safety Manager or a serving Fire Officer who is looking for a change in career at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust . The Trust comprises of a PFI site (Queen Alexandra Hospital) and a large non-PFI campus.

You will have extensive knowledge and experience in the application of Health Technical Memorandums (HTM-05 series Fire code), Health Building Notes (HBN series), Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, and the Building Regulations, and their practical implications and application in varied healthcare environments. The Fire Safety Act 2021 and Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 also apply to a number of our premises. You must act in collaboration with our Estates and Facilities Team, our PFI partners and work with Safety Groups within our Governance (Including Fire Safety), and you will be an excellent and diligent communicator, able to providing Fire Safety training to other colleagues, partners and contractors regarding risks, controls, design requirements and complex procedures to provide assurance to the Trust board as to fire safety compliance.

Main duties of the job

• You will ensure compliant standards of fire safety are implemented and maintained across a large and complex Trust. Ensuring legislative compliance, and the continuing development and provision of a safe environment for staff, patients and the public.
• You will program and conduct a comprehensive programmes of fire safety risk assessments, and keep accurate up-to-date records. Communicate the findings of the assessments to the appropriate managers, including where necessary escalation with in the Estates and Facilities Department and to Health of Safety.
• Deliver a structured program of fire safety drills and keep detailed records, and organise and run planned exercises to test efficacy of the implementation of precautionary measures.
• Maintain a comprehensive database of the fire safety risk assessments, fire drills, fire safety reports, training material and training records. Formulate and successfully deliver various fire safety training to staff and managers.
• Provide advice to Estates and Facilities staff on the design, build and refurbishment of premises in compliance with HTM-05 series Fire code, building regulations, and legislation. Provide expert advice and guidance to manager and staff at all levels of the organisation.

About us

Here at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, we are proud to provide expert, compassionate care for our local population. We are ranked as the third in the country for research, embedding education and training across the organisation. Our main hub is the Queen Alexandra Hospital, which is one of the largest hospitals on the south coast employing over 8,700 staff. Our patients come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds because it makes our hospital stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for getting it right for patients, colleagues, and our community, you will find a home at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust

Job description

Job responsibilities

• Identify the Trust's status regarding compliance with current fire legislation and guidance, escalate non-conformities and put in place/recommend corrective actions and forecast resources required.
• Develop, maintain and promote a Trust-wide fire safety plan and organisational procedures which influence and direct actions within the Clinical Service Centres and Corporate Functions. Monitor the implementation of the plan and systematically audit compliance with legislation and standards across the Trust.
• To be responsible for ownership of monitoring and reporting of fire safety which can be used to demonstrate actions that are required and to ensure compliance with regulations.
• Lead the Operational Fire Safety Group ensuring meetings are regular, documented and reported quarterly to the Fire Safety Group, Estates and Facilities Group, Health and Safety Committee and any other relevant Group/Committee.
• Liaise with Trust staff and others when conducting fire safety audits and fire risk assessments, compile standardised professional management reports as necessary and incorporate within the Divisional management systems. To provide support and guidance to the Divisions on compliance with Fire Safety legislation.
• To minimise the risk of fire occurring by establishing and maintaining safe fire procedures within a complex healthcare environment through delivery of fire awareness training and liaison, specifying fire warning and firefighting systems.
• Organise fire drills and monitor their effectiveness compiling accurate records of staff training and drills.
• Manage specialist investigations of all fire incidents, producing appropriate reports for the identified Board level Director with Fire Safety Responsibility. Record, investigate and report on fire incidents and unwanted fire signals.
• Maintain comprehensive records of all fire incidents and investigations ensuring that trends are identified, and that advice is given to the appropriate people for remedial action to reduce incidents.
• Keep records of all fire incidents and false alarms and ensure that fire reports are prepared in a timely manner to a standard format and where necessary issue remedial advice on the emergency. Manage the maintenance of fire safety records and the development of local fire safety manuals for Trust premises.
• Attend to fire calls, where necessary undertake an investigation and advise of any action plan.
• Provide specialist fire advice and guidance to capital schemes to deliver effective facilities, which maximise safety and minimise revenue costs and risk.
• Monitor the adherence to the Trust's Fire Policy and work to ensure that the Trust's health and safety policies and procedures are adhered to. Specifically, to ensure that the activities of contractors working on site do not subvert fire, health and safety of any premises through personal inspections.
• Prepare and deliver a programme of fire lectures to all staff, to educate staff of the need to have fire safety awareness and through scheduled informative and constructive training promote the needs both to prevent fire and to be aware and follow the proper fire procedures in the event of a fire. Supporting the Training Department with maintaining a register of staff who have been trained and those requiring training.
• Produce, review and update comprehensive fire risk assessments for all Trust properties and properties where Trust staff and patients work or deliver a service. Produce, manage, and report on any actions from the fire risk assessments. Identify capital investment requirements to ensure full compliance with national and international standards.
• Ensure that there is in place satisfactory means to carry out the statutory testing of all fire safety installations and equipment throughout the organisation and that such equipment comply with the appropriate regulations.
• A sound knowledge and understanding of the relevant Building Regulations and Standards and their application and in addition those of the appropriate British Standards or equivalent regarding all fire safety installations and equipment is required.
• Maintain up to date knowledge on all matters relating to fire safety. This may require attendance to any courses as required to assist with the execution of duties.
• The use of computers, with appropriate keyboard skills to enable the use of Trust software inc. Microsoft Office and Outlook. The ability to prepare, produce and deliver PowerPoint slide presentations for statutory fire awareness training is required.
• To produce highly detailed reports containing an analysis of reported fire incidents and identify any patterns, trends and recommendations.
• Develop and maintain effective partnerships with other Divisions and Services regarding fire safety issues, working with all levels of Trust staff and PFI partners, across all sites and community premises, to ensure an ongoing awareness of fire procedures and policies, primarily through regular consultation and organised fire safety training.
• Monitor by physical inspection and/or review of records the performance and quality of all matters relating to Fire Safety provided by the PFI service provider and other providers at the Trust's peripheral sites. Compile compliance and technical reports and conduct technical negotiations with the service providers to resolve issues identified in line with the monitoring programme.
• To monitor technical compliance performance of the PFI assets to ensure optimal availability and compliance of the facility. Responsible for raising any concerns, risk and work with Responsible Person(s), Head of Estates, Operational Teams and third-party providers to identify mitigations and escalate to the Director of Estates/Trust Representative if necessary. All risks and issue should be raised and tracked on the appropriate registers, including the Trust's reporting system, and considered at appropriate groups/committees if safe remediation cannot be achieved.
• Establish systems to monitor changes in legislation, NHS and other relevant guidance and local developments to ensure their incorporation into Hard FM service specification and Service Contracts.
• Plan and organise scheduled and unscheduled audits and performance review meetings and inspections, including physical inspection and review of records. Assist in dispute resolution matters and evaluate outcomes.
• To ensure annual Authorising Engineers and Responsible Persons and Trust Policy compliance audits and risk assessments are undertaken, reports received, and actions are completed within agreed timescales.
• Review the monthly PFI performance report and highlight issues and gaps in respect of technical compliance including requirements of the PFI Project Agreement and Schedules 14 & 18.
• Provide compliance highlight reports to the Head of Estates for the monthly contract meetings.
• Review and comment upon service providers and contractors' policies, working practices, quality systems and method statements in terms of compliance, authorisation, health and safety and disruption to hospital activities including peripheral sites.
• Ensure that service providers and contractors comply with relevant Trust policies and procedures.
• Liaise between hospital departments, external contractors, and other agencies and where necessary directly supervise any maintenance and project work in a way to minimise disruption to clinical and business services.
• Evaluate and assess perceived risks in estates related matters and prepare reports and recommendations as required.
• Review and monitor the service provider's business continuity, emergency, and contingency plans. Ensure such plans are robust, resilient, effective, and tested and witness such testing as appropriate.
• Review, audit and report upon the service provider's records and record keeping procedures.
• Provide technical advice on fire safety matters and PFI services and procedures to service users and colleagues, including training where needed.
• To actively participate with internal and external reviews and audits ensuring the outputs/actions from these are developed into clearly defined action plans and monitored to ensure timely completion.
• Generate, develop, review and comment upon data and drawings produced from various computer software including AutoCAD and CAFM.
• Authorised signatory for maintenance works, energy, and utilities.
• Provide, receive, interpret and process highly complex contract and technical data and information in various forms for the preparation of:

-Survey, occupancy, and spatial records for the estate via Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) System

-PFI facilities management contractor activity and performance reports and analysis

-Other reporting needs of the department

• Develop reporting policies and procedures and propose continuous improvements to reporting processes. Regularly provide high-level management information in written reports, web pages and spreadsheets detailing and interpreting cost, quantity, activity, and performance data.
• Provide data and create specialist reports on a regular or ad-hoc basis to support the Department's and the Trust's needs such as Estates Returns Information Collection, Premises Assurance Model, and other statutory and non-statutory data collection and freedom of information requests.
• To be an active member of the Estates, Facilities and PFI team to develop our relationship with the third-party service provider(s0) and key stakeholders to ensure robust governance and compliance of contracts. These include but not limited to construction standards, variations, insurance, change in law, change in healthcare requirements, hand-back, dispute resolution, retail outlets and third parties.
• Provide resilience to the Estates, Facilities and PFI team to ensure high quality of service and project delivery is provided.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Fire engineering/fire safety qualification to higher Degree level or equivalent of 5 year serving fire officer or senior fire safety management experience.
• Membership of professional organisation (Institution of Fire Engineers Institution of Occupational Safety and Health).

Desirable

• Training in healthcare fire safety

Experience

Essential

• Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.
  
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