In a borough with amongst the greatest public health challenges in the country, do you have what it takes to work with local communities, the council and partners to improve health outcomes and address health inequalities in Tower Hamlets? 

We are offering an exciting opportunity to join our team to support the mobilisation of our insourced leisure service, known as Be Well with the intention to promote health and wellbeing and increase physical activity with our residents across the Borough.

The purpose of the role is to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Tower Hamlets and reduce health inequalities through the opportunities afforded to us by through Be Well, our new insourced leisure services and physical activity and community sport partnership.

The post holder will build and maintain relationships with commissioners and funders of health and social care interventions to deliver and grow our existing physical activity action plan, informed by a partnership owned theory of change. The post holder will set out a proposed commissioning & investment strategy which will detail what services within the health and social care economy could contribute to this agenda, informed by our emerging Physical Activity Health Needs assessment.

This role will need to work across a large project team and will contribute to the broader Public Health teams plans and duties, as well as support service design and deliver of the health agenda across leisure services. 

Key responsibilities include:

·      The post holder would lead on the implementation of the Public Health Leisure workplan, including but not limited to:

·      Supporting the development of any relevant health and wellbeing initiatives and physical activity pathways within Be Well in line with the health promoting leisure theory of change, this will include the identification of funding and commissioning opportunities for the implementation of such initiatives.

·      Working collaboratively with partners from across the system to support the implementation of the recently updated physical activity needs assessment recommendations.

·      Acting as the leisure and public health representative on the emerging Tower Hamlets Physical Activity partnership.

·      Leading on the evaluation of any new health and wellbeing initiatives within Be Well, including the NHIR PHIRST evaluation.

·      Writing and presenting relevant papers for senior-level boards

·      Supporting development of any relevant new initiatives linked to health and wellbeing, such as a single point of access, developing a business case for any initiatives identified.

·      Exploring and designing commissioning and payment models for partner services, as required.

·      Identifying and implementing an approach to work alongside residents to develop the offer.

This post will ultimately help the council and its partners to achieve better health and wellbeing outcomes for residents, particularly those currently least active. This will be achieved by increasing accessibility to Be Well; and providing a more comprehensive, joined-up and accessible health and wellbeing offer to residents. Through achieving better health, the health and social care system will also experience reduced demand as a result of the preventative approach taken; and the new service will experience a wider range and number of residents, leading to increased income for the council, supporting the financial sustainability of the service.

The post holder reports to the Head of Leisure Operations and will have a dotted line to the Associate Director of Public Health for Healthy Environments. Some limited evening and weekend work may be required.

This post will help the council address our ambitions to increase physical activity in the borough; support children to be a healthy weight; and increase participation among women and girls . Tower Hamlets has high levels of physical inactivity with over one fifth of adults reporting themselves to be physically inactive. Physical activity is key to addressing the physical and mental health long term conditions that drive health inequalities and cause poor health outcomes. Addressing these conditions will also address high dependency on health and social care services in Tower Hamlets. Alongside this, another strategic priority is addressing child unhealthy weight levels: supporting more children to be physically active will help the council achieve this ambition. 

Additional Information 

If you wish to discuss this post, please contact Matthew Quin, Acting Associate Director of Public Health for Healthy Environments (matthew.quin@towerhamlets.gov.uk) 

'Tower Hamlets vision for our borough is that: people are aspirational, independent and have equal access to opportunities; we are a borough that our residents are proud of and love to live in; and we are a dynamic, outcomes-based council using digital innovation and partnership working to respond to the changing needs of our borough. We want people who aspire to our TOWER values: Together; Open; Willing; Excellent; Respect.

Tower Hamlets has a zero-tolerance approach to, and works to eradicate, all forms of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, age, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marital status, status as a civil partner, gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy and maternity and looks to employ a diverse workforce representative of those groups. We recognise that people can also be disadvantaged by their social and economic circumstances, so we will work to eliminate discrimination and disadvantage caused by social class. We are a Disability Confident Employer, which means applicants who declare a disability and meet the essential criteria for the post are guaranteed an interview. Care experience has also been adopted by the Council as an additional protected characteristic.

We welcome applicants interested in flexible working arrangements and also applicants who live in the borough.'

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