Research Coordinator

Research Coordinator – Healthwatch Barnet

Job Title:                        Research Coordinator - Healthwatch (Peer Role)

Salary Scale:                 £30,000 pro rata per annum, dependent on experience.

Hours:                             0.6 FTE (equal to 21 hours per week), permanent contract.

Working Pattern:        3 days per week. Reasonable flexibility in this pattern available by mutual agreement.

Based at:                       Home based, with some travel into Barnet, for which Inclusion Barnet will cover travel expenses. Applicants must live within a reasonable travelling time and distance of Barnet.

Please note – applicants must have lived experience of disability including Mental Health Issues or a long-term condition.

Job description

Are you passionate about patient and public engagement, effecting system change, and improving services?  Are you confident to design and carry out research, and tell the story of the findings in briefings and reports?  Are you a well-organised project co-ordinator, with great attention to detail? If so, we’d love to work with you to improve the experiences of people using health and social care services in Barnet.

As our Research Coordinator, you will be responsible for gathering the views and experiences of members of the public, as well as carrying out desk based research. You will have a flair for planning, logistics and collating information. Your role will involve presenting findings clearly and persuasively in Healthwatch Barnet reports, as well as writing e-newsletter and website copy. You will have a fundamental role in ensuring users, patients and external stakeholders are involved in shaping the future of healthcare services in the Borough.

In return for your commitment to the cause, you will become part of a friendly and supportive team, working within a focused but flexible culture, where diversity is valued and you can bring your whole self to work.   

About Healthwatch

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 required each local authority area to set up a Healthwatch organisation. Healthwatch gives people a powerful voice both locally and nationally. At a local level, Healthwatch Barnet works to help people get the best from their health and social care services, whether it's improving them today, or helping to shape them for tomorrow. Healthwatch Barnet is about local voices being able to influence the delivery and design of their services, not just for the people who use them, but anyone who might need to use them in future.

Healthwatch Barnet transferred to Inclusion Barnet on 1st April 2020. It is commissioned by the London Borough of Barnet to provide the following 6 key functions:

·          Gather views and understand the experiences of patients and the public

·          Make people’s views known

·          Promote and support the involvement of people in the commissioning and provision of local care services and how they are scrutinised

·          Recommend investigation or special review of services via Healthwatch England or directly to the Care Quality Commission (CQC)

·          Provide advice and information (signposting) about access to services and support for making informed choices

·          Making the views and experiences of local people known to Healthwatch England (and to other local Healthwatch organisations) and providing a steer to help it carry out its role as national champion

About Inclusion Barnet

Inclusion Barnet is a thriving peer-led charity based in North West London. We are a friendly, supportive and inclusive team.  We believe in the power of experience and this is demonstrated by all our services being led, developed and delivered by people with lived experience of disability, including mental health issues and long-term conditions. We believe that learning to use our lived experience for social change is a skill. We have become experts in harnessing the lived experience of our staff, members, volunteers and people who use our services to design and deliver higher quality, more person-centred services. We believe that this benefits both disabled people and society more widely.  

Application Instructions

Please submit a covering letter together with your CV. In your covering letter you must state where you are currently based geographically. We also need you to outline how your skills match the job description and person specification. This post is only open to people with lived experience of disability, including mental health issues or another long-term health condition so please also ensure that you explain how you would draw on insights from your own lived experience of disability to deliver the role. An Enhanced DBS check will be required.

Interview dates: 30th and 31st October 2023 via Microsoft Teams.