Communications Assistant – Digital and Media London, England
Job description
At South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, we believe in providing excellent care which is delivered with pride and compassion. Everything we do is to improve the lives of the people and communities we serve and to promote mental health and wellbeing for all.
The successful candidate will support and work with colleagues across our media, internal, digital and stakeholder teams – including administrative support, writing, organising events, posting content online and managing enquiries.
The communications assistant is often the first point of contact for enquiries to the team, with plenty of opportunity to get involved in storytelling, projects and campaigns.
The post holder will also play a key role in developing the internal, external communications and with events, working alongside experienced team members to ensure clear, engaging and delivered on time communications.
If you are interested in a career in communications and have exceptional organisation skills, an eye for detail and a passion for telling a story and sharing information in a clear, concise and engaging way, now’s your chance to join our team.
This role will work across the South East London Integrated Care Board and is hosted by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.
To support our work, the successful candidate will: To support our work, the successful candidate will:
- Work with colleagues to support the communications and engagement function of the organisation and help with the day-to-day running of the team.
- Support colleagues with writing, editing and proofreading of articles for internal and external use.
- Write press releases, take photographs, post and schedule on social media, help to organise events.
- Updating the staff intranet and website with news and events
- Monitor media in local and national press and provide a summary to the team, while also helping with key tasks from the media inbox, including handling simple media enquiries.
- Help and support the team to build on the good reputation already established via the media, direct marketing material and social network platforms.
- Manage and help to organise events and VIP/ministerial visits, often at short notice, liaise with staff and manage any media on site.
- Provide administrative support as appropriate including: diary management; organising meetings and administrative written work; ordering communications materials; maintaining our stakeholder databases
We are committed to provide a high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for our care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’.
Our Values
We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I’m going to do is at the heart of everything we do. When you join us, you’ll be part of something special.
As a Trust we are happy to talk flexible working.
The communications assistant will assist the team with the day-to-day running of the communications function including support of staff communications, media, publications and design work.
They will be:
- Expected to be able to be proficient in writing, reading and checking communications written by other members of the team, including understanding the organisation’s house style.
- Support with internal and external stories and write content for internal communications such as a media summary and the intranet. They will play a key role in developing, proof-reading and monitoring information for the channels of the organisation including internal and external.
- Expected to understand the media environment and the major incident procedure to support the function during any eventuality.
- Capable of tracking and report on our media coverage, and stakeholder engagement activity, and advise the rest of the team of anything they need to be aware of.
- Handle simple media enquiries such as issuing statements and providing information about the organisation.
- Provide administrate support as required to keep up to date the key spreadsheets and documents the function needs to run efficiently and effectively.
- Will need to understand the organisation’s strategy and vision and the wider London strategic context and ensure this informs how they work within the team.
- Expected to form strong working relationships with a wide range of staff, including senior colleagues
- Being flexible in their approach as is the nature of communications and engagement work
- To support with projects under the direction of the line manager
- To adhere to all organisation policies and remain up to date with these
- To assist in the preparation of reports and, where necessary, attend relevant meetings
- To assist in preparing briefings materials where required to support project work
- To analyse statistical data e.g. social media metrics to inform the development of reports
- To undertake audits, surveys and utilise other feedback techniques to evaluate communications and engagement
- To assist in the production of key corporate documents.
- To support with raising requisitions and making payments in line with the organisations policy and procedures.
- To be responsible for keeping up to date with best practice and new techniques in public relations.
- To keep up to date with national policy, new health initiatives and partner organisations strategies and plans and how these impact locally on the organisation
- To undertake Mandatory and Statutory training (MAST) as required by organisation’s policy
- To contribute and commit to undertaking and Performance Appraisal and Development Review (PADR).
- To undertake personal development as identified in the PADR.
- The post holder will occasionally be exposed to distressing situations which may include suicides and absconds as well as dealing with sensitive staffing issues and managing communications, particularly with the media, in times of crisis.
- The postholder will be in possession of complex, confidential and sensitive information and will need to be able to ensure this is handled appropriately in line with our policies.
