Operational Support Officer

South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust; Crawley; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 48,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

NHS pension

27 days holiday

Personal and professional development

Salary sacrifice schemes

Occupational health services

NHS discounts

Job summary

South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust is seeking an Operational Support Officer to join Make Ready and Logistics on a full-time, permanent basis. You will ensure vehicles, equipment and facilities meet Trust standards and regulatory requirements across a pan‑Sussex footprint, with travel as needed.

The role carries responsibility for health, safety, infection prevention and environmental compliance, maintaining records and coordinating actions with Fleet, Logistics and Ops

Qualifications

• Diploma level general education or equivalent knowledge, skills or experience.
• Accredited Working Safely course (or equivalent).
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office suite and administrative processes.

Responsibilities

• Take operational accountability for ensuring vehicles, equipment and facilities meet Trust, statutory and regulatory requirements.
• Act as the named site lead for health, safety, IPC and environmental compliance.
• Lead local assurance processes, audits and inspections, ensuring records are up to date.
• Identify risks, investigate incidents and coordinate corrective actions with relevant teams.
• Work with Make Ready provider, Fleet, Logistics and Operations to support readiness.
• Provide escalation and assurance when issues affect safety or compliance.
• Support continuous improvement by identifying themes and opportunities.

Skills

Driving licence

Organisational skills

Communication skills

Education

Diploma level education or experience

Accredited Working Safely

Tools

MS Office

Job description

Main area Operational Support Officer Grade Band 6 Contract Permanent Hours

• Full time
• Flexible working

37.5 hours per week (Will be required to do some weekends. Rota of shifts.) Job ref 278-OSOS-LH-0826

Employer South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Pan Sussex Town Crawley Salary £39,959 - £48,117 Per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 31/08/2026 08:00

Operational Support Officer Surrey

Band 6

South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SECAmb) has a vision to ‘support our staff to provide a caring, high quality and efficient urgent and emergency care service to our communities’. We are rated ‘Good’ for care by the Care Quality Commission and while the other areas under their most recent report require improvement, our aim is to continually improve and to reach outstanding across all areas of the Trust.

Our 4,000+ workforce provide services to 4.9m people across Kent, Surrey, Sussex and North East Hampshire. We handle over 1 million calls to 999 and 1 million calls to NHS 111 every year. More information regarding our services and locations can be found on our website.

Job overview

We are looking for an Operational Support Officer to join our Make Ready and Logistics services on a full-time, permanent basis, playing a key role in keeping our frontline services safe, compliant and ready to respond.

This is a hands-on, operational role with real accountability. You will take responsibility for local operational assurance across Make Ready Centres, ensuring vehicles, equipment and facilities meet Trust, statutory and regulatory requirements. Acting as the designated site contact for health, safety, IPC and environmental compliance, you will maintain accurate records, identify risks and ensure issues are addressed promptly and effectively, working closely with our contracted Make Ready provider, Fleet, Logistics and Operations.

This role is pan-Sussex and will require travel across our footprint.

If you are confident working in complex environments, care about safety and standards, and are comfortable managing risk and resolving issues, this role offers the opportunity to make a direct and visible impact on patient care.

Main duties of the job

As an Operational Support Officer, you will:

• Take operational accountability for ensuring vehicles, equipment and facilities meetTrust, statutory and regulatory requirements
• Act as thenamed site leadfor health, safety, IPC and environmental compliance
• Leadlocal assurance processes, audits and inspections, ensuring records are accurate and up to date
• Identify risks, investigate incidents and coordinate corrective actions with relevant teams
• Work collaboratively with:
  • Make Ready service provider
  • Fleet and Logistics teams
  • Operational Support Divisional Lead
• Provide clear escalation and assurance where issues affect safety, compliance or operational readiness
• Support continuous improvement by identifying themes, learning and opportunities to strengthen processes

This role is pan‑SECAmb and will require travel across our footprint.

Working for our organisation

• Option to join NHS pension scheme
• A minimum 27 days' holiday each year, increasing after 5 years’ service.
• Personal and professional development and training opportunities.
• Salary Sacrifice schemes for cars or push bikes.
• Access to occupational health and counselling services.
• Access to NHS discounts, offering NHS employees a range of money‑saving deals.

Other than in exceptional circumstances, the starting salary for staff new to the NHS will be the bottom point of the band to which they have been appointed.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The Operational Support Officer is responsible for providing local operational assurance across Make Ready Centres, ensuring that vehicles, equipment and facilities meet all Trust, statutory and regulatory requirements.

The post holder takes day‑to‑day accountability for health and safety, infection prevention and control, and environmental compliance within their allocated sites. They act as the designated site contact for all assurance and compliance matters, maintaining accurate records, identifying risks and ensuring that issues are addressed promptly and effectively.

Working closely with the contracted Make Ready provider, Fleet, Logistics and the Operational Support Divisional Lead, the post holder will lead local assurance processes, coordinate investigations and support corrective actions where standards fall short or incidents occur. The role underpins operational readiness and directly supports safe patient care by ensuring that Make Ready environments remain compliant, well‑governed and fit for purpose.

Operational Support Officers operate as part of the wider Operational Support Directorate and work in partnership with Fleet, Logistics and Operational teams to support consistent, high‑quality service delivery across the Trust.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Diploma level general education or equivalent knowledge, skills or experience.
• Accredited Working Safely course (or equivalent).

Knowledge

• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office suite of products.
• Knowledge of administrative processes.
• Understanding of statutory compliance frameworks relevant to ambulance facilities and equipment.
• Detailed knowledge of health and safety management systems and risk‑assessment processes.

Experience

• Experience of leading or coordinating site‑based audits or incident investigations.
• Demonstrable responsibility for maintaining compliance within a regulated environment.

Skills

• Full clean UK Driving Licence C1 licence
• Excellent organisational skills.
• Excellent communication and inter‑personal skills.

Please note that the salary range noted on the vacancy is in line with agenda for change (AFC) pay scales. All successful applicants would be placed automatically at the bottom of the banding, unless proven, relevant NHS or equivalent experience can be demonstrated.

Following the revision of current national legislation (Vaccine as a Condition of Deployment), the Trust has reviewed our requirements relating to staff uptake of the SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19) vaccination.

Going forward, for patient facing positions, we strongly recommend that new starters will be appropriately vaccinated unless medically exempt in order to offer greater protection against exposure to the virus for front line staff.

In line with this recommendation, if you are successful in your application for a front line post, we will seek information from you in relation to your vaccine status, including exemption status, as applicable.

Please note, all positions come with a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check relevant to the post. This will either be a basic, standard, or enhanced check depending on the role. The level of check will be outlined in the conditional offer letter sent to successful applicants.

As part of the application process, you will be asked to declare any unspent/unfiltered convictions. If you are shortlisted you will then be sent a self declaration form, which must be completed prior to attending interview. for any queries relating to declarations, please contact the Recruitment Advisor listed on the vacancy.

The Trust is passionately committed to being an inclusive employer - a place where we can all be ourselves and succeed. As an employer we offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement networks, facilities and services to support staff from different backgrounds.

We actively support equality of opportunity for all our staff and welcome applications from individuals regardless of age, any disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief. The Trust is making progress towards its aim of becoming more reflective of the diversity of our community in our workforce and guarantees an interview to candidates with disability who meet the essential criteria specified. We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and disabled applicants and those from other under‑represented groups.

The Equality Act 2010 protects disabled people - including those with long term health conditions, learning disabilities and hidden disabilities such as dyslexia. If you tell us that you have a disability we can make reasonable adjustments to ensure that any selection processes - including the interview - are fair and equitable.

We are a committed to offering opportunities to individuals with disabilities and offer on-going support, should you be successful, with any adjustments you may need when performing your role.

When completing the application please use your name as it appears on your passport and please ensure you include email addresses and contact numbers for your referees to avoid delay in the recruitment process.

Please note that under our Trust policies, we're unable to employ anyone under the age of 18 years old.

The majority of our roles will include some travel between sites for business purposes. If the vacancy you’re applying for includes work related travel, you will be required to ensure that you hold and have covered the cost of suitable car insurance to support this.

Should you require an application form in an alternative format including large print or braille, please contact [e-mail] stating the vacancy reference number and we will be happy to provide this.

When completing the reference section, please include details to cover the last three years’ history.

Due to the high volume of applications at SECAmb, we regret that we will only be able to contact those applicants who are shortlisted for interview. If you have not heard from us within 10 working days of the closing date, then please assume you have not been shortlisted for interview on this particular occasion.

Please note that we contact all applicants via Trac Jobs and would advise you check your Trac Jobs account regularly.

Please be aware that the Trust reserves the right to close this vacancy early if sufficient applications are received. For this reason we recommend completing your application as early as possible.

We understand that AI tools can be useful for generating ideas or structuring your application. However, any content submitted must reflect your own experiences, skills, and understanding. Applications that are generated wholly or in large part by AI, without personalisation or accuracy, may be excluded from consideration. We value honesty, authenticity, and integrity in the recruitment process and expect all applicants to uphold these principles.

If you are a current SECAmb employee, by applying for this position, if successful you will move to the terms and conditions associated with the post. Any unsocial hours payments will be paid under the Section 2 agreement of agenda for change. Section 2 unsocial hours will need to be claimed via your monthly timesheet. More information regarding section 2 can be found in the Agenda for Change handbook and on theour dedicatedSection 2 page on The Zon e.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

This post will require a submission for Disclosure to be made to check for any unspent criminal convictions.