Health and Safety Lead

Location: Multiple locations / extensive UK travel required - may include overnight stays

Salary: ca. £44000

Working pattern: Full-time Monday to Friday

About the role

At Leonard Cheshire, the safety and wellbeing of the people we support and our colleagues is at the heart of everything we do.

As Health & Safety Lead you'll provide specialist advice, assurance and practical support across our services. You’ll work closely with Service Managers and frontline teams, visiting locations across the organisation to review evacuation arrangements, ensure Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs) are accurate and person-centred, support evacuation drills and provide practical training and coaching.

This is a hands-on role where you’ll help ensure fire safety arrangements are not simply compliant on paper, but safe, realistic and effective in practice.

Key responsibilities

• Review and improve evacuation plans and PEEPs across our services.
• Visit services to assess evacuation routes, equipment, staffing and practical arrangements.
• Support meaningful evacuation drills and ensure learning and actions are followed through.
• Provide practical fire safety, evacuation and PEEP training to managers and staff.
• Monitor compliance with evacuation reviews, drills, training and outstanding actions.
• Identify, report and escalate significant fire safety and evacuation risks.
• Produce clear reports and assurance information for senior leaders and regulators.
• Work collaboratively with Operations, Property, Health & Safety, Quality, Clinical and Learning & Development teams.
• Identify trends, share good practice and contribute to continuous improvement.

About you

You’ll have:

• Experience in fire safety, health & safety, compliance, estates, care services or a related operational environment.
• Practical experience developing or reviewing emergency evacuation plans and PEEPs.
• Good knowledge of fire safety and evacuation requirements.
• Experience assessing risk and translating findings into practical actions.
• Experience delivering training, coaching or competency-based support.
• Experience undertaking audits, inspections or compliance assessments.
• Strong communication, organisational and report-writing skills.
• The confidence to challenge unsafe practice constructively and professionally.
• A practical, solutions-focused approach and strong attention to detail.
• The ability to work independently across multiple locations and travel as required.

A NEBOSH Fire Safety, IOSH or equivalent qualification would be desirable, as would experience in health and social care, supported living or residential care.

Why join us?

This is an opportunity to make a direct difference to the safety of people supported across Leonard Cheshire. You’ll have the opportunity to influence good practice across multiple services, develop the confidence of operational teams and help ensure evacuation arrangements work effectively when they are needed most.

Our values

Positive – warm and empathetic, we always look to progress and improve.

Proud – strong-willed and spirited, we are firm in our beliefs.

Pioneering – confident and imaginative, we are creative change makers.

Leonard Cheshire welcomes applications from all sections of the community. We actively encourage applications from people with a disability and will support reasonable adjustments wherever possible.

Ready to make a difference? Apply now to join Leonard Cheshire.