Communications and Engagement Manager

at  Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust

1 in 4 of us in the UK will experience mental ill health each year. And when that happens in Kent and Medway, KMPT is there to offer the most seriously unwell people specialist care and support. Each year we look after over 2,000 people in our hospitals and 54,000 people in the community.
We are looking for an experienced communications professional to join our high-performing, fun, and friendly team. We work in a fast-paced environment, which means our days are never boring, with the ultimate goal of supporting the delivery of high-quality care for our patients and wider communities.
The successful candidate will lead on strategically planning and implementing campaigns that touch a wide range of audiences, both internal and external, and provide strategic counsel regularly advising the most senior members of the trust. They will also be the first port of call for media queries and proactive efforts to enhance or protect our reputation externally.
It is a really exciting time to work with us, with a new ambitious CEO committed to creating communities where mental health care helps transform living into living well. As a team, we are on the cusp of introducing a new app-first intranet that will revolutionise the way we work internally, as well as launch a new brand identity to help our patients, partners, and communities better understand what we do.
Interested in this exciting role ? These are the key results areas:
To plan, deliver, and evaluate impactful and outcome-focused communications campaigns, products, and activities that support the organisation’s priorities;
To provide strategic communications counsel and support to a range of colleagues across the trust;
To oversee external communications effort that both protects our brand and raises our profile;
To work with the wider team to help us innovate and improve, both in terms of what we do and how we do it.
Come and work with us in the Garden of England where we combine exceptional professional development opportunities with a tremendous quality of life.
We are Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT), providing mental health, learning disability and specialist services, serving 1.8 million people in Kent and Medway, as well as specialist services for adults in Sussex and Surrey. We are rated Good overall by the CQC.
Each year we care for over 2,000 people in our hospitals and 54,000 people in the community.
We are proud to employ over 3,800 people from 66 nationalities, and to serve an increasingly diverse range of communities across rural and urban areas.
You will be joining friendly, passionate colleagues, rich in their diversity, who are committed to providing excellent care to our service users and their loved ones.
The nature of our work attracts kindness and compassion as standard and everyone from our cleaners and porters to the chief executive and chairman are recognised as playing a vital role in providing an exemplary service.
Our strategy
Our mission is what we set out to do every day
We deliver brilliant care through brilliant people
Our vision is where we want to be in the future
To provide outstanding care and to work in partnership to deliver this in the right place, for every service user, every time.
Here are some clips of our KMPT staff, speaking about their role and why they enjoy working for us. Working at KMPT (youtube.com)
Oversee, plan, deliver, and evaluate strategic communications work for core business areas, ensuring they are insight-driven and tailored to raise awareness or encourage engagement from the necessary audiences and stakeholders;
Provide strategic communications counsel to KMPT colleagues, including our most senior leaders;
Create compelling narratives, using plain English and avoiding jargon or professional language, that support organisational priorities and have the needs of their target audiences at their heart;
Create content – including video, press releases, and simple graphics or images - for the full range of our channels including social media, website, the intranet, staff app, and some physical materials (like leaflets and posters);
Be the first port of call for reactive media enquiries and proactive external campaigns, with support from the team as needed;
Proactively gather good news and turn it into creative and inspiring stories to tell externally;
Help manage the strategic co-ordination of the Trust’s communications activity – contributing to the proactive forward-planning for all channels. As part of this, identify opportunities, potential risks, and interdependencies across organizational priorities;
Support the director of communications and engagement, and deputy director of communications and engagement, in the event of major crisis and reputational issues;
Deputise for the deputy director of communications or other managers when required.
Manage budget and finance activities, including procurement and management of external suppliers where neede

Please refer the Job description for details