Medact is looking for an experienced campaigner to lead our Health & Human Rights Programme. You’ll be taking the lead on our Patients Not Passports campaign, organising against racist immigration controls in the NHS.
Background
Medact organises with the health community to win a world in which everyone can truly achieve and exercise their human right to health. We cover some of the most pressing national and global threats to health and wellbeing including institutional racism; climate change; human rights abuses; violent conflict; and rising inequality. We’re a member-led organisation, and our members are made up of a range of people who work in health including nurses, doctors, midwives, and clinical researchers.
We take an organising-centred approach to our work. We build community power by working in solidarity with health workers and the communities experiencing harm from the unjust systems we challenge. We run national campaigns, use research to expose injustice, and we support local organising groups across the country who lead most of our work.
Closing date: 9am, Monday January 13th
Interviews: Tuesday January 28th
Hours: Full time, 35 hours/week — 0.8 pro-rata (28 hours/week) applications will be considered
Salary: £36,837.95 with annual increments based on tenure
Contract: Permanent
Location: Hybrid. Staff work remotely and from the Medact office in East London. London-based staff work in-person as a team one day per week, and staff based outside London come in at least once a month, with support for travel costs. Applications from outside London are encouraged.
About the role
The Campaign and Programme Lead: Health & Human Rights leads Medact’s work coordinating the Patients Not Passports campaign, supporting health workers and migrant communities to bring an end to immigration checks and healthcare charging in the NHS. You will work in close partnership with the Access to Healthcare organiser at Migrants Organise, and with colleagues across Medact’s team.
The role involves holding Medact’s key knowledge base on health and human rights issues. This can cover migration and health, immigration detention, data-sharing and artificial intelligence in public services, and civil liberties issues. You will build relationships across the health community and wider human rights and migration spaces, from establishment institutions to frontline worker and grassroots groups.
At Medact we have a management structure, but we organise ourselves to minimise the impact of hierarchy and make use of everyone’s skills and expertise—being part of our team means taking an active role in strategic decisions.
About you
This isn’t an entry-level role but you don’t need to have had a job in an NGO before or be a professional campaigner to be right for it. You might have worked with your local community to campaign on a social justice or health issue that you care about. Or, you might be a health worker who has seen the impact of these issues on your patients and wants to challenge the systems that drive inequality and marginalisation. You might have been impacted by the hostile environment yourself and want to take action to change it.
You’ll have a strong understanding of power and how to work with others to create pressure for change. You need to be a great communicator, able to build trusting relationships with Medact members, academics, partner organisations and community groups. You’ll have an understanding of how digital communications compliment campaigning, an eye for a good media story and the know-how to get it out into the world.
Person spec and job description
How to apply
Send a cover letter of no more than two pages and your CV to [email protected] with the subject line “Campaign and Programme Lead: Health & Human Rights”.
Your cover letter should tell us why you want this role, and specifically set out how you meet the person specification. Feel free to use the sections as headings, and please use examples to illustrate your experience (it may be helpful to use the STAR method).
If your application is shortlisted, we will invite you to an interview. Interviews will involve a presentation, for which we will ask you to prepare in advance; a written task; and a conversation with a panel of interviewers.
We are happy to reimburse shortlisted candidates for travel costs/childcare costs/lost wages incurred as a result of attending an interview.
Help applying
We have members of the team on hand to talk about the post and application process. They won’t be involved in recruitment, and any chats will be kept confidential. If you think this could be helpful, email [email protected].
Key dates
Closing date: Monday January 13th, 9am
Interviews: Tuesday January 28th
If needed, second interviews will be w/c 3rd February
Our recruitment principles
Medact aims to be an inclusive and supportive employer, and we recognise that recruitment processes don’t work for everyone. We acknowledge that people from certain backgrounds are under-represented in the NGO sector, and we’re committed to doing what we can to correct this. We welcome applications from people with marginalised identities or lived experience of the issues Medact works on. If you have any questions or uncertainties about this position, and whether you are right for it, please do get in touch!
Frequently asked questions
- Do I have to be a health worker to apply? No, and the Medact staff are not all health workers.
- Can I do this role as a job-share? We will not consider applications for this role as a job-share.
- Can you sponsor my visa? We are unable to offer sponsorship for individuals without the right to work in the UK.
- How flexible are the working hours? Medact has a Flexible Working Policy which supports staff to adjust their hours around our core working hours (11am – 4pm), and can accommodate periods of working abroad / in different time zones, compressed hours, and other configurations.
