Job Description

The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) establishes, directs, oversees and leads Occupational Health (OH) standards across the business, acting as the senior authority on all health matters, providing strategic medical leadership across the Enterprise.

To ensure that all matters relating to health within the business are addressed appropriately, taking due account of business risk, business impact, cost and schedule implications, and ensuring delivery of defined OH services that support a safe, healthy and legally compliant workforce.

The CMO provides strategic and professional oversight of Occupational Health services, including but not limited to:

• Management referrals.
• Health surveillance.
•Statutory and task-related medicals.
• Substance misuse sampling and reporting.

In addition, the CMO also carries out the Medical Officer (MO) role, undertaking the duties as described in the MO Job Profile.

Our Occupational Health department provides a professional and technical support service to the Company and forms a key part of SL site’s first aid provision and medical emergency response to radiological and non-radiological emergencies.

The Occupational Health function operates within a complex, highly regulated environment. In addition to preventative and advisory health services, the department forms a critical role in supporting resilience and medical preparedness.

The Chief Medical Officer plays a key leadership role in ensuring medical readiness, resilience and professional standards within this operational context.

Principle Accountabilities

• Represent the interests of SL regarding health issues across the population of external customers, partners, stakeholders and special interest groups, including:
– Chair of the Compensation Scheme for Radiation-Linked Diseases.
– Representing the company and workers on the National Registry for Radiation Workers, working group, alongside UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
– Liaise with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), Trade Unions and Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR).

• Ensure that appropriate and adequate services, skills, capabilities and resources are distributed within the OH department in order to maintain effective service delivery.

• Provide direction on work, goals, targets and priorities within the OH department.

• Delegate appropriate level of authority to OH team members, leading a team of Occupational physicians and nursing staff, including a 24/7 shift nursing team.

• Ensure the provision and maintenance of the OH department including ensuring adequate succession and development plans are in place to maintain OH capability and delivery.

• Oversee assurance programme for audit within the business and for external organisations such as Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance (LRQA) and the Faculty of Occupational Medicine for SEQOHS accreditation.

• Lead on business continuity and recovery for Occupational Health and all things medical within SL.

• Liaise with Value Stream Leads, Group Business Services (GBS), Human Resources (HR) and Security Vetting to ensure operational alignment within statutory law and ethical guidance.

• Ensure that all relevant health legislative requirements and standards are incorporated within the SL Management System and that processes are effective and efficient. This includes working as Process Owner, Compliance Requirement Owner and Information Asset Owner for defined health-related processes, which includes:
– Misuse of Substances inc Drugs & Alcohol
– Occupational Health Manual
– Statutory Health Surveillance
– Task Related Fitness assessments
– Management and Self-referrals

• Ensure improvements are identified, effective corrective action plans and improvement programmes implemented to improve OH delivery in support of protecting and improving the physical and mental health and safety of the workforce, work delivery and company compliance with legislation.

• Lead by example, championing best practice by setting and cascading high standards and expectations within the OH department to promote a positive health culture in line with SL standards and expectations.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

Essential Skills:

• Registered Specialist with the General Medical Council (GMC) in Occupational Medicine.
• Member of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians.
• Substantial knowledge and experience (typically 5+ years) of working within a responsible Occupational Health job.
• A working knowledge of scientific research methodology particularly in relation to observational epidemiology and the epidemiology of radiation exposure.
• Fully registered Medical Practitioner in the UK with a licence to practice.
• Participation in medical emergency response and ability to work and be deployed across all areas of the SL site and work areas, including radiologically controlled areas.
• Medically fit to wear all approved PPE/RPE required for delivery of the job.
• Ability to participate in on-call responsibilities in relation to radiological emergencies.

Desirable Skills:

• Experience working within a highly regulated, safety‑critical or complex operational environment (for example nuclear, energy, defence, infrastructure or comparable sectors).
• Experience of leading multidisciplinary Occupational Health services at scale, including medical, nursing and clinical support functions.
• Experience of assurance, audit or accreditation activities within Occupational Health services, such as SEQOHS or equivalent frameworks.
• Experience of providing senior medical or occupational health advice to executive leadership teams or strategic decision‑making forums.

Additional Information

• Open VN
• Number of Vacancies: 1
• Contact/s: Les Studholme

As part of your application, please include a cover letter detailing how you meet the knowledge and experience required for the role.

The date of the interviews for this position will be confirmed in due course.

If you choose to apply for this role and your application is shortlisted, you will be invited to an interview. In the interview, you will be assessed against the NDA Leadership Standard.

Sellafield Ltd are recognised as a Disability Confident Employer (Level 3). Disability Confident employers offer an interview to disabled applicants that meet the minimum criteria for a vacancy. Sellafield Ltd define the minimum criteria as the ‘essential skills’ which are listed on the vacancy notice. Whilst completing your application form, you will be able to indicate if you wish to be considered under the disability confident scheme. If you would prefer to discuss this directly with us, please contact the GBS Recruitment team on recruitment@sellafieldcloud.co.uk

Please ensure that you save a copy of this advert for future reference if you make an application for this role.

The closing date for this vacancy is Thursday 23rd July 2026.