Emily's Journey - EOC Business Continuity and Resilience Advisor

Emily Jackson is a business continuity and resilience advisor for our emergency operation centres (EOCs) and has been with the Trust for 10 years.

With a keen interest in medicine and caring for people in their hour of need, I joined the East of England Ambulance NHS Trust (EEAST) in 2013 as an emergency care assistant. I loved being able to help people at their time of need, learning about how other people live, their backgrounds, cultures, lifestyles taught me a lot about the world and that I am very grateful.

I was keen to see the other side to the service, still helping our patients but from a control allocation of resources perspective, which is why I moved into the emergency operations centre (EOC) two years later and became a dispatcher. This role involved managing frontline resources and dispatching the appropriate resources to emergency calls, as well as communicating effectively and building supportive relationships with frontline crews.

I briefly left the Trust in 2015 to pursue a totally different career, but I missed having a purposeful job where I was making a positive impact on peoples lives. I came back to the Trust as a dispatcher in 2019 and became a dispatch team leader two years later, just before I left to have my son. Once I returned from maternity leave, I started to develop as an act up duty manager and I was then signed off to cover the position when needed.

Recently, I started in my new role as EOC business continuity and resilience advisor and so far, I am gaining a wide range of exposure to the more behind the scenes day to day functions of the Trust. I'm also learning about more about business continuity and resilience and what that means for us as a Trust, including our legal obligations to fulfil them.

I have faced challenges along the way in my career journey, such as leaving and then realising I wanted to come back - its never easy having to start again. However, I feel I am a great example of achieving success in the service, even with my break away. Since my return to the Trust, I have gone from a band 4 position to a band 7 in just under four years, and that includes my maternity leave! I am trying to show that you can be a mum and have a career, and the service are very supportive of that.

I'm proud to be part of the EEAST team as it is a great team of people, who really come together to help our patients at their greatest time of need. The Trust has lots of opportunities for development and I think this is only going to get better. I am supported to be able to work around being a mum too which I think is so important for equal opportunities. Most importantly, helping patients is the centre of what we do - we make a difference every single day.