Medical Laboratory Assistant - #135835

Job Overview

Berkshire & Surrey Pathology Services - (A joint venture with Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust , Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Ashford & St Peters Hospitals NHS Trust and Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust).

Are you looking for a MLA position with a desire to work as part of the largest NHS led Pathology Services in the UK? You will be based at Wexham Park Hospital.

PLEASE NOTE: This role is not suitable for graduates looking for progression into the biomedical scientist role.

Main duties of the job

Purpose Of Job

To assist with other members of staff to provide an efficient and effective service to all users of the Pathology department. To ensure the rapid and timely turnaround of Pathology samples by receiving, labelling and entering onto the Pathology computer system.

This merged department provides a service for both The Royal Surrey County Hospital and Frimley Park Hospital. The post holder will be primarily based at Frimley Park Hospital but may occasionally be asked to work at the Royal Surrey County Park Hospital.

Essential qualities expected are efficiency, being well organised, having good communication skills and attention to detail. Good keyboard skills are desirable. In addition, you should be a reliable individual who is able to demonstrate good practical skills and work as part of a team.

You must be keen to embrace new ways of working and develop your knowledge and skills . Support and encouragement will be given for career development.

Working for our organisation

Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust provides NHS hospital services for around 900,000 people across Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey and south Buckinghamshire.

As well as delivering excellent general hospital services to local people, we provide specialist heart attack, vascular, stroke, spinal, cystic fibrosis and plastic surgery services across a much wider area.

We have three main hospitals - Frimley Park in Frimley near Camberley, Heatherwood in Ascot and Wexham Park near Slough.

Our three core values, and the behaviors that support them, guide everything we do and set out what we expect of our staff in the way they treat patients, visitors, service users and each other, Committed to Excellence, Working Together and Facing the Future.

We are also proud to host the Defence Medical Group South East at Frimley Park with military surgical, medical, and nursing personnel working alongside the hospital's NHS staff providing care to patients in all specialties.

Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities

• To undertake those procedures necessary for sample preparation and storage, including use of pipettes to separate or add solution to samples.
• Prepare sample containers and maintain stocks of laboratory consumables.
• The use and maintenance of all relevant equipment including centrifuges, necessary for the preparation of samples and requests.
• To participate, when required, in the performance of simple designated tests, including those performed on Point of Care analysers.
• To assist in the training of new staff.
• To follow laboratory procedures to condemn inadequate or mislabelled samples.
• To arrange preparation, packaging and transportation for those tests to be sent to other laboratories for analysis.
• To ensure samples for clinical trials are processed and stored appropriately.
• Refer to attached JD and Person Specification for main responsibilities
  
  

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• RSA I or equivalent
  
  

Desirable criteria

• Basic knowledge of biology & chemistry
• RSA II
• Medical Terminology
• Understanding of basic health and safety principles
• O’ level / GCSE standard English and maths
  
  

Skills

Essential criteria

• Friendly and interactive in working group
• Ability to work in environment with frequent exposure to body fluids, biological and chemical hazards
• Effective and enthusiastic team member
  
  

Professional/ Specialist/ Functional Experience

Essential criteria

• None required.
• To undertake this role, an induction and training programme for 6 months will need to be undertaken.
• Gaining an understanding of specialties within the Clinical laboratory.
  
  

Desirable criteria

• Previous laboratory or NHS experience
  
  

Special Requirements

Essential criteria

• Flexible
• Frequent requirement for sitting in a restricted position for a substantial proportion of working time.
  
  

Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust (FHFT) has an outstanding reputation and a proud record of achievement. As a well performing, well led and ambitious Foundation Trust, we have exciting times ahead of us. We have an ongoing commitment to improving the health and care services for the 900,000 people we serve across Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey and south Buckinghamshire.

We are proud of the ambitions laid out in our strategy, Our Future FHFT, including our vision to be a leader in health & wellbeing, delivering excellence for our communities.

We continue to invest in our services and facilities, including a £10 million upgrade to the hospital maternity unit as well as £49m major new Emergency Assessment Centre on our Wexham Park site. The opening of a brand new £100m state of the art hospital which replaced the existing hospital facility at Heatherwood and are planning to invest further in diagnostics and inpatient capacity at Frimley Park.

We have also made significant investment in our quality improvement and digital programmes to support our vision and we will ensure that we achieve our aim of providing the highest quality healthcare to our patients. Our new EPR – Epic – went live in June and we are already beginning to reap the benefits of this ambitious investment.

Our three core values, and the behaviours that support them, guide everything we do and set out what we expect of our staff in the way they treat patients, visitors, service users and each other, Committed to Excellence, Working Together and Facing the Future.

Apply online now