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Job summary

Main area
Genomics
Grade
NHS AfC: Band 6
Contract
Fixed term: 2 years (Full time)
Hours
37.5 sessions per week (Full time)
Job ref
196-LIS9786
Employer
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Royal Brompton Hospital
Town
London
Salary
£46,419 - £55,046 per annum inc. H.C.A
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
21/08/2025 23:59

Employer heading

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust logo

Genomic Associate

NHS AfC: Band 6

Guy’s and St Thomas’ is among the UK’s busiest and most successful NHS foundation trusts. We provide a full range of hospital and community services for people in south London and as well as specialist care for patients from further afield including cancer, renal, orthopaedic, respiratory and cardiovascular services.

Guy’s is home to the largest dental school in Europe and a £160 million Cancer Centre opened in 2016. As part of our commitment to provide care closer to home, in 2017 we also opened a cancer centre and a kidney treatment centre at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup. St Thomas’ has one of the largest critical care units in the UK and one of the busiest emergency departments in London. It is also home to Evelina London Children’s Hospital.

Evelina London cares for local children in Lambeth and Southwark and provides specialist services across south east England including cardiac, renal and critical care services. We lead a number of specialist service networks aiming to ensure children are treated locally where possible, but have access to specialist expertise when they need it. Our community services include health visiting, school nursing and support for families of children with long-term conditions. 

Our adult community services teams deliver care at the heart of the local communities we serve, working in partnership with GPs, local authorities and other healthcare and voluntary sector organisations. Working with our partners in Lambeth and Southwark, we are focusing on new ways of working to improve care for local patients.

In February 2021 the Royal Brompton and Harefield joined Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, bringing together world-leading expertise in the care and research of heart and lung disease. Our merger provides a once in a generation opportunity to build a lasting, world-renowned heart and lung centre, providing the highest quality care for patients and conducting world-leading research.

We have a reputation for clinical excellence and high quality teaching and research. We are part of King’s Health Partners, one of eight accredited UK academic health sciences centres. In partnership with King’s College London we have dedicated clinical research facilities including an MHRA accredited Phase I clinical trials unit.

Patients are at the heart of everything we do and we pride ourselves on ensuring the best possible patient experience as well as safe, high quality care. We are proud to have one of the lowest mortality rates in the NHS. Following a comprehensive Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection in 2019 we maintained our overall rating of ‘good’. Our adult community services achieved a rating of ‘outstanding’.

The commitment of our 23,500 staff is key to our success. We are one of the largest local employers and we aim to develop and support all our staff so they are able to deliver high quality, safe and efficient care. The 2019 NHS staff survey results show that we have one of the most engaged and motivated workforces in the NHS. We know this has a positive impact on the care provided to our patients.

We have one of the most ambitious capital investment programmes anywhere in the NHS.



Job overview

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen to work within the Clinical Genetics & Genomics Laboratory (CGGL), based at the Royal Brompton Hospital, part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. The Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS hospitals are the largest heart & lung centres in the UK and among the largest in Europe. We are a partnership of two specialist hospitals which are known throughout the world for our expertise, standard of care and research success.

The CGGL is a genomics diagnostic lab, providing state-of-the-art specialist cardiac & respiratory NGS-based genetic testing as part of the London South Genomics Laboratory Hub (LS GLH).

We are looking for a motivated Genomic Associate with extensive experience in human molecular genetic diagnostics, excellent interpersonal skills, to join our group. We invite individuals who are educated to a degree level in Biological Science, with a strong interest in genetics, to work as a Genomic Associate. The role will include checking referrals, generating and uploading preliminary reports from NGS, sample reception, DNA & RNA extraction, basic laboratory housekeeping tasks, and administration tasks to provide support to our diagnostic work. There will also be an opportunity to prepare simple diagnostic reports and gain some experience in variant assessment.

The CGGL is a UKAS-accredited medical laboratory, currently performing over 6000 diagnostic tests per annum and is also actively involved in research and teaching.

Main duties of the job

Main duties of the job

The Genomic Associate will be required to act as a flexible administrative resource to support the wider multidisciplinary team in delivering a seamless and integrated end to end genomic medicine pathway. The post holder will be responsible for the co-ordination of the genomic medicine pathway on a day-to-day operational basis.

•    To be responsible to their line manager and other senior laboratory staff, particularly the Duty Scientist.
•    To collaborate with the other scientific, technical and admin staff
•    To deal with enquiries from other healthcare professionals, 
•    To liaise with clinical staff and when required, represent the service at multidisciplinary meetings within the Trust 
•    To assist senior laboratory staff with quality issues.
•    To liaise and produce relevant information for laboratory users
•    To undertake all laboratory procedures required for the processing of patient samples. 
•    To identify when techniques related to the processing of specimens are not working optimally
•    To prepare and check standard and complex abnormal reports for authorisation by senior Clinical Scientists  
•    To participate in internal and external quality control procedures
•    To assist with investigating reported Datix incidents 
•    To perform the role following documented laboratory protocols and  information management systems
•    To conduct data entry and analysis ensuring the validity and reliability of data at all times.



Working for our organisation

The Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospitals are part of Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, with the Heart and Lung Clinical Care Group forming the largest heart and lung centre in the UK and among the largest in Europe. We are a partnership of specialist hospitals which are known throughout the world for our expertise, standard of care and research success. The Clinical Genetics and Genomics Laboratory is also part of the NHSE South East Genomic Laboratory hub and is one of four cardiac and one of three respiratory laboratories, delivering the specialist testing nationally.

The Clinical Genetics and Genomics Laboratory in the Royal Brompton has generated deep expertise in cardiovascular (CV) and respiratory genetics through a large programme of work over the last 7 years and has established infrastructure, expertise and variant repositories on site. The CGGL has developed sophisticated bioinformatic tools and pipelines for the analysis and reporting of different types of sequence data and is actively involved in research to develop new technologies. The diagnostic service collaborates closely with the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London.

Organisational Values:

Our values help us to define and develop our culture, what we do and how we do it.  It is important that you understand and reflect these values throughout your employment with the Trust. 

 

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

In conjunction with senior laboratory staff, the post-holder will undertake the duties and responsibilities of a Genomic Associate role in the provision of a comprehensive, modern, high quality clinical genetics diagnostic service at RBHH.

 

·       To assist the Duty Scientists in responding to all generic laboratory correspondence and queries and help organise the various workflows from diagnostic requests, sample reception and the generation of preliminary and final diagnostic reports, to the issuing of diagnostic reports.

 

  • To maintain a high level of accuracy and reliability in defined routine, processing, analytical and associated procedures following documented laboratory SOPs and instructions.

 

  • To check the appropriateness of all referrals, including clinical eligibility and demographics are correct in SQVD and Clarity.

 

  • To check the appropriateness of all referrals, including clinical eligibility and demographics.

 

  • To ensure accurate data entry and data transcription when booking in samples for all referrals in LIMS.

 

  • To support with writing, issuing, generating and uploading of reports from various lab tests.

 

  • To provide technical lab support to clinical scientists in the analysis and recording of lab results (e.g. prelim NGS report generation and Sanger results analysis and recording).

 

  • All duties are undertaken under the supervision of Senior Genetic Technologists/Clinical Scientists following standard protocols, with advice available from peers.

 

·       To collaborate and communicate professionally with all members of the department and all multi-disciplinary teams across healthcare services with all matters necessary to achieve the maximum efficiency of the service.

 

To play a role in the continuous development of the Trust as a member of the CGGL team.

 

 

 

 

Person specification

Qualifications / Education

Essential criteria
  • Educated to Degree level in a relevant subject (e.g. Biology, Genetics, Biomedical Sciences, Psychology) supplemented by specialist training and/or experience.
  • Knowledge of the 100,000 Genomes Project and NHS plans for mainstreaming of genomics, and/or other demonstrable interest in genetics
  • Evidence of ongoing continuing professional development
Desirable criteria
  • Postgraduate qualification in genetics
  • Strong foundation in genetics, inheritance, and rare inherited conditions at Degree level, demonstrated by relevant Undergraduate course modules.

EXPERIENCE & KNOWLEDGE

Essential criteria
  • Experience in a clinical/research/academic environment.
  • Experience of some molecular biology techniques (at least PCR-based techniques)
  • Experience in Sanger analysis. Knowledge of theoretical and practical aspects of molecular genetics
  • Knowledge of laboratory accreditation requirements (UKAS) according to ISO15189
Desirable criteria
  • Experience of developing and implementing policies and procedures
  • Operational experience of working within a clinical genetics service
  • Experience of laboratory Quality Management systems

Skills/ Knowledge/ Ability

Essential criteria
  • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, and ability to demonstrate sensitivity and maturity when faced with difficult personal circumstances and working in a multi-disciplinary team across services.
  • Understanding of resource management, health and safety, clinical risk and quality issues
  • Strong data management skills
  • Strong IT skills, particularly with relation to Microsoft Office packages, e.g. Word, Outlook and Excel.
  • Good computer skills and knowledge of relevant molecular genetic databases. An understanding of genome annotation and the use of web-based browsers to interrogate genomic information.
  • Ability to work independently and as part of a Multidisciplinary team.
  • Ability to organise, prioritise and co-ordinate work of self and others.
  • Ability to prepare reports (written and data) using a variety of software packages and present in an easy-to-read format.
Desirable criteria
  • Experience of dealing with telephone enquiries.
  • Able to give advice on the organisation and management of clinical and research processes.
  • Willingness and desire to learn new techniques and analytical methods

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Timewise helps businesses to attract and develop the best talent through flexible working.Care quality commission - GoodDisability confident employer

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Andrew Fleming
Job title
Senior Clinical Scientist
Email address
[email protected]
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