Job summary
- Main area
- Pharmacy
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8b
- Contract
- Bank: 3 months (Potential for this to be extended to 6 months)
- Hours
- Part time
- Flexible working
- Job ref
- 319-7369969JA
- Employer
- Northumbria Healthcare - NHCT Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- PPU - Wansbeck General Hospital
- Town
- Ashington
- Salary
- £64,455 - £74,896 Per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 03/09/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Head of QA/QC
NHS AfC: Band 8b
Do you want to work in one of the best performing NHS organisations in England? Work for an organisation that was voted the best acute and combined acute and community trust in the country, based on the experience of its staff (NHS Staff Survey 2022). Work in an organisation that supports its staff and focuses on staff experience as much as it does the experience of its patients? You can live and breathe in an area that has the cleanest air, cost effective living, great nightlife, some of the best schools with a wealth of history available on your doorstep. Sound too good to be true? Well it isn’t, this is what you get when you work for Northumbria Healthcare and, this is…the Northumbria Way!
What the Northumbria Way means for you:
- Extensive staff health and well-being programme including access to our specialist Wellbeing Hub
- Support and connection through a variety of Staff Network groups
- A range of flexible working opportunities
- Generous annual leave and pension scheme
- Access to lease car and home electronics scheme (qualifying criteria applies)
- Opportunities to improve your professional development through our vast training programmes
- On-site nursery places via salary sacrifice
- Access to savings scheme via salary sacrifice with Northumberland Community Bank
We are proud to be one of the country’s top performing NHS trusts – rated ‘outstanding’ overall by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). We provide a range of health and care services to support more than 500,000 people living in Northumberland and North Tyneside across the largest geographical area of any NHS Trust in England. Our teams deliver care from hospitals, a range of community venues and people’s homes. Our hospitals include a specialist emergency care hospital (the first of its kind in England), three general hospitals and community hospitals. In the community we deliver a wide range of community and public health services.
We lead in innovation and quality, having opened the Northumbria Healthcare Manufacturing and Innovation Hub during the Covid-19 pandemic and have recently launched our Community Promise – a pledge to make a real impact not just in healthcare but on the wider factors that affect people’s lives, such as education, employment and the economy.
If Northumbria Healthcare sounds like somewhere you could belong we would love to hear from you. Visit our website to catch up on our latest news.
Whilst Northumbria Healthcare are a highly innovative organisation, the use of Third Party Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents a risk to the integrity of our Recruitment & Selection processes. If you use AI, and it poses a risk to the integrity your individual recruitment process, we may withdraw your application at any stage of the process.
Job overview
An exciting opportunity has arisen to support the existing Head of QA/QC in managing the PQS for a fixed term of 3-6 months, in our innovative NHS Pharmacy Production Unit, based at Wansbeck General Hospital in Ashington, Northumberland.
The Pharmacy Production Unit currently holds a Manufacturing License (MS) from the MHRA. This allows the unit to manufacture batches of aseptically prepared products for use both inside and outside the trust. Current output for this process is 57,000 items per annum with ongoing work to increase this to over 100,000 units per annum.
The Pharmacy Production Unit provides systemic anti-cancer therapies (SACT) across Trust oncology wards. Demand for SACT is in excess of 20,000 units per year.
The Pharmacy Production Unit also supplies licensed overlabelled products across all Trust sites to improve patient flow and improve discharge processes. Demand for this process is in excess of 200,000 units per annum.
Main duties of the job
The successful candidate will support the existing Head of QA/QC in management of the PQS, ensuring full compliance with MHRA guidance and maintenance of high standards in the provision of parenteral SACT, CIVAS and over labelled products, during a period of workforce challenges.
Working for our organisation
We manage three major locality hospitals at North Tyneside, Wansbeck and Hexham, plus a number of smaller community hospitals and clinics from Tynemouth to Berwick on Tweed, covering one of the largest geographical areas of any NHS trust in the country. Leading in innovation and quality – opening a state of the art Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, the first of its kind in England. Do you want to work in one of the best performing NHS organisations in England? Work in an organisation that supports its staff and focuses on staff experience as much as it does the experience of its patients? You can live and breathe in an area that has the cleanest air, cost effective living, great nightlife, some of the best schools with a wealth of history available on your doorstep. Sound too good to be true? Well it isn’t, this is what you get when you work for Northumbria Healthcare, this is the Northumbria Way! Please read ‘applicant guidance notes’ before submitting your application.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The duties of the Head of QA/QC include authorisation of all systems of work and documentation in the aseptic dispensing unit and other licensed areas (e.g. overlabelling).’ To oversee the design, implementation and maintenance of the Pharmaceutical Quality System (PQS), meeting the requirements of cGMP and consequently the MHRA, and ensure adherence to the PQS through appropriate training and motivation of all Pharmacy Production and QA staff.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Degree standard qualification (or equivalent)
- Professional Pharmacy qualification (e.g. BTEC in Pharmaceutical Sciences or equivalent, MPharm)
- Masters degree or equivalent experience and or qualification
- Post graduate diploma in PTQA (Pharmaceutical Technology and Quality Assurance) qualification
- Registered with General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)
- Postgraduate clinical qualification (over and above that of the first degree, preferably at Masters level) and/or significant relevant clinical experience to demonstrate a similar level of knowledge
- Evidence of continuing professional development to at least meet the mandatory requirements of the GPhC
- IT skills to at least ECDL standard or equivalent experience
Desirable criteria
- Member of Royal Pharmaceutical Society and/or other professional groups to facilitate continuing professional development.
- Successfully completed the ‘Aseptic Services for Managers’ course run by the University of Leeds (if not already held there will be an expectation to achieve this when a training opportunity becomes available).
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Maxine Turner
- Job title
- Head of QA/QC
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- (01670) 529144
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