Job summary
- Main area
- Theatres
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 3
- Contract
- Permanent: Annex 20 applies
- Hours
- Full time
- Flexible working
- Job ref
- 319-7539728GH
- Employer
- Northumbria Healthcare - NHCT Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Hexham General Hospital
- Town
- Hexham
- Salary
- £24,937 - £30,162 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 29/10/2025 23:59
Employer heading

Trainee Surgeons Assistant
NHS AfC: Band 3
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
We are looking for a dynamic and motivated Theatre Healthcare Assistant / Practitioner to work within the Surgeons Assistant team trust wide to provide safe and efficient care to our patients within the specialist area of Orthopaedics.
You will be expected to have in-depth knowledge of theatre standards and protocols and to adhere to them on a daily basis.
If required you will have a comprehensive training package including IRMER training supported by the trusts Advanced Surgical Practitioners and Consultants .
Annex 20
This post falls within the provisions of Agenda for Change Annex 20 - Development of Professional Roles, whereby upon completion of an agreed set of competencies you may move onto the next pay band without the need for an application for a post at a higher level.
Please note we reserve the right to close this vacancy prior to the closing date once the required number of suitable applications have been received
Please note, for Secondment roles before an application is submitted, please ensure you have received the appropriate approval and completed documentation required beforehand, as this may delay the process if an offer was to be made.
Main duties of the job
Working within the surgical assistant team to provide support to the orthopaedic service trust wide.
To provide high quality care alongside theatre teams ensuring safe patient positioning , maintain skin integrity of patients , safe manipulation of surgical instruments and to deliver high standards of surgical assistant support when required.
To ensure safe and high quality preparation and monitoring of the environment and maintenance of equipment including operating tables and specialist aids.
To report incidents and escalate causes for concern through the appropriate processes.
Working with, and supporting other members of the multi-disciplinary team.
1x Vacancy for Hexham
1 x Vacancy Trust-wide
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, in addition to our state-of-the-art Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, the first of its kind in England. We also care for people in their homes and provide services from facilities in local communities such as health centres. We give people greater choice and control over their care to help them to live independently at home and avoid hospital admission where appropriate. High quality patient care is at the heart of everything we do and we strive to ensure every single patient and service user has an exceptional experience with us. We have one of the most extensive patient experience programmes of any trust in England.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Prepare the clinical area for the peri-operative patient
Prepare equipment as required
Sets up equipment required for the surgical procedure
Assist in positioning patients for surgical procedures.
Priorities and organizes own workload
Surgery specific skills obtained through competency attainment
Highly developed specific operating assisting skills
Hand/eye co-ordination required when using equipment
Undertake a limited number of surgical tasks under direct supervision.
Keyboard and IT skills
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- NVQ level 3 or equivalent qualification
Desirable criteria
- ECDL or equivalent
Experiance
Essential criteria
- Caring experience
Desirable criteria
- Underlying knowledge of endoscopy area i.e. preparation, cleaning of scopes
Applicant requirements
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Graham Dickinson
- Job title
- Trust Wide Lead Surgical Practitioners
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 01916072050
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