Job summary
- Main area
- Healthcare Sciences
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 2
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time
- Flexible working
- Job ref
- 319-7281755AZ-HAS
- Employer
- Northumbria Healthcare - NHCT Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- North Tyneside General Hospital
- Town
- North Shields
- Salary
- £24,465 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 14/07/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Medical Laboratory Assistant
NHS AfC: Band 2
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
Applications are invited from enthusiastic, confident, motivated and hardworking individuals to work as Medical Laboratory Assistants (MLA's) within Microbiology in Pathology at North Tyneside General Hospital
MLAs are the first point of contact for the Laboratory therefore a friendly, approachable personality and excellent communication skills are essential.
You should have good attention to detail, manual dexterity and the ability to follow defined protocols whilst working quickly but effective under pressure.
Main duties of the job
The role involves supporting scientific staff in the receipt, analytical preparation, labelling and data entry of patient samples & requests, maintenance and quality control of specialised analysers and other technical equipment and general laboratory support duties. The role requires a calm, organised approach with attention to detail and good keyboard skills.
Previous experience in an NHS clinical laboratory would be an advantage but not essential as full training will be provided.
The Microbiology department operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week service provision.
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
The main duties of the role are to:
Perform sample reception and processing duties including the receipt, data entry and preparation of samples for analysis. Manual and automated sample processing using analysers and or other equipment, and sample archiving and waste disposal.
Perform clerical tasks including data input of patient demographics and test request information and maintaining clerical records.
Perform general housekeeping duties including maintaining stock levels, general cleaning and waste disposal.
Maintain and promote a professional image for the department.
The work of the service brings staff into constant contact with human body fluids, tissues and hazardous chemicals. This may be blood, urine, fluid and faeces.
The post holder will be responsible to the Biomedical Scientists in Microbiology.
The work involves handling biological samples and paperwork associated with this process therefore the departmental health and safety policies must be adhered to at all times.
NB: Post holder must not work outside their defined field of competence.
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.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Good basic literacy and numeracy skills
Desirable criteria
- ECDL
Experience and Knowledge
Essential criteria
- In-service training is carried out by State Registered Biomedical Scientists.
- The post holder is provided with an MLA training manual which will be used to record periods of training and achievement of competency
- Ability to follow standard operating procedures
- Know limitation of knowledge
Skills and Abilities
Essential criteria
- Organise routine tasks to make efficient use of both time and resources.
- Ability to prioritise urgent and emergency work.
- Computer keyboard skills
- Problem resolving.
- Good transcription skills
- Must be able to demonstrate the English language proficiency level required for this post
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
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
- Debra Jackson
- Job title
- Operational Manager Microbiology
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 0191 2934172
- Additional information
This post may close early if a high number of applications are received
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