Job summary
- Main area
- Medicines Manufacturing Centre
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 6
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time
- Flexible working
- Compressed hours
- Job ref
- 319-7168750JN
- Employer
- Northumbria Healthcare - NHCT Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Medicines Manufacturing Centre, Manufacturing and Innovation Hub
- Town
- Seaton Delaval
- Salary
- £37,338 - £44,962 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 22/05/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Quality Control Senior Scientist Microbiology
NHS AfC: Band 6
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 for a proactive and passionate QC Scientist Microbiology to join the Medicines Manufacturing Centre (MMC)—a cutting-edge NHS pharmaceutical production facility based in Seaton Delaval, Northumberland. The MMC is in its final design stages, with facility construction planned through to September 2025.
This is a fantastic opportunity to be part of a pioneering NHS manufacturing facility, supporting a leadership team committed to quality, innovation, and patient care. 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.
All employees of the Medicine Manufacturing Centre (MMC) are currently employed by Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, under Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions. Should the service be transferred into alternative ownership, those employees with start dates prior to the transfer date, will be protected under Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE). Therefore, employees will transfer to the new employer on the same terms and conditions, which are protected and the employees’ continuity of employment is preserved.
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.
Main duties of the job
Lead and train Quality Control (QC) Microbiology Technicians, ensuring they are proficient in microbiological testing techniques and maintain high standards of performance.
Perform method development and analytical method validation for microbiological QC testing techniques to ensure regulatory compliance and quality standards.
Conduct sterility testing on-site in a dedicated sterility testing isolator, ensuring adherence to protocols and GMP standards.
Demonstrate and perform microbiological identification techniques, including the use of advanced equipment such as MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry.
Perform media fertility testing (growth promotion) and manage local isolates and bioburden studies to ensure the effectiveness of microbiological testing methods.
Demonstrate and ensure compliance with cleanroom behaviours such as gowning, cleaning, transfer disinfection, daily monitoring, and proper documentation in line with regulatory standards.
Complete relevant PQS elements, including microbiological Out of Specification (OOS) investigations, Root Cause Analysis (RCA), and Quality Risk Management (QRM) to ensure continuous improvement and regulatory compliance.
Develop and produce essential documentation such as Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), worksheet designs, and training materials, ensuring compliance with GMP and data integrity standards.
Working for our organisation
The Medicines Manufacturing Centre (MMC) is a brand-new, purpose-built NHS pharmaceutical production facility located at the Northumbria Innovation and Manufacturing Hub in Seaton Delaval, Northumberland. This cutting-edge centre is part of the North East and North Cumbria Provider Collaborative and has been established to meet the growing need for high-quality, regionally manufactured Ready-to-Administer (RtA) medicines and advanced aseptic products.
Funded with £30 million of investment from NHS England, the MMC will support a secure, sustainable supply chain for critical medicines, particularly for oncology and other high-risk therapies, while creating skilled jobs and driving innovation across the region. The facility is designed to operate under a Manufacturer’s Specials Licence (MS) and aims to secure a Wholesale Dealer’s Authorisation (WDA(H)), ensuring compliance with MHRA, GMP, and GDP regulations from day one.
Quality, patient safety, and staff wellbeing are at the heart of everything we do. Our leadership team is committed to building a culture of openness, learning, and continuous improvement—offering staff a rare opportunity to help shape the systems, teams, and values of a truly modern NHS manufacturing unit.
Working at the MMC means being part of a forward-thinking and supportive team focused on enabling frontline clinical staff to spend more time with patients by delivering safe, ready-to-use medicines.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Assist in the development of microbiological processes, equipment qualification and maintenance, and documentation control/reviews. Ensure data integrity and proper data recording, trending, and statistical analysis.
Manage the supplier approval process for microbiology-related materials used in the MMC cleanroom facility and laboratories, ensuring all materials meet necessary quality standards.
Oversee the ordering and receipt of QC materials, ensuring proper stock management and availability of necessary resources for testing.
Ensure the proper storage of reagents and media, managing inventory and expiration dates to maintain operational efficiency.
Ensure QC microbiology equipment is properly qualified, serviced, and maintained to remain in good operational condition.
Role model compassionate and inclusive leadership, shaping a collective leadership culture within the trust. This includes:
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Engaging, enabling, and empowering team members
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Using coaching techniques to promote ownership of learning and quality improvement
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Facilitating teamwork and collaboration across departments and organisational boundaries
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Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Degree or equivalent in a scientific subject e.g. microbiology.
Desirable criteria
- Postgraduate qualification in pharmaceutical microbiology or quality control or quality assurance.
- Eligible to be Registered Professional with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), Health and Care Professions Council HCPC, Royal Society for Chemistry (RSC) or Royal Society for Biology (RSB), or Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS).
Experience
Essential criteria
- Good knowledge of microbiological testing techniques used in pharmaceutical quality control.
- Strong technical and analytical skills, with expertise in system risk assessments and validation.
- Experience of working in a microbiological laboratory.
- Familiarity with laboratory safety requirements. e.g. HSE, COSHH.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of microbiology testing techniques as per British Pharmacopoeia requirements and qualification of these methods.
- Knowledge of EU ‘Good Manufacturing Practice’, including Annex 1.
- Demonstrated knowledge of pharmaceutical microbiology and its application in a GMP environment.
- Experience of using Pharmaceutical Quality Systems, including, leading out-of-specification investigation, root cause analysis tools, change controls, document management.
- Experience in line management
- Knowledge of or experience in Quality improvement tools, techniques and methods.
- Knowledge of or experience in coaching and mentoring practices and tools.
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
- Carly McGurty
- Job title
- Deputy Head of Quality
- Email address
- [email protected]
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