Job summary
- Main area
- Medicines Manufacturing Centre
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 7
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time
- Flexible working
- Job ref
- 319-7385838JN
- Employer
- Northumbria Healthcare - NHCT Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Manufacturing and Innovation Hub
- Town
- Seaton Delaval
- Salary
- £47,810 - £54,710 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 03/09/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Lead Quality Assurance (QA) Officer
NHS AfC: Band 7
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 Quality Assurance Officer 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
Main duties of the job
- To contribute to the delivery of a GMP compliant manufacturing facility that optimises the regional benefit from the £30 million funding provided by NHSE.
- Support QA activities for products and processes under the MMC’s MS Licence, ensuring the compliance with MHRA and NHS standards.
- Provides technical QA resource, advice, and support to ensure GMP compliance at the MMC.
- Responsible for managing and training Quality Assurance staff.
- Manages the team that assures the quality of and release unlicensed medicines to the value of approximately £20 million per annum.
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.
At the MMC, 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
- To support and maintain the Pharmaceutical Quality System (PQS) within the Medicines Manufacturing Centre (MMC), ensuring compliance with Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), NHS guidance, and MHRA regulations.
- To complete relevant aspects of the PQS reporting systems e.g. Documentation Control, revision and approval, Change Control, Deviations, Quality Risk Assessments, Root Cause Analysis, Micro non-conformances, Complaints, Supplier Approval, Key Performance Indicator Trending, Quality Technical Agreements and Training Processes.
- To co-ordinate and perform the review, approval, and monitoring of QA processes, documentation, and release of products, as well as ensuring continuous improvement and regulatory compliance.
- To participate on investigations involving the quality of pharmaceutical products across the MMC
- To manage the Quality Assurance staff during day-to-day operations and longer-term planning
- To plan and implement a strategy to ensure a robust and fit for purpose Quality Assurance workforce throughout the product lifecycle
- To develop and monitor quality KPIs which demonstrate the state of control of the facility, and report these to the senior management team
- To role model compassionate and inclusive leadership to shape the creation of a collective leadership culture within the Trust. This means demonstrating a consistent leadership style which (a) engages, enables and empowers others (b) uses coaching to promote ownership of learning and quality improvement and (c)
facilitates team working and collaboration within teams / departments and across organisational boundaries.
Person specification
Qualifications / Professional Registration
Essential criteria
- Degree in Pharmacy, Chemistry, Biology, or a related scientific field or equivalent experience.
- Or Basic qualification in pharmaceutical sciences (BTEC) or an equivalent scientific qualification to same level with a Postgraduate Diploma in Pharmaceutical Technology or similar.
- Eligible to be registered 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).
Desirable criteria
- Master Qualification in a scientific discipline (preferably in Pharmaceutical Manufacture) or be willing to work towards a Diploma / Master’s degree while in post.
- Management qualification
- Professional Registration
Experience and knowledge
Essential criteria
- Knowledge of GMP and MHRA guidelines and experience of working in a regulated environment.
- Significant experience postqualification relevant GMP experience.
- Extensive experience in the management and maintenance of pharmaceutical quality systems.
- Evidence of continuing education/professional CPD
Desirable criteria
- Evidence of managing product release.
- Evidence of successfully managing a team
- Experience in manufacture of sterile medicines
- Experience of training colleagues in GMP
- Knowledge of or experience in coaching and mentoring practices and tools
- Knowledge of or experience in Quality improvement tools, techniques and methods.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Carly McGurty
- Job title
- Deputy Head of Quality
- Email address
- [email protected]
List jobs with Northumbria Healthcare - NHCT Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust in Health Science Services or all sectors