Medical Laboratory Assistant

Job content

Berkshire & Surrey Pathology Services

(A joint venture with Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust , Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Ashford & St Peters Hospitals NHS Trust and Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust)

Are you looking for a permanent part-time Medical Laboratory Assistant (MLA) position with a desire to work as part of the largest NHS led Pathology Services in the UK? You will be based at Frimley Park Hospital – Microbiology Department.

We are looking for an energetic, enthusiastic and well-motivated individual with good scientific background to complement our late shift MLA team. (Late shift 5pm – 10pm Mon to Friday).

Essential qualities expected are efficiency, being well organised, having good communication skills and attention to detail. Good keyboard skills are desirable. In addition, you should be a reliable individual who is able to demonstrate good practical skills and work as part of a team.

You must be keen to embrace new ways of working and develop your knowledge and skills and able to participate in the shift system. Support and encouragement will be given for career development.

You will be expected to work according to our working time compliant shift system and on rare occasions may be required to work at the Wexham Park Hospital site to maintain quality, training and service requirements.

The postholder will assist in the preparation of analytical work for the Bacteriology Department across a range of department work areas under the supervision of a Registered Biomedical Scientist. The postholder is required to follow Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) at all times for any tasks carried out. There is a requirement to communicate with pathology staff, hospital staff, porters, drivers and couriers.

The postholder will provide support to the BMS staff through sorting, numbering and entering onto Laboratory Information Management System. The postholder will be required to operate the department waste disposal systems including use of autoclaves in a safe manner.

The diagnostic work of the department includes processing, for example, blood, cerebrospinal fluid, urine, faeces, sputum, tissues and diverse secretions. Processed samples are then interpreted for the presence of pathogens, these could be bacterial, fungal or parasitic.

There’s never been a more exciting time to build your career at Frimley Health, one of the country’s largest and most respected hospital trusts - We have three main hospitals: Frimley Park in Frimley near Camberley, Heatherwood in Ascot and Wexham Park near Slough.

As well as delivering excellent general hospital services to local people, we provide specialist heart attack, vascular, stroke, spinal, cystic fibrosis and plastic surgery services across a much wider area. We also run outpatient clinics and diagnostic services from Aldershot, Farnham, Fleet, Windsor, Maidenhead, Bracknell and Chalfont St Peter.

Our three core values, and the behaviours that support them, guide everything we do and set out what we expect of our staff in the way they treat patients, visitors, service users and each other. So whether you use our services or are just visiting you can expect us to be Committed to Excellence, Working Together and Facing the Future.

If you have a passion for clinical excellence, patient care and your own career development, you’ll feel at home at Frimley Health. Whether you want to broaden your expertise, strengthen your skills or make the move into management. It’s one of the reasons our staff consistently rate us among the best places to work in the NHS.

• To keep the laboratory manager informed of all matters regarding laboratory procedures and help with the smooth running of the department
• Works in cooperation with BMS staff to ensure workload is processed in a timely and efficient manner
• Ensures efficient use of resources and is aware of stock levels and rotation, storage conditions, batch numbers and expiry dates, thus ensuring the viability of reagents and/or blood products used
• Demonstrates excellent personal communication and team working skills
• To works as part of a team to ensure that departmental performance targets are met by continually assessing priority of work
• To work to achieve competencies across the repertoire of the department as appropriate to grade.
• To assist in the departmental work as instructed, following SOPs under the supervision of the laboratory managers, team leaders and / or Biomedical Scientist staff
• To receive a wide range of clinical samples into the department from hospital staff, clinic staff and transport services
• To ensures sample detail matches request form detail and assigns unique laboratory number to sample and form, requiring complete accuracy and attention to detail
• To follow SOPs, undertake waste disposal of laboratory samples and used consumables (including the operation of an autoclave if required)

Refer to attached JD for more details