Medical Laboratory Assistant (Permanent Night Shift 00:00-06:00). inFrimley inFrimley PUBLISHED 25 JUN 2024

Job Overview


We have an exciting opportunity for a dynamic individual with excellent interpersonal skills to become part of our team within the Frimley Park Hospital Pathology Specimen Reception Department.

While no formal experience or qualifications are required, excellent typing skills, an eye for detail and a positive approach are absolutely essential.


Please note: this role is not suitable for recent graduates looking for progression into the Biomedical Scientist role.


Main duties of the job

You will need to be organised, yet flexible and a good team player, yet comfortable working on your own; in addition to a friendly and approachable personality. Your role will be varied, supporting the work of Blood Science duties including the receipt, sorting and preparation of patient’s blood, bodily fluids and other general laboratory and clerical duties.



PURPOSE OF JOB:



To work with other members of staff to provide an efficient and effective service to all users of the Pathology department. To ensure the rapid and timely turnaround of Pathology samples by receiving, labelling and entering onto the Pathology computer system.

The Pathology Laboratory is situated in Frimley Park Hospital and part of Berkshire Surrey Pathology Services (BSPS) which is a successful and progressive merged pathology network which is a contractual joint venture between Ashford & St Peter’s, Frimley Health, Royal Berkshire and Royal Surrey County Hospitals NHS Foundation Trusts. It provides services to NHS Acute Trusts, CCGs, academic centres, and the private healthcare sector undertaking approximately 20 million tests per year serving a population of 2 million. We provide a service 7 days a week.

Working for our organisation

Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust provides NHS hospital services for around 900,000 people across Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey and south Buckinghamshire.

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 have three main hospitals - Frimley Park in Frimley near Camberley, Heatherwood in Ascot and Wexham Park near Slough.

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, Committed to Excellence, Working Together and Facing the Future.

We are also proud to host the Defence Medical Group South East at Frimley Park with military surgical, medical and nursing personnel working alongside the hospital's NHS staff providing care to patients in all specialties


Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities

• To maintain good communication with the Specimen Reception Team Leader in order to minimise errors and maximise efficiency through agreed priorities and to achieve the aim of completing all work within the working day.
• To maintain a close working relationship with senior laboratory staff.
• To assist in the electronic production and distribution of Pathology reports by post or fax.
• To deal with telephone enquires directed to Specimen Reception to give Pathology results for Haematology, Biochemistry and Microbiology, where appropriate and to re-direct calls to the various laboratories.
• Verbal contact with external laboratories on those tests not performed in-house.
• To inform relevant requesting Consultants, Doctors or nursing staff over the phone and face-to-face when incorrect sample or information is received.
• To provide information to all users on the appropriate specimen collection procedure, under the guidelines of the Pathology Handbook.
• To provide information to patients over the telephone and face-to-face regarding 24 hour urine collection. To also refer patients requesting results to the appropriate requesting clinician.
• To receive all visitors to the laboratory in a professional and courteous manner.
  
  

Please refer to the attached Job Description and Person Specification.


Person specification

Ability

Essential criteria

• Ability to work to tight deadlines
• Ability to pay attention to detail
• Flexibility with working hours
  
  

Desirable criteria

• Basic Knowledge of Medical Terminology
  
  

Experience


Essential criteria

• Good keyboard skills
• Experience of working in a busy environment
• Good team player
  
  

Desirable criteria

• A can do attitude to work
• Ability to work on own
• Experience of working in a specimen reception department in pathology
• Experience working with Laboratory applications Winpath, Enterprise etc.
  
  

Experience


Desirable criteria

• Flexibility to work different shifts/hours
  
  

Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust (FHFT) has an outstanding reputation and a proud record of achievement. As a well performing, well led and ambitious Foundation Trust, we have exciting times ahead of us. We have an ongoing commitment to improving the health and care services for the 900,000 people we serve across Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey and south Buckinghamshire.

We are proud of the ambitions laid out in our strategy, Our Future FHFT, including our vision to be a leader in health & wellbeing, delivering excellence for our communities.

We continue to invest in our services and facilities, including a £10 million upgrade to the hospital maternity unit as well as £49m major new Emergency Assessment Centre on our Wexham Park site. The opening of a brand new £100m state of the art hospital which replaced the existing hospital facility at Heatherwood and are planning to invest further in diagnostics and inpatient capacity at Frimley Park.

We have also made significant investment in our quality improvement and digital programmes to support our vision and we will ensure that we achieve our aim of providing the highest quality healthcare to our patients. Our new EPR – Epic – went live in June and we are already beginning to reap the benefits of this ambitious investment .

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