Catering Assistant

Job overview

If you are looking for an opportunity to make a difference and work in a fast-paced, highly rewarding department, our Catering team at Wexham Park Hospital is recruiting Catering Assistants to assist in providing a highly professional and customer-focused catering service to all patients, staff, and visitors.

The ideal candidate will be willing to work hard as part of a team and confident to carry out individual duties. You will be interacting with a high number of people each day, playing a vital part in making their visit as comfortable as possible.

On a typical day as an Assistant working in a kitchen assisting Chefs and doing all relevant tasks of Kitchen Porter. You can expect to serve food and drinks in patient or staff dining outlets, assist in food preparation, support wards in delivering their food service, undertake cashier duties, and proactively support continued innovation and development of the department.

Due to the nature of the role, you will be required to adhere to departmental standards and food hygiene regulations. You will also act at all times in a manner that upholds the Trust’s values, working as part of a team to ensure efficiency and excellent customer care. Catering experience and a certificate in food safety are desirable, though this is not essential, as full training will be given.

You will complete a Maths and English assessment as part of the recruitment process. You must pass this test to progress to an interview.

Main duties of the job

The role requires that the job holder follows the duties laid out by the Café Supervisor in the day-to-day operational management of the café. You’ll be expected to treat visitors and staff in a welcoming, friendly and efficient manner, whilst maintaining the highest standards of cleanliness and hygiene. You’ll be working as part of a motivated team in Courtyard Restaurant.

The job holder will assist the Supervisor to expand and/or make recommendations for improving standards and enhancing the service to all customers. This would be through quality initiatives and by looking at ways of maximising good customer care and income generation.

You’ll need to be aware of menu content whilst understanding the importance of portion control, food presentation and customer care. In addition, you must ensure that the privacy and dignity of visitors, staff and patients is respected at all times.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Undertake all duties relating to food service including:

• Prepare food service areas and equipment e.g. placing equipment ready for use (woks, fryers etc.)
• Serve food and drinks in patient/staff dining outlets and on the patient meal assembly
• Ensure a full supply of crockery and cutlery to the restaurant during service hours
• Deliver and collect meal trolleys to/from wards and departments
• Deliver catering supplies to wards and departments including call orders
• Menu collation, picking of all ward food according to menu choice and record information

Undertake preparation of all foodstuffs:

• Assist in food preparation e.g. peeling vegetables, prepping salad items, traying up and labelling items
• Assessment of good portion control, manage food waste and appropriate record-keeping
• Decant chilled food
• Regeneration of food and garnishing
• Adhere strictly to standard recipes and production methods, check food and beverages served, for quantity, quality and appearance and maintain correct standards of hygiene and temperature control as per HACCP

Operate cash registers in retail areas, demonstrating due diligence at all times:

• Undertake cashier duties including receipt and accounting of cash and vouchers, operation of cash register to give correct change, ensuring cash security, maintaining records relating to cash handling, balancing cash takings with till receipts and accounting for differences
• Comply with all organisational and departmental procedures relating to cash handling and security
• Replace or refund patients or retail customers to ensure immediate customer satisfaction, escalating to supervisor or manager as required

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.