Senior Specialist Biomedical Scientist

Job overview

The department provides a specialist Clinical Biochemistry service to both acute and primary care, and to other trusts within the Sussex area and beyond. It holds accreditation with UKAS, and is approved by the Institute of Biomedical Sciences as a training laboratory.

The laboratory at University Hospitals Sussex, East is divided into four sections: at the  Royal Sussex County Hospital(RSCH) site : Automation, Send Away Service , Special Reference (including Downs screening, Toxicology, Point of Care, and Separation Sciences) and Immunology: and on the  Princess Royal Hospital(PRH) site: Automation.

We are looking for 1.92 WTE enthusiastic HCPC Registered Senior Specialist Biomedical Scientists to join our team and work in the Biochemistry automation department at UHS East. The candidates will be expected to work at both UHS East( RSCH and PRH) sites, reporting to the Biochemistry Automation Section Manager, you will be working with the other Biochemistry Senior Specialist Biomedical Scientist in the section and be responsible for the smooth running of the Biochemistry automation and send away section.

The automation sections are equipped with Roche Cobas 8000s which are tracked and linked to pre analytics. We also use the Roche c513 analyser for the HbA1c's.

All staff will be expected to participate in the 24/7 shift rota once satisfying competency assessment.

Please note: We will only consider candidates with relevant and extensive NHS laboratory experience!

Main duties of the job

NHS Laboratory experience is essential and we will not consider any candidates without?

• Day-to-day running of the laboratory (managing staffing, stock control, monitoring internal and external quality control performance, dealing with engineer visits, maintaining staff rota, organise section around planned and unplanned analytical downtime and deputising for the Section Manager in their absence).
• Training of MLAs and BMS staff to perform their tasks as per the SOPs and maintaining competency logs.
• Instrument trouble shooting.
• Quality tasks, such as: handling low severity incidents, reviewing/writing SOPs, audits, quality control, validation, working closely with QO etc.
• Assisting section manager with implementation of new processes and equipment.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The successful candidates will be responsible for the Biochemistry automation and Send Away section, ensuring the smooth running of departmental day to day activities, quality activities to maintain UKAS accreditation status, training and supervising of staff and maintaining staff competency logs, managing staffing in the section, ensuring the analysers are maintained correctly and undertaking any troubleshooting that is required; dealing with engineering visits and organising the section around planned and unplanned analytical down time, stock control and ordering of reagents and materials. You must be confident in supervising  a team and have good communication skills as you will be working with laboratory staff across sites and disciplines, clinical staff as well as external users of our service.

It is an essential requirement that you have either completed a Specialist IBMS Portfolio or have successfully completed its predecessor, the CPSM/HPC logbook and oral examination. You must also have an MSc or equivalent qualification in the appropriate specialty and years of experience within a diagnostic NHS Biochemistry laboratory.

Candidates would be expected to have experience in delivering training, analyser troubleshooting and using Quality systems.

The department has a 24/7 shift system in place. The successful candidate will be required to participate in the 24/7 shift working pattern once satisfying competency assessment and will be required to work on either UHS East sites(RSCH and PRH).

Please read the attached job description and person specification for further details.