Associate Practitioner - Point of Care

St. Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust; Warrington; On-site; GBP 24,000 - 30,000; Full time

Job summary

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is inviting applications for a Point of care Associate Practitioner across the Mersey and West Lancashire Network. The post will initially be based at the Warrington and Halton sites, with potential cross-site duties across the network.

You will train users on point of care devices, carry out maintenance and troubleshooting, and support the quality management system.

Qualifications

• NVQ level 3 in Lab skills or equivalent competencies.
• Laboratory experience at Medical Laboratory Assistant level.

Responsibilities

• To provide training and troubleshooting support for users of point of care devices.
• To distribute and undertake testing of External quality assurance (EQA) samples.
• To submit EQA results to the schemes via the IT systems provided
• To monitor product usage across the devices
• Manage and distribute stock across the Trust
• Liaise with manufacturers in the event of device issues

Skills

Follow SOPs

Problem solving

Organisation

IT skills

Manual dexterity

Concentration

Biological materials handling

Education

NVQ level 3 in Lab skills

Job description

After applying via NHS Jobs, your submitted application will be imported into our preferred Third-party recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs. You will not be able to track the progress of your application or receive messages through the NHS Jobs website, and furthermore, as an employer, we will not be able to respond to any e-mails sent to us via the NHS Jobs website. By applying for this post you are agreeing to "name of trust" transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are appointed to a post information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.

Job overview

Applications are invited for a Point of care Associate Practitioner working across the Mersey and West Lancashire Network. The post will initially be based at the Warrington and Halton sites.

As the Pathology Departments across Warrington and Halton and Mersey and West Lancashire have created the Eastern Hub of the Cheshire and Merseyside Pathology Network cross site working across all hospitals may be required in the future.

Point of care manages a number of different devices across the Trust all of which have full connectivity via Siemens POCelerator middleware. Devices include Siemens Rapidlab blood gas analysers, Siemens Atellica DCA , Pro 100 Urilysers, Siemens EPOC, Abbott freestyle precision pro glucose and ketone meters.

JD & PS are currently under AfC review and are subject to change.

Main duties of the job

As a member of the point of care team you will be responsible for supporting users and the devices across the Trust this includes delivering training, completing maintenance and troubleshooting issues along with completing tasks required as part of the quality management system.

Working for our organisation

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 10,500 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.

Our services:

Acute Care

Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.

Primary Care

Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.

Community Services

Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire. Our inpatient unit at Newton Community Hospital is where patients needing acute hospital beds can continue rehabilitation. We also provide urgent care at our Urgent Treatment Centre located in St Helens town centre.

Specialist Regional Services

We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

Achievements:

• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To provide training and troubleshooting support for users of point of care devices.
• To distribute and undertake testing of External quality assurance (EQA) samples.
• To submit EQA results to the schemes via the IT systems provided
• To monitor product usage across the devices
• Manage and distribute stock across the Trust
• Liaise with manufacturers in the event of device issues

Person specification

Our Values

Essential criteria

• We are Kind
• We are Open
• We are Inclusive

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• NVQ level 3 in Lab skills and/or recorded achievement of departmental competencies

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Laboratory experience at Medical Laboratory Assistant level

Skills

Essential criteria

• Able to follow written instructions (SOP's)
• Problem Solving skills
• Ability to organise/prioritise workload
• IT Skills
• Highly developed physical skills where accuracy
• Frequent requirement for concentration where the work pattern is unpredictable
• Able to handle and work with biological materials

Other

Essential criteria

• Willing to be flexible in service delivery

The Trust may contact you during the recruitment process for your feedback on your experience. We always aim for continuous improvement in our practice.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

We actively cultivate a professional environment of fairness, equality, dignity, and respect for all individuals. We welcome individuals from all backgrounds and value the unique skills, perspective and experience you bring. We are grounded in the belief that diversity enhances our collective strength, fostering innovation and excellence within our workforce. We welcome all applications irrespective of people's race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion/belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity and in particular those from under- represented groups.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we commit to offering an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.