Catering Assistant

NHS; Chippenham; On-site; GBP 10,000 - 40,000; Part time

Job summary

A regional healthcare provider is seeking a part-time Catering Assistant at Chippenham Community Hospital. The role involves preparing food items and ensuring compliance with safety and quality regulations. The ideal candidate should be reliable and enthusiastic, with a willingness to learn as training will be provided. This position includes weekend work with a total of 16.5 hours per week in a supportive environment that values service, teamwork, ambition, and respect.

Qualifications

• Reliability and enthusiasm are essential for this role.
• No prior experience is required as full training will be provided.
• A catering background is advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Prepare salads, sandwiches, sauces, soups and other basic food items.
• Receive, check and record deliveries, ensuring stock rotation and segregation.
• Prepare and serve meals according to dietary requirements.

Skills

General educational level of numeracy and literacy

Basic food hygiene knowledge

Basic Health and Safety knowledge

Job description

Catering Assistant

The closing date is 28 December 2025

We are looking to recruit a part time Catering Assistant at Chippenham Community Hospital, working 16.5 hours per week, weekend work included.

The successful candidate will be responsible for achieving a high standard of catering practices. Ensuring all food produced meets the required standards for safety, quality and presentation. Complying with the Trust's catering policies and procedures and adhering to Food Safety regulations.

All catering staff will be expected to demonstrate a flexible attitude to their work and provide a high level of customer care when dealing with patients, visitors and staff.

We take pride in our Hotel Services Team the services we provide to our patients, staff and visitors, and in order to maintain our own high standards we are looking for reliable and enthusiastic staff to join our team at Chippenham Community Hospital.

Relevant qualifications and/or experience would be an advantage but are not essential as we will provide full training.

Main duties of the job

• Prepare salads, sandwiches, sauces, soups and other basic food items.
• Undertake duties associated with providing a pre-prepared meal service. This will include summarising dish requirements, picking meal foils from the freezer, regenerating the food and confirming temperatures are compliant throughout.
• Make adjustments to menus at short notice to meet the needs of patients and their nutritional requirements.
• Communicate changes and shortages etc. with ward staff and patients to ensure all patients dietary requirements are fulfilled.
• Prepare and serve modified meals to patients that are on special diets in line with national requirements
• Undertake clearing, machine and manual washing up and cleaning duties in accordance with departmental schedules and standards

About us

"Our STAR values - Service, Teamwork, Ambition and Respect - are a golden thread running through everything we do. These values serve as a guiding principle, driving us towards our vision of delivering great joined up services to our local community. Whether at home, in the community, or within the hospital, our goal is to empower individuals to lead independent and healthier lives."

Job responsibilities

• Receive, check and record deliveries for quantity, quality and temperature where applicable, then storing so that stock rotation and segregation procedures are followed.
• When necessary act as point of contact for the Supervisor in their absence, ensuring rotas are covered and all shifts are adequately staffed.
• Undertake service duties such as plating individual patient meals or bulk dishing into trolleys, ensuring departmental standards of time and temperature control are met. On sites which have staff/public dining facilities, undertake those service duties and operate the till where a cash system is in place.
• Cash handling and reconciliation of daily takings from retail outlets

Please see the attached job description for full information

Person Specification

Qualifications

• General educational level of numeracy and literacy
• Basic food hygiene knowledge/qualification
• Basic Health and Safety knowledge/qualification

Experience

• Catering background
• NHS background

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust