Catering Assistant | Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh NHS Foundation Trust; Wigan; On-site; GBP 10,000 - 40,000; Full time

Job summary

A regional healthcare provider in Wigan is seeking a dedicated Catering Assistant to join their team. The role includes serving meals, assisting with food preparation, and handling cash transactions. Ideal candidates will be enthusiastic and committed to delivering excellent customer service while adhering to food safety standards. The position offers a competitive salary and a range of benefits including annual leave and pension contributions.

Benefits

Attractive benefits package

Excellent Pension & Life Assurance

Annual leave entitlements

Health and wellbeing support

Career progression opportunities

Qualifications

• Enthusiastic and self-motivated individuals with a passion for customer service.
• Ability to work within food safety standards.
• High standards of personal hygiene.

Responsibilities

• Serve meals to patients, staff, and visitors.
• Prepare food as per specified recipes.
• Handle cash using retail tills.

Skills

Enthusiastic customer service

Basic food preparation

Cash handling

Job description

The Catering Department are looking to recruit a Catering Assistant working 6 hours a day, Monday - Friday (30 hours per week).

We are looking for an individual who is enthusiastic and interested in being part of this dynamic team delivering a high‑quality service to our patients, staff and visitors.

The retail assistant role is very varied; a typical day would consist of serving customers, taking orders & payments using the tills system, and some basic food preparation.

We welcome applications from enthusiastic, self‑motivated individuals with a passion for general customer service duties, who take pride in their work and are responsive to the needs of patients, visitors and staff through the delivery of excellent customer service at all times.

Please note this vacancy may close before the advertised closing date if a sufficient number of suitable applications are received.

Required to undertake a wide range of duties including food preparation, cleaning, cash handling and meal service duties within the kitchen and our retail units.

The role of the retail catering assistant is to carry out all duties to a required standard for the provision of the retail services within the hospital.

Ensuring retail stock is well presented, with daily monitoring of product expiry dates and appropriate stock rotation, identifying products for replenishment and reporting any price/product changes.

Assisting with simple food preparation duties as instructed.

Completion of audit forms associated with food safety, financial policy and procedures.

Choose Well – Choose WWL

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust are the proud providers of acute hospital and community services to the people of the Wigan Borough and surrounding areas. At WWL, we value our staff believing that ‘happy staff, makes for happy patients’. We have a recognised track record in staff engagement, and living our values. WWL are committed to placing the patient at the heart of everything we do, and in the provision of safe, effective care that acknowledges and ensures dignity. With this in mind we are seeking to recruit people who share our values and beliefs.

Benefits

• Good basic salary plus an attractive package of benefits
• Excellent Pension & Life Assurance Package (over 20% employer contribution)
• Excellent annual leave entitlements 27 to 33 days per annum dependent upon service
• Birthday Leave
• Paid occupational maternity, paternity and adoption leave dependent upon service
• Training opportunities and eLearning resources
• Health and wellbeing support
• Career Progression opportunities within Estates & Facilities and the NHS
• Access to salary sacrifice schemes for items such as lease vehicles and buy a bike schemes
• NHS Discount schemes to access hundreds of discounts and savings from everything from High Street stores to restaurants, family holidays and more
• Long Service Awards

Planning and Organisational Duties

• Work to standard operational procedures
• Preparation of food, which could be within high risk chilled areas, to specified recipes
• Ensuring labelling of products is correct eg product name dates
• After training could be required to produce cooked foods e.g. soups, gravy, fried, bacon etc
• Performance of duties in accordance with approved methods, frequencies and standards, adhering to strict food safety standards
• Meeting deadlines for production of meals as part of a team
• May be required to take patient menu choices at ward level, offer alternatives where required
• Required to serve meals at ward level to patients, or in retail outlets to staff & visitors, occasional delivery of buffets & functions outside the Department
• Use of equipment, machinery and cleaning materials once trained, ability to spot defects with fabric or machinery and report to Supervisor
• Significant cleaning duties are associated with this post including cleaning of pans, cutlery, crockery, machinery, cooking equipment and floors walls and work surfaces
• Recording temperatures and other key audit requirements onto the appropriate monitoring forms, reporting to Supervisors where temperatures may be outside required limits
• Have high standards of personal hygiene and follow the departmental uniform code of practice

Communications and Key Working Relationships

• Required to provide information on menus to patients, staff & visitors eg allergen information
• May be required to undertake patient satisfaction surveys at ward level
• Answer the telephone and take messages from wards on additional meals required, pass these on in a timely manner to Supervisors
• Communicate with colleagues to ensure meal service proceeds efficiently
• Answer questions during food safety audits from external auditors eg environmental health officer

Responsibility for Finance

• Required to handle cash, using retail tills, or emptying vending machines
• Use of barcodes, card readers and security tags
• May be required to open & secure Department
• Maintain stock control
• Follow departmental procedures for cash handling, managing balances, receipts, discount buttons and meal deals
• Accurate recording of information onto audit sheets and correct bagging and tagging of cash & receipts for delivery to General Offices
• Compliance with Trust and local procedures

This advert closes on Wednesday 10 Dec 2025.