Chef

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust; Manchester; On-site; GBP 21,000 - 27,000; Full time

Job summary

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester is seeking a Chef to join its Catering Team, delivering high-quality patient, staff, and visitor meals in a fast-paced hospital setting.

You will plan menus, support allergen information, and maintain hygiene standards, with flexibility to cover evenings, weekends, and public holidays as required.

Qualifications

• Must hold City & Guilds 7061 & 2 or L2/L3 NVQ.
• L2 Food Hygiene Certificate.
• L2 HACCP Certification.
• Experience in large-scale catering, kitchen, or food service industry, preferably in a health care setting.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work effectively within a team environment.
• Attention to detail and ability to multitask.
• Availability to work flexible hours, including evenings, weekends, and public holidays.

Responsibilities

• Delivering a high standard of food preparation.
• Producing food to the highest standards.
• Ensuring food and hygiene standards are met.
• Planning menus and ordering supplies as required.
• Dealing with direct patient queries.
• Delivering Dietary and Allergen requirements.
• Providing a personalised service as appropriate.
• Preparing, cooking, and serving of all foods to patients, staff and visitors.
• Providing high quality hospitality catering for internal and external events.
• Ensuring compliance of all Catering areas.
• Providing excellent customer service to patients, families, and colleagues.
• Ensuring NHS Food Standards are adhered to.

Skills

Experience in large-scale catering

Communication skills

Teamwork

Attention to detail

Flexible hours

Education

City & Guilds 7061 & 2 or L2/L3 NVQ

L2 Food Hygiene Certificate

L2 HACCP Certification

Job description

Do you want to work as part of an innovative Catering Team within one of Europe’s leading and the UK’s best Cancer Care Centres?

We have a rare opportunity for you to join our inspirational catering team here at “the Christie” as a Chef within our Catering Team. Encouraging healthier lifestyles, our Team of Chefs is skilled in transforming fresh, seasonal ingredients into nutritious home‑cooked meals that place our patients, families, and colleagues “At the heart of what we do”. Do you have what it takes to provide exceptional food with exemplary customer service, with a smile, in a fast‑paced, caring environment?

Main duties of the job

What will you be doing:

• Delivering a high standard of food preparation
• Producing food to the highest standards
• Ensuring food and hygiene standards are met.
• Planning menus and ordering supplies as required.
• Dealing with direct patient queries.
• Delivering Dietary and Allergen requirements.
• Providing a personalised service as appropriate.
• Preparing, cooking, and serving of all foods to patients, staff and visitors.
• Providing high quality hospitality catering for internal and external events.
• Ensuring compliance of all Catering areas.
• Providing excellent customer service to patients, families, and colleagues.
• Ensuring NHS Food Standards are adhered to.

Qualifications and Skills:

• Must hold City & Guilds 7061 & 2 or L2/L3 NVQ
• L2 Food Hygiene Certificate
• L2 HACCP Certification
• Experience in large-scale catering, kitchen, or food service industry, preferably in a health care setting.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Ability to work effectively within a team environment
• Attention to detail and ability to multitask
• Availability to work flexible hours, including evenings, weekends, and public holidays

Working for our organisation

The Christie is one of Europe’s leading cancer centres, looking after more than 64,000 patients a year. We are based in Manchester and serve a population of 3.2 million across Greater Manchester & Cheshire, but as a national specialist around 25% patients are referred to us from other parts of the country.

We are the largest radiotherapy provider in the NHS with one in 20 treatments delivered at The Christie. We have up to 15 linear accelerators operating across our network of sites. We operate the largest chemotherapy unit in the UK on our main site and treatments are also provided at 13 other networked sites, and in patients homes. And as a specialist tertiary surgical centre, we focus on rare cancers, complex procedures, and multidisciplinary approaches to cancer surgery, specialising in colorectal, peritoneal, gynaecological, urological and plastic surgery.

We are also an international leader in research, with world first breakthroughs for over 100 years. We have been named by the UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), as one of the best hospitals providing opportunities for patients to participate in clinical research studies, with more than 800 studies open at any time, caring for over 3,000 patients.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Maintain good relationships with ward and other departmental colleagues, both in telephone communications and direct verbal contact.

Provide clear catering and food production related information and documentation to colleagues, patient groups, dieticians, and stakeholders.

Work with the Executive Head Chef/Deputy Head Chef in identifying and managing the risks in the catering department. Highlight any problem areas regarding provision of service, faults in the fabric or maintenance of the department that will affect the service for any period.

Maintain relationships, effective networks, and proactive communication mechanisms with colleagues.

Knowledge Training and Experience

To carry out all work procedures in accordance with the Food Safety Act and working within departmental HACCP procedures and complete all due diligence records, such as food temperatures taken throughout the preparation and cooking process via the Monika system.

This is in line with H.A.C.C.P procedure.

To be trained to Basic Food Hygiene standard.

To assist with menu planning with full knowledge of standard recipes and food production in large scale catering operations.

To have knowledge of therapeutic diets acquired through training and experience.

To participate in any training opportunities. Please note that due to the nature of the business, some training may take place in the evening and at weekends.

Training is compulsory/mandatory.

To complete the temperature recording procedures in the catering department in line with the H.A.C.C.P system inclusive of the electronic MONIKA task minder system and Burlodge ward trolleys to ensure that all due diligence records are up to date for internal and external inspections.

Assist in carrying out patient and customer surveys and support the production of reports and action plans.

To liaise with the Executive Head Chef/Deputy Head Chef, to continuously develop and improve the kitchen environment and food service and monitor food wastage and report any finding to the Executive Head Chef/Deputy Head Chef.

To respond to patients, verbal complaints and visit patients at ward level to answer queries or complaints upon direction of the Executive Head Chef/Deputy Head Chef.

Communicate with customers or patients on ward level as required.

Assist the Executive Head Chef/Deputy Head Chef to plan for any building work and new equipment/ software upgrades in the kitchen area.

Report to the Executive Head Chef/Deputy Head Chef any maintenance requirements regarding the catering department.

To be willing to work in different areas of the department if required, and work as a team.

To prepare food to meet daily deadlines where accuracy is essential.

Reasonable physical skills are required for managing deliveries of stock.

To organise and prioritise cooking methods, times, and procedures dependent on the daily workload to ensure a timely service of meals.

To provide nutritional, attractive, and palatable meals to hospital patients, staff and visitors and adopt responsibility at all times for the quality and outcome of each dish.

Assist all patients, staff, and visitors regarding the catering and food preparation and ward service.

To cater for any special functions and events as directed.

To be flexible to change shift patterns to suit the needs of the service.

To cope with increased workload at short notice and requests for out of hour’s service as required.

To be responsible for putting away deliveries and maintain stock control/rotation when required.

To concentrate when using equipment, knives and during the cooking process following the risk assessments, to ensure that adequate safety precautions are taken when carrying out all tasks.

To be able to provide information on ingredients and allergen to patients, staff, and visitors.

To liaise with wards and clinical areas for patient meal requests and dietetic requirements

To have a thorough knowledge of all work procedures, practices, and equipment for the catering service.

To have a thorough knowledge of therapeutic diets and nutrition values obtained through training and experience.

To have a thorough understanding of allergen requirements

To set up pieces of equipment at the start of the working day e.g., ignition of ovens and fryers. Lifting of food in and out of ovens, boilers etc.

To clean down all preparation areas after use, following the ‘clean as you go’ procedure.

When required be able to take up the patient food trolley up to the ward and serve patients meals when required

To be available to see individual patients on request to address queries or concerns and be ready to provide alternatives to the menu as necessary as guided by the Executive Head Chef/Deputy Head Chef.

To liaise with ward staff; and ensure process is in place to identify patients’ specific needs.

To maintain the Allergen matrix for all meals provided to the patients, staff, and visitors.

To follow policies/procedures on all aspects of food purchase, storage, and production.

To follow the HACCP policy, addressing any controls and constraints and identify actions required.

To follow any recommendations of external bodies i.e., EHO inspector to meet the agreed standards

Follow any policies for the catering department and legislative changes relating to all aspects of food purchase, storage, production, and service

Use complaints, incidents, and comments positively to learn from issues and provide feedback to improve services.

Operate in line with the current catering policy; contribute to developing, reviewing, and updating the policy.

Maintain good housekeeping and stock rotation of all provisions within the department.

Ensure that all equipment is used efficiently and report any defects in equipment or machinery as soon as they occur to the Executive Head Chef.

Ensure compliance with all Trust and departmental policies and procedures.

Support and assist new or existing members of staff.

Maintain good housekeeping, stock rotation for all provisions in dry stores, fridges, and freezers. (First In First Out)

To support any requisitions for provisions required on day-to-day basis.

Suggest initiatives to improve the service and reduce