Biomedical Support Worker

Job summary

Working Full Time: 37.5 hours per week

The Blood Sciences Department have a vacancy for a Biomedical Support Worker to be part of a team providing 24/7 laboratory testing for the Countess of Chester NHS Trust Hospital. This includes supporting rapid Covid-19 and influenza testing.

The role involves receiving blood sample requests, entering requests onto the hospital computer system, pre-analytics (preparing the samples for processing), loading and unloading analysers, preparing a variety of sample types for certain tests e.g. PCR Covid-19 testing.

• The Blood Sciences Department at the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust currently have a vacancy for a Biomedical Support Worker.
• The role will include rotation into the laboratory departments/ sections as required.
• For this Blood Sciences support worker role it is essential that you have the ability to work flexibly, including covering Early (08:00 - 16:00), Mini Late (10:30 - 19:00), Late (14:00 to 22:00) and Night Shifts (when required - 22:00-08:00), Monday to Sunday. This will be alongside core working days of 09.00 - 17.30.

Main duties of the job

• Sample reception duties including receiving requests and booking requests into the IT system.
• Preparing samples for analysis i.e. centrifuging samples.
• Loading and unloading samples onto the laboratory automation and analysers.
• Answering phone enquiries and giving out validated test results.
• Providing 24/7 cover by participating in early, day, evening, night and weekend shifts when required.
• Performing sample analysis e.g. Covid-19 and HbA1c testing.
• Storeroom and stock control duties.
• Manual handling is required as part of these duties.

About us

The Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust provides services to West Cheshire and to Welsh patients covered by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. The Trust works collaboratively within the wider Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership. Its services are provided from three locations:

• The Countess of Chester Hospital: providing 438 general and acute beds
• Ellesmere Port Hospital: providing 56 beds as a rehabilitation, intermediate and outpatient facility
• Tarporley War Memorial Hospital: a base for community services which serve the local rural population.

The Trust employs over 6258 staff (headcount) which includes temporary bank staff and provides acute emergency and elective services, primary care direct access services and obstetric services to a population of approximately 407,000. This includes 357,000 residents in Chester and West Cheshire which includes Ellesmere Port and Neston as well as the Deeside area of Flintshire which has a population of approximately 50,000.

The Trust is a busy district general hospital and in 2022/2023, there were more than 503,342 patient attendances (inpatient, outpatient and diagnostic) ranging from a simple outpatient appointment to major cancer surgery. This is an increase of nearly 10,000 compared to the previous year when there were 494,387 patient attendances.