The Virology department at Liverpool Clinical Laboratories is a modern, well-equipped Laboratory performing both molecular diagnostics and serological techniques.

The department is UKAS accredited and is IBMS approved for training.

The laboratory is fully computerised and processes an interesting and varied workload. The laboratory serves a major GUM Clinic, Renal Transplant Unit, Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, Infectious Disease Unit as well as providing the virology diagnostics for the area's Children's Hospital.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will act as a higher specialist, registered Biomedical Scientist who provides analytical services to patients and clients as an aid to the diagnosis and prognosis of viral illnesses. The post holder will manage a section of the virology laboratory ensuring the processing of a range of diagnostic virology investigations, specialist management functions and provide scientific support to clinicians, liaison with general practitioners and other diagnostic service providers to ensure diagnostic support.

To give advice and guidance on the assessment of a patient's needs and appropriate investigations when requests arrive in the department.

To make sure all agreed investigations are processed in a timely fashion.

To ensure that routine and advanced scientific work of the Virology Laboratory is performed within set local and national quality assurance guidelines.

To report clinically significant results to the Clinical Virologist, hospital clinicians and GPs.

Ensure the confidentiality of patient records and data according to NHS (Venereal Diseases) Regulations Act 1974, Data Protection Act 1998 and Caldicott Guidelines.

To perform all laboratory duties diligently and with due care and consideration to the health, safety and welfare of oneself and others.

To make sure staff are trained for the tasks they perform.

To maintain the continuity and provision of the virology service.

About us

Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was created on 1 October 2019 following the merger of two adult acute Trusts, Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust.

The merger provides an opportunity to reconfigure services in a way that provides the best healthcare services to the city and improves the quality of care and health outcomes that patients experience.

The Trust runs Aintree University Hospital, Broadgreen Hospital, Liverpool University Dental Hospital and the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

It serves a core population of around 630,000 people across Merseyside as well as providing a range of highly specialist services to a catchment area of more than two million people in the North West region and beyond.

To hear more about our achievements click here https://www.liverpoolft.nhs.uk/media/13089/1606-annual-report-booklet_final.pdf

Follow us on Social Media:

Facebook - Liverpool University Hospitals Careers

Instagram - @LUHFTcareers

Twitter - @LUHFTcareers

Job description

Job responsibilities

Please see JD attached for further information.

To manage the various sections of the Virology laboratory:

Chlamydia diagnostic service

Molecular diagnostic service

Blood-borne virus serology service

General Serology service and

Development of new technical services.

The daily supervision of Biomedical Scientist staff.

Ensure that staff are informed of the duties and any amendments to the processing procedures.

Responsibility for the processing of virology specimens and ensuring the identification and confirmation of potential pathogens, providing information for clinicians to aid treatment and monitoring of a patient's disease status.

Organise the processing of work within a particular section. Checking that results are valid and those quality control measures have been fulfilled.

Oversee and perform specialist investigations in specific section.

To make sure that all requests have been properly assessed the correct investigations assigned and carried out.

All additional confirmatory work is performed in a timely way and results reported to the Clinical Virologist.

For writing guidelines for the safe use of specialist equipment, ensuring its maintenance, able to fault-find and take corrective action as and when required.

To investigate any technical or machine-based non-compliance and produce a written report for the Quality Manager.

To implement any immediate corrective actions that are required to maintain the service of the section.

To assist Quality Manager in investigating any untoward incidents and implement any preventative actions as decided by the Quality Manager.

To report any interruption to the service to the Directorate Manager or Clinical Virologist.

Attend laboratory meeting to keep up-to-date with developments in each section of the department.

To ensure all reports are technically authorised.

To attend the Directorate Management Committee meetings which decide on the operational policies for the laboratory.

Writing of standard operating procedures, incorporating safe systems of work for all areas of the laboratory.

Arranging regular stock takes and reporting stock levels to the laboratory manager.

Maintain state registration and provide local management with evidence of such.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• B.Sc. (Hons) Biomedical Science Degree.
• Certificate of Competence to Practice by Institute of Biomedical Sciences
• MSc or equivalent in Virology
• First line management training
• HCPC registered

Experience

Essential

• Demonstrable experience in a Virology laboratory.

Knowledge

Essential

• Detailed understanding of laboratory health and safety issues. Evidence of training in health and safety.
• Detailed working knowledge of variety of serological and advance virology techniques. (Serological analysers, understanding of all types of ELISA techniques, immunoblot assays, Chlamydia Polymerase Chain Reaction and Real-Time molecular diagnostics).
• Clear understanding of Quality Management systems with regard the transport and referral of samples, carrying out quality audits.

Skills

Essential

• Trained to carry out COSHH and Risk Assessment
• Ability to lead a team.
• Ability to concentrate for long periods.
• Ability to organise and prioritise own and others work
• Able to write standard operating procedures.
• Willingness to participate in the out of hours service.
• Good interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Computer skills, important have good working knowledge of word processing, database systems and spreadsheets.
• Able to act off on own initiative

Other

Essential

• Dextrous, able to handle fine pipettes and instruments.
• Clear academic interest in Virology

Employer details

Employer name

Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Liverpool Clinical Laboratories

Liverpool

L7 8YE

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

287-LCL-99-23-A