Associate Practitioner

The Quality Assurance Laboratory at the Welsh Blood Service has a vacancy for an Associate Practitioner. The tenure of the post is fixed term for 12 months to support flexible working.

The Welsh Blood Service is proud of its partnerships with blood donors from across Wales, to provide the best quality services for patients in Wales.

This is a leadership role; the post holder will facilitate the specialist technical and associated Quality Control (QC) testing programmes of the Laboratory. This will include utilising varied technologies such as those associated to Haematology, Haemostasis and Flow cytometry, to analyse samples and establish process capability metric data. Environmental sampling to monitor the cleanliness of critical areas and equipment and calibration and validation of cold chain monitoring systems.

The successful applicant will work to a level to ensure all processes meet the requirements of the UK guidelines for Blood Transfusion and the EU Directive as inspected by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

There will be a potential requirement to work variable shift patterns according to the exigencies of the service. This will include working Bank Holidays.

The Welsh Blood Service is proud of its partnerships with blood donors from across Wales, to provide the best quality services for patients in Wales.

The post holder will be trained to Diploma level in a biological science and have experience/knowledge of operating in a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) environment to ensure that the Quality Assurance Laboratory meets its Regulatory needs.

The post holder will, alongside Biomedical Scientists, have a supervisory role and be responsible for the organisation of work, supervision of staff and participation in the routine work of the Quality Assurance Laboratory, to ensure that donated whole blood is quality control tested as required.

Communication and Relationship Skills

¨ Be able to communicate technical equipment related information to service engineers external to WBS, when analysers break down and ensure staff within the department are kept informed of on-going issues

¨ Provide training instructions to staff working in the Quality Assurance Laboratory

¨ Ensure staff are competency assessed annually and comply with SOPs

¨ Regularly communicate with the Processing department to ensure component quality control samples are collected to schedules

¨ The post holder will be required to communicate verbally with Suppliers and Drivers in order to Receipt goods and Samples

Knowledge, Training and Experience

¨ The post holder shall have been trained in a biological science to diploma level (e.g. HNC, HND)

¨ The post holder must be aware of the external regulatory requirements to which the WBS must comply and to ensure all healthcare support workers (HCSW) remain in compliance. These will include MHRA/BSQR and ISO standards

¨ The post holder will be required to have an understanding of the principles of GMP and its role in the WBS quality systems

Analytical and Judgemental Skills

¨ Skills in ensuring all components and test results produced meet the standard required

¨ Skills in ensuring that all equipment is performing as expected and identifying faults in equipment used in the department e.g. Haematology Analyser, Flow cytometer, BacT/ALERT

¨ Use of the Oracle finance and procurement system for the receipt and issue of inventory

Planning and Organisational Skills

¨ Organise workload, including staff with appropriate training records

¨ Ensure that samples are not mixed to avoid cross contamination

Physical Skills

The post holder is required to demonstrate dexterity, co-ordination and sensory skills for the use of equipment e.g. pipettes and various analysers and sample preparation including stripping lines for QC/QM testing.

Responsibility for Patient / Client Care

¨ Responsible for ensuring that components manufactured from donated whole blood, as part of GMP processes, meets regulatory standards

¨ No contact with patients

Responsibility for Policy / Service Development Implementation

The Post holder will assist in the review and update of SOPs for the department.

Responsibility for Financial and Physical Resources

¨ Shared responsibility for ensuring that critical alarm testing of storage environments are performed regularly

¨ Safe use of equipment and devices

¨ Responsible for ensuring that maintenance of equipment within the department is performed and documented as defined in SOP’s.

¨ Participate in providing support for the WBS stores function when required

Responsibility for Human Resources

¨ Train and supervise HCSW in the Quality Assurance laboratory

¨ Maintain training records and competency assessments as evidence that staff have been authorised to perform tasks undertaken

Responsibility for Information Resources

¨ Ensure that any labels produced from the Blood Establishment Computer System (BECS)