Medical Laboratory Assistant

This is an exciting opportunity for a full time Medical Laboratory Assistant at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Blood Transfusion Laboratory.

You will work in a small team between of Blood Transfusion MLAs, as a key part of the wider Blood Transfusion Team.

Blood Transfusion uses Winpath Enterprise as the main Laboratory Information System, and BloodTrack is currently under development to be implemented in October.

Upon satisfactory completion of in-house training and competency assessment you will participate in the MLA rota which currently involves shifts between 8am and 8pm, however this may change with the implementation of BloodTrack so applicants may be required to work on a full 24/7 rota.

This position is for a fixed 18-month term initially.

**Must have right to work in the UK**

Technical
- To safely handle, use and dispose of blood
- Pre-analytical preparation of samples.
- To monitor and maintain laboratory instruments and equipment.
- Ensure quality control measures are carried out to monitor analytical performance.
- Participate in internal and external quality assurance programmes.
- Undertake Blood Transfusion daily returns before returning to stock in line with BSQR on cold chain protocols.
- To monitor blood satellite fridges, conducting alarms tests, temperature checks and undertaking monthly cleaning.
- Monitoring and maintenance of blood stocks in accordance with protocols to assist in reducing and minimising wastage.
- Use Winpath log patient information, verify patient specimens and monitor stock of blood products.

Administrative
- To ensure that records are kept up to date and stored safely to ensure compliance with good work practices required for the standards of UKAS and BSQR.
- Undertake work file management to ensure all results are reported with agreed turnaround time

General Duties
- To comply with the policies and procedures of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust and Synnovis Pathology.
- To treat everyone associated with Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Trust and Synnovis Pathology with courtesy and respect.
- To comply with the training and competence policy and procedure

You will have a suite of learning opportunities available through The Synnovis Way Development programme, the Scientific Learning and Development Fund and the Synnovis Academy through which you can receive funding / support for advanced qualifications.

At Synnovis, we are currently shaping the future of pathology services by creating a world-leading Hub and Spoke pathology network with our NHS partners. A large part of this modernisation will involve moving 70% of our services to a purpose built, state of the art Hub laboratory in the heart of London.

Technical
- To safely handle, use and dispose of blood or other body fluids or hazardous chemicals under supervision.
- Pre-analytical preparation of samples. This includes sorting, labelling and centrifuging according to departmental procedure.
- To perform automated laboratory investigations on patient samples.
- To store, prepare and use reagents required for laboratory investigations.
- To monitor and maintain laboratory instruments and equipment, for example, specified analyser maintenance and basic troubleshooting.
- Ensure quality control measures are carried out to monitor analytical performance, take corrective action where applicable and report any failures to a senior member of staff.
- Participate in internal and external quality assurance programmes.
- To report to the section supervisor any instance or event which may cause a service delivery failure.
- Undertake Blood Transfusion daily returns and audit each unit before returning to stock in line with BSQR on cold chain protocols.
- To monitor blood satellite fridges, conducting alarms tests, temperature checks and undertaking monthly cleaning.
- Monitoring and maintenance of blood stocks in accordance with protocols to assist in reducing and minimising wastage.
- To store samples following appropriate laboratory protocols and keep records as required.
- Process samples under supervision for clinical trials and research and developmental projects if and when required.
- Advise service users on sample preservation and transportation to laboratory.
- Use of the laboratory information system to log patient information, verify patient specimens and monitor stock of blood products.

Laboratory Informatics
- To comply with local and national policies for the safe, secure and confidential processing, and storage of patient and other laboratory information.
- To use the Laboratory Information System according to the authorised protocols.
- To maintain the integrity and accuracy of laboratory databases.
- Fating of Transfusion traceability tags.

Administrative
- To ensure that records are kept up to date and stored safely to ensure compliance with good work practices required for the standards of Clinical Pathology Accreditation (UK) and BSQR.
- Undertake work file management to ensure all results