Laboratories Supervisor

Personal Dosimetry Services (PDS) is a commercial service, approved by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE), that measures and reports the radiation doses to employees working with ionising radiations in various sectors, such as industrial, research and medical. PDS uses passive personal dosemeters, which are worn by the workers and then sent back to PDS for analysis. PDS also contributes to UKHSA’s expertise and advice on radiation matters and generates a significant income for UKHSA. PDS has a staff of around 25 people and serves over 80,000 workers in the UK and abroad.
As a Laboratories Supervisor, you will be part of the laboratories team that supports PDS with ensuring the effective issuing and processing of customer dosemeters. You will be responsible for supervising the day to day running of the PDS dosemeter laboratories, ensuring an efficient and smooth service for our 7000+ customers. This will involve planning, prioritising and participating in the routine work, allocating staff to tasks and ensuring issue and processing targets are met for an average of approx. 9,000 radiation dosemeters/week.
PDS also has an emergency response function for population monitoring in the event of a radiation incident. The Laboratory Supervisor will help the Lab in its response to an incident, liaising with Process Manager and other PDS staff as needed.
Fully supporting all laboratory technicians, managing up to 3 staff
Managing resources to ensure the service runs effectively
Meeting issue and processing targets for the dosimetry service
Monitoring staff development via appraisals, objective-setting and training
Monitoring and management of equipment
Communication effectively with colleagues, suppliers and customers
To help provide excellent customer service
Responding to and resolving customer queries and liaising with customers; providing interpretation of results and advice on personal dosimetry
Prioritising workloads and work patterns as necessary to meet requirements
Maintenance of equipment and liaison with suppliers
Ensuring that working practice instructions and user manuals are updated
Giving feedback in regular office meetings and raising suggestions for improving working practices; meetings can be weekly, monthly or with any other agreed regularity
UKHSA ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all our staff and stakeholders. To create, nurture and sustain an inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our workforce and wider communities. We do this through celebrating and protecting differences by removing barriers and promoting equity and equality of opportunity for all.
The post holder’s main duties will involve participating in the day-to-day work of the Laboratory and maintaining a high level of efficiency in accordance with the standard operating procedures. They will be required to supervisor a team which is responsible for the processing and issuing of 9,000 dosemeters per week to over 7,000 commercial customers.
They will be responsible for managing resources (staff and equipment) to meet issue and processing targets, taking decisions on work planning and task allocation to meet demand. This will involve liaising/negotiating with colleagues and other teams to inform these decisions and ensure smooth issue and assessment of customer dosemeters.
The role also involves the maintaining the quality assurance and reliability of the service including carrying out the daily QA checks for the dosemeter readers, preparing wrapping machine and issuing dosemeters for customer use, calibration of individual dosemeters and dosemeter batches. The stock levels must be regularly checked and liaison with the Lab Manager/PDS Manager on introduction or purchase of stock.
The job holder will be responsible for the routine technical aspects of the service such as monitoring and management of equipment, investigating and acting upon results which fail QA, and dealing with problems, e.g. in changes to requirements, software errors, IT failures, supplier failures, by prompt liaison with external and internal colleagues.
They will need to respond to and resolve customer queries and liaising with customers to provide interpretation of results and advice on personal dosimetry. The post holder will plan for the work of laboratories, based on expected demand, ensuring the teams deliver an excellent level of customer service that meets the relevant quality standards; reliable, prompt, courteous and clearly communicated.
The post holder will be required to manage a team which is responsible for the processing and issuing of 9,000 dosemeters per week to over 7,000 commercial customers. This will include:
Line management of 3 to 5 staff.
Managing resources (staff and equipment) to ensure the service runs effectively, meeting issue and processing targets:
taking decisions on work planning and task allocation
adjusting these in the light of changing circumstances
negotiating with colle