Higher Healthcare Technical Officer (HHTO)

Job summary

We are a state-of-the-art Blood Centre based in Filton, Bristol. Our testing team prepares, screens, and tests all blood that comes into the centre, ensuring that all blood and blood group products are safe to go on and be used to save patients lives.

There are two contracts available in the department: Bacterial Screening (24 hours per week on a fixed-term basis) and Sampling Preparation (37.5 hours per week, permanently).

For the Sampling preparation role, you'll provide vital support to qualified scientific staff as they undertake specialised work in our laboratories. Specifically, that means preparing samples for testing or storage, performing analytical tests and carrying out basic maintenance on equipment.

For the Bacterial Screening role, you'll be screening and testing all the blood that comes to the centre to ensure the safety of recipient patients in the care of the NHS.

In either role, you'll also be on hand to generate reports or worksheets and deal with queries from other departments, medical staff or visitors.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) offer a dynamic and friendly working environment where teamwork is highly valued. Personal development is also considered a priority and is supported through extensive training and development opportunities open to all employees.

Main duties of the job

Contracts and Hours Available:

Bacterial Screening (24 hours per week) on a 3-week rotational basis between 05:30 to 11:30am:

• Week 1: Tuesday to Friday.
• Week 2: Monday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
• Week 3: Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Sampling Preparation (37.5 hours per week):

• Monday to Friday from 04:30 to 12:00 noon.

Duties

• You will be required to perform a range of routine and non routine tasks for issuing to hospitals the blood donations from our donors, with the support of your supervisor and other team members.
• You will be responsible for the support and training to less experienced staff.
• You will be required to undertake precise repetitive manipulation of equipment and blood samples/donations and carry out routine tasks on a regular basis.
• You will be required to handle blood bags and a range of equipment.
• You will be required to manually handle equipment on a daily basis weighing up to 13 kgs, with or without mechanical aids, with appropriate training.

About us

It takes all types of people to deliver the kind of service that saves and improves lives. At NHS Blood and Transplant, you'll join a team of more than 6,000 people who are making a genuine difference to communities, families, friends, relatives and more across the UK.

We play a unique and special role in the NHS by helping people do something extraordinary- donate blood, blood products, organs, tissues, or stem cells to save someone in need.

Our three core values are what set us apart. They guide and inspire everything we do. By being caring, expertly meeting the needs of our patients and our people, and accepting nothing less than the best quality, we can do extraordinary work and help our people to do something extraordinary in their career, too.

Three small words, one big difference - Caring, Expert and Quality. Together we'll save and improve more lives than ever.

You will join us on our journey to create an inclusive workplace and aim to reflect the diverse communities we work with.