The Microbiology Department is based at the John Radcliffe Hospital and provide services to the Oxford University Hospitals NHSFT, primary care, South 4 Pathology Partnership, other NHS providers, private care, UKHSA and research trials.

The department undertakes bacteriology, mycology, parasitology, serology, and molecular microbiology.

The post is full time, average working hours over the shift pattern 37.5 hours, supporting a 24/7 microbiology service.

The post holder will be responsible for the administration service for the microbiology department. This will include being a designated contact for external visitors, service users and team or service queries. To provide a high quality, comprehensive and professional secretarial service to support the Laboratory Manager and the Clinical Lead. The role will include producing staffing rosters, annual leave entitlement, payroll preparation, invoices, referral reporting, letter, and document preparation.

Successful candidates must be conscientious, enthusiastic, and able to work well as a team, as well as individually. You will have exceptional organisational skills and an ability to autonomously. You will be required to demonstrate competence for the microbiology service delivery, in line with UKAS compliance.

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of the largest NHS teaching trusts in the country. It provides a wide range of general and specialist clinical services and is a base for medical education, training and research.

The Trust comprises four hospitals - the John Radcliffe Hospital, Churchill Hospital and Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Headington and the Horton General Hospital in Banbury.

Our values, standards and behaviours define the quality of clinical care we offer and the professional relationships we make with our patients, colleagues and the wider community. We call this Delivering Compassionate Excellence and its focus is on our values of compassion, respect, learning, delivery, improvement and excellence. These values put patients at the heart of what we do and underpin the quality healthcare we would like for ourselves or a member of our family. Watch how we set out to deliver compassionate excellence via the OUH You Tube channel .

Main Purpose of the Post:

• The post holder has responsibility for assisting with the provision of a professional, comprehensive and efficient administrative service. This will be through the delivery of a comprehensive administrative service to a specialty team.
• To be the designated point of contact for visitors to the department, team queries and to escalate to relevant staff.

To provide a high quality, comprehensive and professional secretarial service to support the Laboratory Manager and Scientific staff within the department and to deputise for other staff as appropriate.
To provide a high quality, comprehensive and professional secretarial service to support Consultant Microbiologist and any other medical in the department.
The post holder is required to liaise with hospital clinicians, GPs, other healthcare professionals and external agencies in line with departmental policies.
The post holder will also be required to understand the principles of Specimen Reception, sample data entry, sample preparation and workflow of referral samples.

Principal Responsibilities

Be fully conversant with relevant departmental policies and Standard Operating Procedures, ensuring compliance with United Kingdom Accreditation Standards (UKAS).
To be fully conversant with Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point, MS Forms and other software to prepare, as required departmental documents, letters and reports, including from audio or handwritten manuscript.
To produce Excel spread sheets collating departmental information and records.
To produce monthly workload data and dashboard, showing key performance indicators.
Produce monthly invoices and liaising with the relevant finance teams, including private patient billing.
Verify external invoices from referral centres.
Deal with visitors to the laboratory and members of the public in a receptionist function.
Typing and distribution of staffing rota for departmental doctors and biomedical staff.
Provide e Rostering support for the department, including roster production, annual leave calculations, Payroll preparation for authorisation.
Be proactive in supporting laboratory manager / laboratory senior staff and consultants for relevant committees and meetings as necessary through pre-meeting data gathering/preparing records, agendas, minutes and presentations and post-meeting minute’s preparation and dissemination.
Despatch biological samples to referral centres requiring complete accuracy and attention to detail. Liaise with transport and courier services, ensuring despatch complies with current local and national guidelines for transport of dangerous/infectious material.
Input results from referral laboratories. This includes receiving verbal reports via telephone requiring complete accuracy and attention to detail.
Monitor turnaround times for referred tests and be responsible for following up outstanding results.
Monitor and order and be responsible for stationary stock management for the department, including completing annual stock takes.
Locate and retrieve patient results for medico-legal when required.
Input and recovery of data from laboratory computer system which will include laboratory requests, reports, data production for invoicing.
Booking rooms for meetings and seminars for medical staff, laboratory manager and biomedical scientific staff
Ensure office equipment is in full working order and liaise with service engineers when appropriate.
Ensure data backup of IT systems used by the post holder.
Be aware of the inherent hazards of the work and always take appropriate precautions, reporting to the Head BMS or Safety Officer an accident or potential hazard.
Provide training, support, and assistance to other members of the microbiology staff.
Organise and liaise with work experience students, ensuring all documentation in place and communicate with department and / or other pathology disciplines. Ensure communication to students is maintained, and feedback received.
Support administrator tasks and liaise with staff within the South 4 Pathology Partnership, supporting the Laboratory Manager and Clinical Lead with agenda, minutes and setting up relevant meetings.

General Tasks

Work with support staff to ensure that an efficient and cohesive office and support service is always maintained. This may involve some element of cross cover during periods of sickness and leave within the team, to include:

• Send out and file microbiological reports, including dealing with misdirected reports.
• Perform telephone duties that include making and receiving calls to and from the laboratory, verbally transmitting confidential results and conveying complex sensitive information to hospital clinicians, GPs, other health care professionals and external agencies in line with departmental policies.
• Matches samples and request forms and assigns unique laboratory numbers, requiring complete accuracy and attention to detail.
• Ensures that samples meet acceptance criteria for testing and dealing with any non-compliance in accordance with departmental protocols. Is aware of appropriate sample type for all tests.
• Is responsible for data entry into the laboratory computer system, requiring complete accuracy and attention to detail.
• Is fully conversant with relevant departmental policies and Standard Operating Procedures, ensuring that personal performance complies with ISO 15189-2012 standard.
• Receive, sort and distribute incoming mail and be responsible for the appropriate despatch of outgoing mail.