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Specialist Biomedical Scientist - Histopathology

Job Description

A 12 month fixed term/secondment vacancy has arisen within the Histopathology laboratory at LCL. The post holder must hold HCPC registration and hold an IBMS specialist diploma in Cellular Pathology. Candidates without the IBMS specialist diploma but with 2 years’ demonstrable equivalent experience in histology will also be considered.

The Cellular Pathology team consists of Consultant Histopathologists and trainees, Biomedical Scientists (BMS), Medical Laboratory Assistants (MLA), Associate Practitioners (AP) and secretarial support staff working together to deliver a high quality service. The department handles approximately 60,000 patient sample per year.

The histology laboratory operates an extended working day Monday to Friday and weekend working.

The successful candidate will undertake all the routine tasks within a histology department such as embedding, microtomy, special stains and quality control and will also be expected to undertake tasks within the more specialised areas and techniques such as cut-up, immunocytochemistry and molecular pathology. The department strives to continually improve and has a number of on-going projects as part of routine service development of which the Biomedical Scientist staff group participate in. The successful candidate will be expected to deputise for the team leaders and be involved in areas such as recruitment, training, health and safety, validation and verification, audit and other aspects of quality management. The department is also working to increase the role of Biomedical Scientists within specimen dissection.

Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was created on 1 October 2019 following the merger of two adult acute Trusts, Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust.

The merger provides an opportunity to reconfigure services in a way that provides the best healthcare services to the city and improves the quality of care and health outcomes that patients experience.

The Trust runs Aintree University Hospital, Broadgreen Hospital, Liverpool University Dental Hospital and the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

It serves a core population of around 630,000 people across Merseyside as well as providing a range of highly specialist services to a catchment area of more than two million people in the North West region and beyond.

To hear more about our achievements click herehttps://www.liverpoolft.nhs.uk/media/13089/1606-annual-report-booklet_final.pdf

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Job Summary

The Specialist Biomedical Scientist is a highly skilled and experienced professional in Cellular Pathology, capable of performing routine and specialised tasks in a knowledgeable way to assist in the diagnosis of disease, to determine their existence or absence, as well as to monitor treatment effectiveness.

The post holder will play an active role in the performance of routine and specialised tasks involved in the Histology service delivering a high level of quality. The successful candidate will work as part of a team to ensure that the daily workload is completed efficiently while adhering to all departmental policies and procedures. The ideal candidate would be a good problem solver and team player and have excellent communication skills with both internal and external stakeholders, as well as having the ability to function independently.

The post holder will be required to meet the requirements of all internal and external Quality Assurance and United Kingdom accreditation service (UKAS) standards and uphold the department's professional reputation in the Trust. Most importantly, the post holder should be patient centred at all times.

KEY TASKS
1. Services -routine and specialised tasks involved in the Histology, Immunocytochemistry and Non-gynae Cytology services.
2. People -duty to take reasonable care and work in accordance with the Health and Safety regulations; participate in staff appraisals and mentoring/training of all staff member groups.
3. Information -to attend and participate in Trust and departmental meetings.
4. Professional –to be proactive in own professional development, to maintain HCPC registration and to share their knowledge with others.
5. Equipment –duty of responsibility for all departmental equipment to ensure effective and efficient functioning and to be financially mindful.

Key responsibilities

GENERAL

Specimen reception:

• Ensure proper patient identification when receiving specimens into the department.
• Ensure correct accessioning of patient samples onto the laboratory information systems while protecting patient confidentiality. Outstanding problem-solving and teamwork skills and excellent communication within the team and the service users.

• Assist the pathologist during cut-up.
• To undertake biopsy cut-up with responsibility for sample preparation in line with local training policy and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPS).
• Store specimens securely and properly prior to and after processing.
• Disinfection of cut up and specimen reception areas.

• Develop and support Digital Pathology within Histology. Liaise and coordinated with users from the Network. To include participation in meetings, interlaboratory validation and troubleshooting.
• To embed 60 blocks of surgical and post - mortem material per hour, ensuring proper orientation of tissues with no cross contamination. Maintain high standards while performing embedding and exercise extremely caution while embedding biopsy samples.
• To perform microtomy and be able to cut 30 blocks an hour consisting of large blocks, sectioning levels from biopsy material, serial sectioning of material and macroscopic quality control of sections produced.
• Routine staining, Haematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) staining – manual and automated methodologies; troubleshooting, internal quality control microscopically checking the quality of the stained slides during the working day and, taking appropriate action in the event of a non-conformance(s).
• Staining solutions and reagents preparation; safe disposal of a variety of hazardous and non-hazardous laboratory waste, such as paper, chemicals, glass, and human tissues.
• Cleaning and disinfecting all equipment, as well as keeping maintenance sheets up to date and stored safely.
• The maintenance of adequate stocks of reagents and consumables within the department, swiftly reporting low stock events.

• Full participation in the departmental rota as appropriate to grade.
• In accordance with local training policy and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPS) to perform biopsy cut-up with responsibility for sample preparation.
• Participate in Special staining techniques including the primary quality control of stains and have an understanding of the principle behind the stains performed.
• Partake in the frozen section rota by freezing of material effectively for frozen sections and performing cryotomy.
• To participate in the duties undertaken in the Immunocytochemistry (ICC) department including microscopic QC of all stained slides and participate in the process of verification/validation of new antibodies and acceptance testing of reagents used immunocytochemistry.
• Participate in the renal biopsy rota by being fully trained in the collection of renal biopsies from Interventional Theatres. Undertake the assessment of sample adequacy and be able to take the decision when to split the sample for Electron Microscopy (EM) or not. Be able to outsource EM samples.
• To participate in the non-gynae cytology service. Preparation of a range of samples according to departmental protocols using liquid based technology, conventional spreads and cytocentrifugation. To attend one stop FNA clinics and ward based FNAs providing in-situ technical support to the pathologist.
• To participate in the non-gynae cytology service rapid diagnostic and adequacy assessment clinic attendance rota as required.
• Participate in the UKNEQAS for Cellular Pathology Technique, NGC and the UKNEQAS for ICC & ISH EQA schemes, ensuring that all material distributed is stained to the optimum degree and that retrieved material reflects the departmental high standards.
• To be involved with the improvement and development of the service, evaluating new equipment, and introducing new techniques. On a regular basis perform validation and verification of new equipment.
• To assist in the maintenance of the equipment within the department, ensuring that maintenance logs are up to date in accordance with departmental SOPs and in compliance with ISO15189:2012 (UKAS), HTA and HSE standards.

• To ensure that all documents are kept up to date and maintained securely in compliance with local, Trust, and departmental SOPs.
• To review and write, as required, departmental SOPs.
• Participate in the departmental audit schedule as required, ensuring that all findings are assigned to the appropriate handler and closed in the appropriate timescale.
• Be able to raise non-conformities (NC), DATIX incidents and be able to conduct root cause analysis in order to close NCs quickly and effectively.

• Actively participate in formal and informal CPD activities as required by professional body.
• Due to a varied workload, it is necessary to be able to multi-task both physically and mentally, as well as to be able to communicate with all levels of staff.
• The Specialist BMS would be required to work autonomously organising their own workload in accordance with team demands and reporting progress and issues to the appropriate senior member of staff as required.
• Deputise for Senior BMS staff members in their absence.
• To behave with courtesy and consideration to colleagues and service users, regardless of hierarchical or professional position within the organisation.

• To assist in the Senior BMS with the implementation and development of competency assessments for the IBMS Registration and Specialist Portfolios.
• To perform examination audits on different members of staff to ensure that they are properly signed off as qualified in their training logs.
• Undertake tutorial sessions in the department for the benefit of registration, specialist and support staff and to act as a mentor.
• To attend educational and training courses as required by the department.
• Maintain knowledge of advances in relevant scientific areas through continuous professional development.
• To maintain competency in all areas of the department, ensuring participation in departmental rotas.
• Take an active role in the delivery of the appraisal programme in the department as required.
• To attend Trust Mandatory training sessions as required, as well as any other relevant training courses.

• All workers have a responsibility to take reasonable precautions to prevent harm to themselves or others, as well as to assist the Trust in fulfilling its legal obligations.
• To handle chemicals and biological material in accordance with COSHH regulations and departmental protocols.
• To participate in Risk Assessments and COSHH assessments.
• IT DUTIES
• To use all the departmental computer systems to perform daily tasks, Telepath and Q-Pulse among others.
• To ensure that information records are generated, maintained, and exchanged in an acceptable manner, in compliance with legislative requirements and agreed security and confidentiality policies, procedures, and guidelines. All employees are responsible for ensuring that data quality is implemented and maintained, as well as that documents are legible and traceable, and that records are kept in a timely manner.
• Tracking of samples at all stages of processing.

• The post holder is expected to organise the team they are in, managing the resources and all staff grades in a way that the workload can be done in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
• To participate in collation of the rotas for the different departmental areas.
• The Specialist BMS would be required to operate unsupervised, organising their own workload in accordance with team demands and reporting progress and issues to the appropriate senior member of staff as required.

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