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Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

About
Contact
- Address
- Trust Offices
- St Thomas' Street
- London
- SE1 9RT
- Contact Number
- 020 7188 7188
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Mortuary Assistant
Accepting applications until: 25-Aug-2025 23:59
Vacancy status: Open
Accepting applications until: 25-Aug-2025 23:59
Key details
Location
- Site
- St Thomas' Hospital
- Address
- Westminster Bridge Road
- Town
- London
- Postcode
- SE1 7EH
- Major / Minor Region
- London
Contract type & working pattern
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week (8am-4pm)
Salary
- Salary
- £30,546 - £32,207 per annum inc HCA
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Grade
- (NHS AfC: Band 3)
Specialty
- Main area
- Mortuary Services
Guy’s and St Thomas’ is among the UK’s busiest and most successful NHS foundation trusts. We provide a full range of hospital and community services for people in south London and as well as specialist care for patients from further afield including cancer, renal, orthopaedic, respiratory and cardiovascular services.
Guy’s is home to the largest dental school in Europe and a £160 million Cancer Centre opened in 2016. As part of our commitment to provide care closer to home, in 2017 we also opened a cancer centre and a kidney treatment centre at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup. St Thomas’ has one of the largest critical care units in the UK and one of the busiest emergency departments in London. It is also home to Evelina London Children’s Hospital.
Evelina London cares for local children in Lambeth and Southwark and provides specialist services across south east England including cardiac, renal and critical care services. We lead a number of specialist service networks aiming to ensure children are treated locally where possible, but have access to specialist expertise when they need it. Our community services include health visiting, school nursing and support for families of children with long-term conditions.
Our adult community services teams deliver care at the heart of the local communities we serve, working in partnership with GPs, local authorities and other healthcare and voluntary sector organisations. Working with our partners in Lambeth and Southwark, we are focusing on new ways of working to improve care for local patients.
In February 2021 the Royal Brompton and Harefield joined Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, bringing together world-leading expertise in the care and research of heart and lung disease. Our merger provides a once in a generation opportunity to build a lasting, world-renowned heart and lung centre, providing the highest quality care for patients and conducting world-leading research.
We have a reputation for clinical excellence and high quality teaching and research. We are part of King’s Health Partners, one of eight accredited UK academic health sciences centres. In partnership with King’s College London we have dedicated clinical research facilities including an MHRA accredited Phase I clinical trials unit.
Patients are at the heart of everything we do and we pride ourselves on ensuring the best possible patient experience as well as safe, high quality care. We are proud to have one of the lowest mortality rates in the NHS. Following a comprehensive Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection in 2019 we maintained our overall rating of ‘good’. Our adult community services achieved a rating of ‘outstanding’.
The commitment of our 23,500 staff is key to our success. We are one of the largest local employers and we aim to develop and support all our staff so they are able to deliver high quality, safe and efficient care. The 2019 NHS staff survey results show that we have one of the most engaged and motivated workforces in the NHS. We know this has a positive impact on the care provided to our patients.
We have one of the most ambitious capital investment programmes anywhere in the NHS.
Job overview
The Mortuary and Bereavement Service consists of APTs, both qualified and trainees, Bereavement Officers, Mortuary Assistants and administrative staff, working closely with Consultant and Junior Histopathologists from Cellular Pathology.
This department sits within the Directorate of Haematology, Cellular Pathology and Supporting Services.. The Cellular Pathology laboratories and its scientific staff are managed independently by GSTS Pathology (Synnovis).
There are two mortuaries, one at Guy’s and another at St Thomas’ Hospital. St Thomas’ acts as the main mortuary and is the site for all post-mortem examinations and related activity.
The Mortuary and Bereavement Service at Guy’s and St Thomas’ handles 1,200+ inpatient deaths per year, for which about 20% have post mortem examinations.
The Mortuary at St Thomas’ is situated on the lower ground floor of the North Wing and the Guy’s Mortuary is situated at Talbot Yard.
The Mortuary at St Thomas’ is a large referral centre for specialist post mortem examinations, receiving an additional 1,000 approx. patients per year from several HM Coroner’s jurisdictions and several other NHS establishments. We specialise in post mortem perinatal and paediatric pathology (including forensics), neuropathology, maternal deaths, post-operative deaths, sickle cell related deaths and infectious diseases.
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As an assistant in the Mortuary & Bereavement service, the post holder is expected to work as part of a team within all specialties of the Mortuary (except post mortem examinations and patient reconstruction) and to rotate between both of our sites. They will be required to carry delegated tasks to a high standard, offering invaluable support to the APTs, Bereavement Officers and other service users.
Working for our organisation
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust comprises five of the UK’s best known hospitals – Guy’s, St Thomas’, Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Royal Brompton and Harefield – as well as community services in Lambeth and Southwark, all with a long history of high quality care, clinical excellence, research and innovation.
We are among the UK’s busiest, most successful foundation trusts. We provide specialist care for patients including heart and lung, cancer and renal services as well as a full range of local hospital and community services for people in Lambeth and Southwark.
We have a long tradition of clinical and scientific achievement and – as part of King’s Health Partners – we are one of England’s eight academic health sciences centres, bringing together world-class clinical services, teaching and research. We have one of the National Institute for Health Research’s biomedical research centres, established with King’s College London in 2007, as well as dedicated clinical research facilities.
We have around 22,700 staff, making us one of the largest NHS Trusts in the country and one of the biggest employers locally. We aim to reflect the diversity of the communities we serve and continue to develop new and existing partnerships with local people, patients, neighbouring NHS organisations, local authorities and charitable bodies and GPs.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
General
· To assist the mortuary staff in provision of a hygienic and efficient mortuary service.
- Assist in preliminary work leading to a post mortem examination of the deceased, e.g. preparation of the post mortem room and ensuring the correct equipment is prepared.
· Assist with cleaning and disinfecting all areas of the mortuary (including refrigeration units).
· To assist with deceased patient viewings.
· To assist in the processes and administration of relevant documentation.
· To facilitate the imaging (X-rays, CTs) of paediatric patients in the Evelina Children’s Hospital
· To receive deceased patients in to the Mortuary
· To release deceased patients from the Mortuary
· To keep accurate records of jewellery or valuables that may accompany patients.
· Liaise with H.M Coroners Officers, Police, hospital staff, bereaved relatives and other appropriate sources.
· The post holder must maintain a flexible approach to the post in order to rapidly manage changes to workload, patterns and requirements.
· To advise senor staff when stock levels of chemicals and consumables are approaching minimum stock levels.
· To support with reasonable requests by more senior staff
· To attend the Guys Mortuary on a daily basis to care for the patients and attend to funeral directors and doctors.
· To assist with the processing of digital images after post mortem.
· To process the paperwork accompanying samples to be ready for delivery
· To deliver specimens to the correct laboratories in a timely fashion.
· To attend departmental meetings as required
· To adhere to all regulations set out by the Human Tissue Authority and to inform the line manager of any observed breaches in licensed activities.
Communications
- Telephone and email communication with both internal and external stakeholders such as funeral directors, officers of HM Coroner, pathologists, nurses, Police officers and bereaved relatives and friends of the deceased
IT and information resources
- To adhere to local and national policies for the safe, secure and confidential processing and storage of patients
- To use the Mortuary and Bereavement Microsoft Eden software according to the authorised protocols
- To maintain the integrity and accuracy of written and computerised records and databases.
- To use the Mortuary and Bereavement Microsoft Eden software to accurately track patients and their property.
Guy’s and St Thomas’ celebrates, respects and values the diversity of its staff and patients. We review our policies, procedures and practices to ensure that all employees, patients and carers are treated equitable according to their needs. We are actively committed to ensuring that no one who applies for a job, works or study’s at the Trust, or accesses our services is discriminated against on the grounds of race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, religion or belief, age, gender identity , gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity/paternity, or marital/civil partnership.
Applications are welcomed from applicants with a disability. We can make reasonable adjustments and offer support and advice in a variety of ways throughout the application process. Equality of opportunity is our policy.
As an organisation we are committed to developing our services in ways that best suit the needs of our patients. This means that some staff groups will increasingly be asked to work a more flexible shift pattern so that we can offer services in the evenings or at weekends.
Flexible working
We are committed to supporting all employees to achieve a healthy work life balance and to work in a way that is best for them and our patients. We will consider all requests to work flexibly, taking in to account the individual’s personal circumstances as well the needs of the service. We encourage all prospective applicants to discuss their individual circumstances with the recruiting manager as part of the on-boarding process.
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Applicant requirements
Person specification
Qualifications/Education
Essential criteria
- 5 GCSE qualifications, A*-C or equivalent
Desirable criteria
- Commitment to continuing professional development
- Familiarity of the AAPT
Previous experience
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working with deceased patients
- Experience of working in a hospital or laboratory environment
- Experience of working with bereaved relatives
Skills/Knowledge/Ability
Essential criteria
- Computer Literate
- Familiarity with common Microsoft Office software
- Ability to adopt a professional approach with distressing situations
- Ability to adopt a sympathetic approach to patients and relatives
- Ability to adopt a professional approach with distressing images
- Ability to adopt a professional approach with exposure to unpleasant working conditions
- Ability to concentrate in a busy and noisy environment
- Good communication skills both written and oral
- High degree of numeracy
- Good interpersonal and team working skills
- Ability to adapt efficiently to changing work patterns and situations
- Ability to adapt a professional approach towards doctors, health care workers and other users of the mortuary services
- Organisation and planning skills
Physical Requirements
Essential criteria
- The ability to carry out moderate lifting on a daily basis in line with Manual Handling policies
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Laura Escott
- Job title
- Snr Specialist Anatomical Pathology Technologist
- Email address
- [email protected]
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