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Job description

Are you compassionate, caring and communicative? Would you like to be the best you can be or grow your career in a world-class teaching hospital? Have you been considering a change of occupation and looking for secure and rewarding employment? We believe our Healthcare Assistant (HCA) role offers this opportunity.

University Hospital Southampton (UHS) is one of the largest acute teaching trusts in England and provides a wide range of healthcare services to some 1.9 million people living in Southampton and South Hampshire. Our Healthcare Assistants help our nurses and doctors at UHS, by offering the highest standards of personal care and support to our patients.

We will allocate you to the area within the hospital where we have vacancies and where we feel best meets your skills and our needs following our interview process. Allocations could be located in either our Adult or Child wards or outpatient clinics.

As a Healthcare Assistant, you’ll work under the guidance of a Registered Nurse or healthcare professional on one of our busy adult wards or outpatient areas. Here at UHS, we recognise that Healthcare Assistants from different employment backgrounds can bring a breadth of knowledge and new ideas.

Previous healthcare experience is desirable but NOT essential. If you are looking to start your journey within healthcare, then we would love to hear from you. We offer continuous training and development opportunities to help you reach your potential.

You’ll start your career with us by following a 2-week full-time and in-depth induction that will enable you to complete your Care Certificate, find your feet within the hospital, and quickly embed yourself as part of our team.

Our fantastic staff can teach you the required skills if you share our values, are ready to learn and:

• Be able to work a variety of shifts as part of your work roster - these include mornings (shifts could start from 7am ending around 3pm), short days & long days (shifts are generally 8 – 12 hours long and occur between 7am and 8pm), evenings (till around 8pm) and nights (from around 7pm to 7am the next day)
• Be available to work any day from Monday to Sunday depending on your shift pattern
• Have excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Are happy to carry out a variety of tasks (detailed below) - including personal hygiene care to patients of all ages and backgrounds.

A Healthcare Assistant at UHS is not just a job, it’s a career opportunity that can start your exciting journey within healthcare. Our HCA’s receive top industry training and development, with a tailored career programme and amazing links to support nursing or higher healthcare apprenticeships. We lead the way in benefits too – our HCAs receive:

• A minimum of 35 days paid holiday (pro rata)
• A two-week intensive induction to set you up for success in your new role
• Guaranteed contracted hours
• Access to extra shifts and overtime pay for those who want it
• A mentoring team that is dedicated to our HCAs, who will help you with emotional, personal, and professional support
• A central hospital location with great transport links and reduced fares for UHS staff
• Continued professional development
• A generous pension scheme and life insurance
• Access to national and local NHS discounts including popular high street and online retailers
• Onsite subsidised restaurants, cafes and high-street shops
• Financial awards through our refer a friend scheme
• An internal mover process which allows you to transfer wards every six months if you wish

We consider both Part-Time and Full-Time applications, but you MUST be able to work a variety of shifts and days of the week as UHS operates a 24 hours a day service, 365 days of the year.

Unfortunately, we cannot offer set days or set shifts e.g. nights only.

We support flexible working requests and these are regularly reviewed against the service needs.

Your main day-to-day duties will include:

• Washing and dressing patients and aiding in their personal hygiene
• Assisting patients to access and use toilet facilities
• Serving meals and helping to feed patients
• Helping patients to safely move around
• Assisting with bed making, cleaning tasks, errands, or general duties
• Collecting pathological specimens e.g., Urine, faeces, sputum
• Making patients and their families feel comfortable
• Monitoring and reporting patients’ conditions by taking temperatures, pulse, respirations and weight measurements

Please read the attached person specification and job description as this will support you in your application, and then apply via the link. If your application is successful, we will contact you to arrange a screening telephone call to discuss next steps.

Our remote HCA interviews currently occur on Wednesdays over MS Teams.

If you’re the kind of person who believes in putting patients first, is always looking to improve and are a team player, then we’d love to hear from you!