Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the Blood Sciences team for 12-months (maternity cover) as the Haemophilia Laboratory IT Technical Support Officer. This is to support the department with implementation of a new Laboratory Information and Management System (LIMS). The Kent and Medway Pathology network is one of 29 nationally which is taking shape under the direction of NHSE/I. This transformation will ensure our network has exceptional connectivity for the next decade and ensure we respond to demand and meet patient needs appropriately.

The successful candidate will work closely with the other IT Leads and Support Officers across Pathology and the Head and Chief Biomedical Scientists in Haemophilia at Kent & Canterbury Hospital, whilst undertaking design, user acceptance testing and analysis of our new LIMS across the range of tests and platforms offered by our Blood Sciences services. You may be required to travel to our other 2 sites in Ashford and Margate to support introduction of LIMS to other disciplines.

The role offers an excellent opportunity for someone who is self-motivated, well organised, compassionate and understands the health and well-being needs of their team with a good understanding of Blood Sciences particularly coagulation and experience of working in a UKAS ISO15189;2022 regulated environment.

This role is offered as either a 12-months fixed term contract or 12-months secondment.

Main duties of the job

To support the Senior Team in the design, testing and analysis/interpretation of test scripts for User Acceptance Testing (UAT) across Blood Sciences disciplines, with a focus on Haemophilia. This will cover all processes and conceived scenarios in order to ensure that the LIMS solution for the departments is robust, safe, fit for purpose and has been thoroughly stress tested.

To work with the Senior Team in Haemophilia to highlight deficiencies in the testing plans and to offer a solution where issues with testing are highlighted.

To support the design, coordination and delivery of the local training of the laboratory workforce with regard to the Winpath Enterprise LIMS solution in Blood Sciences in conjunction with the Senior Team.

To work with Chief Biomedical Scientists to design, test and analyse testing scripts for any relevant analyser middleware upgrades which are related to the LIMS implementation or will support the LIMS implementation.

To work closely with our Quality Lead and Chief Biomedical Scientists to design and perform relevant and at times, extensive, quality assessments of the LIMS/Middleware testing.

Working for our organisation

We are one of the largest hospital trusts in England, with five hospitals and community clinics serving a local population of around 800,000 people. Our vision is 'great healthcare from great people'. Everything we do is guided by our values: 'People feel cared for, safe, respected and confident that we are making a difference’. We have a new way of working at East Kent Hospitals, called 'We care'. It's about empowering frontline staff to lead improvements day-to-day. We're looking for compassionate people to be part of our improvement journey for the patients, families and carers we care for every day.

Kent and Medway Pathology Network (KMPN) is a formal partnership of seven laboratories across three pathology services in four acute Trusts. Our 1000 colleagues provide services across the health and care sector to a population of nearly 2 million.

KMPN are at an exciting point of our network development with a recommendation to form a joint venture across the four Trusts leading transformation.  Our projects including single IT solutions, procurement and digital projects, to ensure our services are able to meet the growing demand for our service users, patients and communities.