Senior Clinical Scientist Chemistry
Band 7
Main area
Biochemistry
Grade
Band 7
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Department works 24/7 shift pattern)
Job ref
287-LCL-59-25
Department name
LUH - 1 General Staffing (AFC posts)
Site
Liverpool Clinical Laboratories
Town
Liverpool
Salary
£47,810 - £54,710 per annum
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
29/08/2025 23:59
Job Overview
Applications are invited for an enthusiastic band 7 Clinical Biochemist to join our large team of Clinical Scientists within Blood Sciences at Liverpool Clinical Laboratories, part of Liverpool University Hospitals Trust. The successful postholder will join the team in providing a clinical service for the Biochemistry department at both Liverpool Clinical Laboratories and Warrington and Halton Hospitals Trust, an established model of collaborative service delivery within the Cheshire & Merseyside Pathology Network.
The role will enable your continued development as a Clinical Scientist, with opportunities to gain experience in the core automated and specialist laboratories within Biochemistry, including LC-MS/MS, ICP-MS, and QTOF-MS. There will also be ample opportunities to be involved in network-wide projects as we have an ambitious transformation programme to deliver, including a new LIMS and unified primary care order communications system.
Liverpool Clinical Laboratories prides itself in developing and supporting Clinical Scientists through FRCPath. We are an accredited training laboratory with 3 STPs and 3 HSSTs.
The post is suitable for registered Clinical Scientists or those who will complete their STP training by September 2025. The interview date is expected to be the week commencing 5th September.
Main duties of the job
- To provide medical staff with a clinical technical and scientific service.
- To participate in the duty biochemist rota, providing clinical interpretive and advisory services on-site at LCL (Liverpool) and WHH (Warrington).
- To monitor and maintain the quality of patient results produced especially in the automated section of the department, set nationally by UKAS.
- To be involved in the evaluation and introduction of new tests and developments.
- To be involved in and execute funded research and development projects and support clinical trials.
For an informal discussion or to arrange a visit please contact Anna Milan via email or Sarah Curtis (Consultant Clinical Scientist) via email
Working for our organisation
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 here https://www.liverpoolft.nhs.uk/media/13089/1606-annual-report-booklet_final.pdf
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Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities
Clinical
- To provide all Consultants and junior medical staff, in this and other Trusts and General Practitioners within Liverpool, with a timely, highly specialist, clinical, technical and scientific service. This requires judgemental skills of a complex nature, to assist in the investigation, diagnosis, monitoring, treatment and understanding of disease, in individual patients. This may include recommendation for further action such as change of treatment or referral and frequently requires urgent advice regarding the management of patients.
- To participate in the duty biochemist rotas in the general clinical chemistry and endocrine sections assuming independent responsibility on such occasions for the clinical authorisation and issue of reports.
- To undertake the timely clinical authorisation and reporting of clinical biochemistry test results to clinical staff, frequently requiring urgent interpretation and advice regarding the clinical management of patients, using verbal and/or written communication.
- To offer specialist scientific and clinical advice concerning patient investigations and clinical biochemistry results, in highly complex cases when appropriate, using verbal and/or written communication.
- To present complex, sensitive or contentious clinical or scientific information to medical and nursing staff and managers within the Trust and other Trusts or primary care when appropriate, using professional knowledge and experience.
- To give appropriate help and advice to patients when required, concerning sample requirements, testing guidelines etc.
- To liaise with clinical laboratories from other Trusts, during the working day or out of hours including weekends, concerning the analysis of urgent blood tests not offered at this hospital. This involves assessment of the validity of the request and liaison with the Consultant Clinician at this hospital and the Consultant Pathologist at the referral laboratory, involving organising collection and transport of the urgent sample and effective communication and interpretation of the result obtained.
Scientific and Technical
- To have responsibilities within the automated and general chemistry sections, including the ability to perform novel and/or complex assays within the section, and specifically to implement, maintain and monitor quality assurance procedures (internal monitoring and external assessment) and take corrective action where the need is identified to ensure accurate and precise patient results.
- To be involved in the evaluation and implementation of new analytical methodology, tests and developments by means of (technical) clinical and scientific assessments of method and instrument performances, particularly in the automated section.
- To assist with the development and introduction of new analytical services (techniques) and operational procedures within the department, particularly taking a lead in the creation, review and implementation of Standard Operating Procedures controlling these activities.
- To have a shared responsibility, along with other senior clinical scientists, for the analysis, interpretation and reporting of assays involving electrophoretic techniques.
- To ensure that the standards required by UKAS for continued accreditation are met.
- To liaise with the LCL IT team in the collection and dissemination of appropriate data.
- To deal with blood, urine, faecal, CSF and other pathological specimens for analytical purposes, contained and uncontained, when necessary. This may require the use of hazardous chemicals and contact with contaminated equipment.
Managerial
- To act as secretary and participate in the meetings of the automated section of the department, including suggesting policy/organisational changes and improvements.
- To participate in meetings of the departmental Quality Group and Audit and Clinical Governance Group, reporting back to the clinical scientists and Quality Manager and contributing suggestions for policy/organisational changes and improvements.
- To implement contingency plans during disruption to service provision and to communicate this to users in an effective manner. This may occur during the working day, or out of hours including weekends.
Professional
- To maintain advanced theoretical and practical knowledge for a range of appropriate work procedures and practices, necessary to perform and interpret specialised biochemistry procedures in a highly specialised laboratory associated with a large teaching hospital, with a large analytical workload (>7 million tests per year) and with a tertiary referral role.
- To develop an interest and expertise, in a relevant are of Clinical Biochemistry.
- To remain professionally aware of current practice and developments in Clinical Biochemistry and to attend local and national scientific and medical meetings in pursuance of this.
- To work towards attainment of the status of Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists.
- To maintain membership of the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC) for the purposes of state registration and to ensure that minimum mandatory requirements are met.
- To maintain an appropriate awareness of the relevant organisation policies and Health & Safety guidelines, for dealing with potentially infectious materials, hazardous chemicals, COSHH regulations, risk assessments and hazard data sheets.
- To ensure confidentiality of information is maintained at all times, complying with the Caldicott Regulations and Data Protection Act.
- To maintain competence in the use of the laboratory IT systems to enable the performance of routine duties, teaching and the undertaking and presentation of audit, research and development data to medical, nursing, and laboratory staff and managers.
General
- To perform other appropriate duties deemed necessary by the Clinical Director after due consultation.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Masters Degree in Clinical Biochemistry or equivalent within speciality of clinical biochemistry
- Registration as a clinical scientist with Health Professions Council (HCPC) or working towards registration under appropriate supervision
- To have completed a formal post graduate training programme approved as appropriate for registration,
Desirable criteria
Experience
Essential criteria
- Demonstrable supervised in-service experience. or to have undertaken alternative training and supervised in-service substantial experience, as appropriate for registration.
Desirable criteria
- To have undertaken training and gained experience in a specific sub- speciality.
Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Scientific: To have a good knowledge of human biochemistry and chemistry, including metabolic processes, physiology and pharmacology.
- To have a good knowledge of analytical methods, quality assurance and problem solving.
- Fully conversant with COSHH regulations and their application to laboratories.
- Medical : To have a good basic knowledge of metabolic medicine including inherited disorders, endocrinology and disease states.
- Managerial: To have a basic knowledge of managerial procedures in general.
Desirable criteria
- To have detailed knowledge of a specific speciality within medicine.
Skills
Essential criteria
- To have developed analytical (technical) skills in general areas.
- Able to conduct research and development activities.
- Able to advise medical and nursing staff on investigations and interpretations of biochemical and metabolic processes (where necessary with back up from more senior staff)
- Able to recognise patterns of abnormality and relate them to clinical situations and assess differential diagnoses.
- Able to use and manipulate lab computer system and standard software packages.
Desirable criteria
- Able to initiate and co-ordinate R & D activities.
- Able to conduct Audit of services.
Please ensure you check the email account (including junk/spam boxes) from which you apply regularly as we will use this to contact you regarding your application.
Posts advertised to 'internal staff' are open to employees of hospitals within University Hospitals of Liverpool Group and you should confirm your employment within your application form.
Note: Under current Home Office Immigration Rules we are currently unable to offer right to work visa sponsorship for Band 2 and 3 roles with a salary of less than £25,000 pa as they do not meet the UK Visas & Immigration criteria.
Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.
We reserve the right to close any vacancies from further applications when we have received a minimum number of applications from which to make a shortlist. Please ensure you apply without delay if you wish to be considered for this role.
Candidates applying for the role of Healthcare Assistant on the staff bank should note that due to the nature of the role, workers must be aged 18 or above when commencing in post. Applicants are therefore welcome from those aged over 18 or within 3 months' of their 18^th birthday.
The Trust is committed to promoting a healthy work-life balance and achieve fair, equitable and consistent practice. We welcome flexible working requests and will consider a variety of flexible working arrangements from day one of your employment. Not all roles are suitable for every flexible working opportunity all of the time. Flexible working options may include reduced hours, compressed hours, fixed shifts, time back in lieu and home working.
The Trust is committed to promoting equality and diversity; we value the contribution of individual talent, skills, knowledge and experience and aim for a workforce demography representative of the local community. We encourage applicants from the following groups that are currently under-represented in our workforce black, Asian and minority ethnic, lesbian, gay, bisexual and Transgender (LGBTQ+), disabled, male and age 16-24.
Trust policy requires that the cost of submitting & processing the successful applicant/s DBS application be recovered via salary deduction following start in post. The amount of £23 (standard disclosure) or £43 (enhanced disclosure) will be deducted from salary, in manageable monthly instalments for up to 3 months following commencement of employment. Bank posts require upfront payment. DBS applications submitted from 2nd December will be subject to the new DBS fee of £26.50 (standard) and £54.50 (Enhanced).
From April 2017, Skilled visa applicants and their adult dependant(s) will be required to provide a criminal record certificate from each country they have lived in consecutively for 12 months or more in the past ten years.
Applicants requiring sponsorship may wish to determine the likelihood of obtaining sponsorship for this position by assessing themselves against the criteria on the gov.uk website - https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa.
This organisation has a zero-tolerance approach to the abuse of children, young people and vulnerable adults. All staff must ensure they adhere to the organisations safeguarding children and adults' policy and comply with the Local Safeguarding Children and Adult Board procedures.
Staff should be mindful of their responsibility to safeguard children and adults in any activity performed on behalf of the organisation in line with the requirements of statutory guidance and legislation.
All employees (and volunteers)are expected maintain their safeguarding knowledge and skills by completing mandatory safeguarding training which includes understanding and recognising the signs of abuse and neglect and taking appropriate action.
As an organisation, we have adopted the Merseyside Domestic abuse workplace scheme which supports our staff who are experiencing Domestic Abuse /any forms of sexual violence.
If you have any personal requirements that will enable you to participate in our recruitment process please contact a member of the Recruitment Services by phone on 0151 706 4666 at the earliest opportunity to ensure that measures can be put in place to enable your application for this post.
Please note: new entrants to the NHS will commence on the first pay point of the relevant band.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
Application numbers
This vacancy may close early if it receives a high number of applications. Please complete and submit your application in good time to avoid disappointment.
LNKD1_UKTJ
