Domestic Assistant - Chorley Hospital

Job overview

Please note that this post is Part of One LSC – a corporate collaboration hosted by East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust and providing Estates and Facilities Services to Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Someone once called our team the ‘Backbone of our Hospitals’ and it has certainly stuck! We couldn’t run our hospitals without you and the fantastic work you will do keeping our wards, departments and areas clean, tidy, reducing the risk of infections and effectively helping keep our staff well and our patients safe.

We know you will love the work you do, seeing how you make such a big impact in keeping everything ticking over smoothly, your dedication will shine through. We want you to be proud to wear the purple coloured domestic assistant uniform, feeling a strong and vital part of our hospital team – knowing you are working side by side on the front-lines making a HUGE difference every single day.

Watch our video to find out much more about what the role involves and hear from Mariusz who has been with us over 17 years!

Main duties of the job

In a nutshell, your duties will include general cleaning of the wards, departments, public and staff areas, with your colleagues as part of our Domestic Team. As you would expect, we do have set cleaning standards and NHS guidelines to work towards, so whilst there is no experience required, we will fully train you on all of this. The work can be physically demanding and we don’t shy away from this, however, we know that this will also be what motivates you.

Of course we want you to be friendly, reliable and conscientious as this role isn't just about vacuuming and cleaning, it’s about being part of a whole team of staff working together to ensure the best environment for our patients to receive their treatments.

We know you will love the work you do, seeing how you make such a big impact in keeping everything ticking over smoothly, your dedication will shine through. We want you to be proud to wear the purple coloured domestic assistant uniform, feeling a strong and vital part of our hospital team.

There are all sorts of training opportunities to ensure you have all the right knowledge to do the role and we actively encourage you to develop and support you to progress within the organization if that’s what you are looking for!

Working for our organisation

We have 10,000 fantastic people working hard to deliver quality services to our patients. Whatever your role, you help look after 370,000 people in our local area & give specialist care to 1.5 million people across Lancashire & Cumbria.

Working with us gives you the knowledge and sense of pride that every activity you do genuinely does make a difference to support our patients & staff, ensuring we keep thriving & delivering outstanding healthcare right across our local towns.

You’ll have access to varied development opportunities, learn new skills, meet fab people & do things you’d never have done. You’ll learn about working in a hospital, interacting with people from all different roles to build skills & enhance your career path.

You’ll make an impact, be challenged to think differently, be bold & help innovate to keep improving things. Everything we do centres around patient care and enhancing their experience which means your role is pivotal and something really to be proud of.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Communicate verbally with the Domestic Supervisor and colleagues by phone and radio and through written procedures, ensuring an effective exchange of information about cleaning tasks and service needs.
• Communicate with a range of clinical and non-clinical staff, patients and visitors to understand service needs.
• Carry out cleaning duties in designated area of responsibility.
• Take responsibility for the equipment held within area of work and designated cleaning room.
• Assist with cleaning duties in any area of the organisation as required to support service delivery.
• Maintain accurate and complete records of all cleaning activities.
• Assist staff carrying out maintenance work on existing and new hard and soft floor coverings
• Identify and report all equipment defects and stock shortages
• Where work schedules indicate “clean kitchen areas” set following standards to maintain food safety.
• Identify and report any potential risks within the working environment e.g. pest sightings or building environment faults.
• Follow policies and procedures in relation to buildings security and access.
• Pro-actively support the continued improvement of the domestic service.
• Supporting new domestic services assistants using the department Buddy System.
• Maintain and develop own competence for the Domestic Assistant role.
• Removal and disposal of rubbish ready for collection.

Person specification

Qualifications & Education

Essential criteria

• Good general education to GCSE standard

Desirable criteria

• NVQ or other recognised cleaning qualification
• COSHH Certificate
• Health & Safety qualification

Knowledge & Experience

Essential criteria

• Cleaning experience
• Experience working with the public

Desirable criteria

• Experience of using electrical cleaning equipment i.e. vacuum cleaners, scrubber dryers, floor buffing equipment
• Previous experience of dealing with people/working in a multi skilled environment
• Previous NHS experience in a similar role
• Knowledge of National Standards of Cleaning and NHS colour coding