Job DescriptionSister/Charge Nurse
Job reference: 005919
Salary: £37,338 - £44,962 per annum plus HCA supplement where applicable
Closing date: 23/03/2025
Department: London Middlesex Team
Location: Colindale Centre
Contract Type: Permanent
Hours Per Week: 37.5
Contract Duration: Not applicable
Job Description
Job Summary
At NHS Blood and Transplant we help people to do something extraordinary - donate blood, organs, tissues, or stem cells to save and enhance lives. First and foremost, we play a unique and special role in the NHS. It takes all types of people to deliver the kind of service that saves and improves lives.
You will be joining one of our front-line teams and will be responsible for leading a team of Healthcare Assistants and Donor Care Supervisors, ensuring they are motivated, well-trained, and capable of delivering excellent care. You don’t need prior experience of working as a session nurse, you will have access to a full training programme and supernumerary period.
Our Sister/Charge Nurses work in a fast moving and variable environment and play an essential role in the collection of blood and blood products, directly contributing to saving and improving patient’s lives. Find out more about Nursing at NHSBT here: Nursing - NHSBT Careers
Main duties of the job
You will be expected to foster a positive working environment, provide ongoing training, and support, and address any team issues or concerns that arise. You will use your clinical expertise and judgment to assess whether potential donors meet the necessary health and safety criteria for blood donation. This includes considering the donor's medical history, current health status, and any other relevant factors.
This role requires strong leadership skills, clinical expertise, and a deep understanding of regulatory requirements. You’ll be responsible for ensuring that the team delivers exceptional care while making critical decisions that affect donor safety and the overall quality of the service.
• Taking clinical responsibility for ensuring the safe assessment and blood donation of our donors.
• Being accountable for the safe running of a blood donation session.
• Taking responsibility for ensuring an excellent donor experience.
• Maintaining the competency and skills of your team and yourself.
• Being able to adapt communication styles for difficult conversations.
• Maintaining your professional development to help us deliver improvements to our practice.
Your working hours will be on a shift basis but, the normal hours for this role are 5 days per week/ 10 days per fortnight. The team collect blood through all 7 days of the week. There is no fixed pattern. Early shifts start at 7am and finish 17:30. Late shifts start at 10:45am and finish 21:30, this will be 9.5 hour days.
Weekend and bank holiday working will be required. You can expect to work some long hours, but you won’t be working more than five days a week- and never any nights!
About You
Experience and Knowledge
• Demonstrate leadership qualities and understand the principles of best practice to deliver high quality care.
• Have experience of supporting the professional development of others.
• Have an understanding of clinical audit and research.
• Have experience of supporting improvements and change in practice.
• Have an awareness of patient safety initiatives and risk management.
• Have experience of working with Information Technology such as hand-held devices and Microsoft Office packages (Word, Excel and PowerPoint).
Qualifications and Training
• Registered Nurse with current Nursing and Midwifery Council registration (which must be maintained) as Registered Nurse – Adult
• Hold a full and valid UK driving licence with no more than 6 points (check if applicable)
Please view the attached recruitment profile which is a summary of the detailed Job Description and Person Specification for the full personal attributes we require for the role. You will need to demonstrate these throughout the recruitment process.
About Us
It takes all types of people to deliver the kind of service that saves and improves lives. At NHS Blood and Transplant, you’ll join a team of more than 6,000 people who are making a genuine difference to communities, families, friends, relatives and more across the UK. We play a unique and special role in the NHS by helping people do something extraordinary- donate blood, blood products, organs, tissues, or stem cells to save someone in need.
Our three core values are what set us apart. They guide and inspire everything we do. By being caring, expertly meeting the needs of our patients and our people, and accepting nothing less than the best quality, we can do extraordinary work – and help our people to do something extraordinary in their career, too.
Three small words, one big difference - Caring, Expert and Quality. Together we'll save and improve more lives than ever.
You will join us on our journey to create an inclusive workplace and aim to reflect the diverse communities we work with, and we positively encourage applications from all sectors of the community.
What we offer:
At NHSBT, all of our nursing teams are supported by an excellent framework of practice development, offering ongoing professional development to enable us to have a strong sense of professional pride whilst we deliver a safe and quality product to our hospitals and the best standard of care to our service users.
• Focused induction and training programme with supernumerary period.
• Professional development including:
– NHSBT e-learning hub of online learning resources
– Leadership and Management programmes.
– Corporate Nursing Team who facilitates various professional development opportunities specific to Nursing, including Clinical Leadership, Clinical Supervision and Professional Nurse Advocates (PNA’s).
– NHSBT Nursing Council, providing a forum to share best practice, support and evaluate implementation of our NHSBT Nursing Strategy.
– Potential funding opportunities for external studies where this has been identified during your Personal Development Review.
– Apprenticeships, work-based learning programmes.
• No night shifts and TOIL (Time of in lieu). NHSBT also promotes flexible working, where the role will allow.
• Opportunity to work within other specialisms within our organisation such as Therapeutic Apheresis Services or Organ Donation.
• Minimum 27 days annual leave per year plus 8 bank/public holidays dependent on length of service
• NHS Pension Scheme - defined benefit scheme (not dependent on investment returns). Further details and outline of benefits can be found at: www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/pensions
If you are shortlisted for this role, we strongly recommend you attend in person for a blood collection session tour so we can provide you with a more in-depth understanding of this role. Please note that our travel policy does not allow for the payment of travel expenses.
Apply Link: https://jobs.nhsbt.nhs.uk/Job/JobDetail?jobid=5928&isPreview=Yes&advert=external
This vacancy will close at 23:59 on Sunday 23rd March
Interviews are anticipated to be held on or around Monday 31st March – subject to confirmation.
For informal enquiries please contact:
Sally Amos, Area Manager-Central South, Sally.amos@nhsbt.nhs.uk