Domestic - Southport Hospital

We want talented and enthusiastic people from all backgrounds to join #TeamMWL, with us you can learn, grow and develop yourself and your career, realising your true ambitions and aspirations. Whatever you’re looking for in your career, you’ll find it here at MWL.

Job overview: We are looking for highly motivated individuals to join our Domestic Team at the Southport site. The role of Domestic may involve maintaining high standards of cleanliness to ensure a safe, hygienic environment for patients and staff.

Main duties of the job:

• Providing a customer focused service, to carry out general and specialised cleaning tasks in accordance with Trust procedures.
• To ensure the environment is maintained to a high standard and safe working practices adhere to in all aspects of environmental/hygiene management.

Working for our organisation: Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 9,000 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites. We strongly believe that the communities we serve should all have access to Five Star Patient Care.

Our Services:

• Acute Care: Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.
• Primary Care: Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.
• Community Services: Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire.
• Specialist Regional Services: We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

Achievements:

• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme

Detailed job description and main responsibilities:

• Cleaning of structures, non-clinical patient equipment and components, manually or mechanically.
• Isolation cleans/infection cleans as required.
• Set up and use of Hydrogen Peroxide fogging and UV machine cleaning of areas as required.
• Carry out tasks to respond to requests for infection cleans, fogging and UV.
• Maintenance and cleaning of all housekeeping equipment.
• Assist in the commissioning and decommissioning of areas.
• Curtain changes as appropriate, safe removal of dirty linen.
• Keep a tidy work environment.
• Follow Waste Disposal Policy to ensure safe removal of waste, ensuring correct segregation of waste.
• Ensuring that building security controls are adhered to and problems reported immediately.
• To cover other clinics or hospitals as necessary.
• To work unsupervised as a Lone Worker and be aware of the issues.
• Use own judgement to overcome operational issues regarding day‑to‑day tasks.
• Use cleaning equipment such as buffers, scrubbers and buckets containing water and cleaning solutions, plus low and high cleaning work, requiring physical effort.
• Working in the vicinity of body fluids, physical aggression and exposure to hazards may occasionally occur.

Quality:

• Ensure compliance with PAS 5748 and hygiene standards.
• Ensure all appropriate hygiene monitoring is carried out and recorded for every process.
• Ensure all Infection Prevention and Control procedures are adhered, including maintaining a high standard of personal hygiene.
• Ensure compliance with all legal requirements of food safety.
• Maintain and improve all aspects of service.
• Responsible for the flushing of water systems and maintaining accurate records in line with regulations pertaining to Legionella and Pseudomonas as instructed.
• Participate in staff involvement groups for all aspects of the Trust Quality Strategy 2016/21.
• Participate in trials of products and equipment as required.

Communications:

• Ensure good customer relations working with patients and all levels of staff, e.g. ward managers.
• Work effectively as part of a team.
• Adopt an empathetic approach to patients and visitors, ensuring the areas are cleaned with minimal disruption to patients.
• Be aware of patients who may have challenging behaviours due to their medical condition, ensuring confidentiality and privacy and dignity are observed at all times.
• Store keeping including storage and stock rotation submitting orders in a timely manner.
• Ensure economic use of all materials.
• Ensure good practice to minimise waste.

Staff/Training:

• Staff will be trained in all aspects of the housekeeping role over a minimum of 4 weeks or until deemed competent.
• Standard Operating Procedures to be followed.
• All trained staff are expected to display a flexible and supportive attitude to their work and colleagues providing guidance and assistance to new or existing members of staff.
• Participate in the staff appraisal system and attend training in accordance with your personal development plan.
• Complete and maintain competency level.
• Staff to have an understanding of COSHH, and use of PPE, and adhere to health and safety regulations around the use of chemicals.

Person specification:

• Qualifications: Basic numeracy and literacy, NVQ level 2 Cleaning and Building Interiors, Food Safety Awareness level 1.
• Knowledge and Experience: Understanding of cleaning and hygiene principles, large scale or Health Care domestic work, basic computer skills.
• Skills: Understanding/Experience of Customer Care, Understanding/Experience of Team Working, Ability to use mechanical/electrical cleaning aids, Ability to instruct other less qualified staff, Awareness of Buildings Security.
• Other: Physically demanding role including use of machinery and other cleaning equipment such as buckets of water. Ability to carry out varied workloads with varying demands. Able to empathise with patients and staff. Ability to work varied shift patterns/experience of working varied shift patterns. Experience of Lone working. Experience of/ability to working at height using ladder.

Thank you for considering an application to work for Mersey West Lancashire NHS Trust. MWL is an exciting and forward‑thinking NHS Trust who are one of the best places to work for in England.

Given sometimes we receive a high volume of applications to work for us, please be aware that we may close a vacancy earlier than stated should a sufficient number of applications be received from which a shortlist can be confirmed. Therefore, you are advised to apply at your earliest convenience.

The Trust may contact you during the recruitment process for your feedback on your experience. We always aim for continuous improvement in our practice.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: We actively cultivate a professional environment of fairness, equality, dignity, and respect for all individuals. We welcome individuals from all backgrounds and value the unique skills, perspective and experience you bring. We are grounded in the belief that diversity enhances our collective strength, fostering innovation and excellence within our workforce. We welcome all applications irrespective of people’s race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion/belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity and in particular those from under‑represented groups.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we commit to offering an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

If you are having difficulty completing an online application, or require any disability reasonable adjustments, to the application process, please contact us. We also commit to offering an interview to all armed forces veterans who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

The Trust operates anonymous shortlisting where no personal information about you, including your name or personal details are shared with the recruiting manager. No equality information is shared at any time during the recruitment process with the recruiting manager or other people involved in the decision‑making process.

The equality monitoring information you provide is used in the following situations: to review our recruitment practices; where a job is limited to a specific person to verify their eligibility to apply; and to offer disability reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process.

Certificate of Sponsorship: Following the recent update on UK immigration policy for those on a Health and Care Visa or Skilled Worker Visa, please check your eligibility before applying for this post as we may be unable to provide sponsorship.

eVisa Update: For successful candidates on selected work and study visa routes, who have completed and paid for their applications will no longer receive a visa vignette in passport as evidence of their permission to enter the UK. Instead, you will be issued with an eVisa only, which is accessed by creating a UKVI account.