Healthcare Assistant - Sexual Health in Bury St Edmunds

Are you a compassionate and proactive Healthcare Assistant looking to build your career in sexual health? Do you thrive in a fast-paced, patient-focused environment where no two days are the same? If so, we’d love to hear from you. We’re looking for a dedicated Sexual Health Healthcare Assistant to join our multidisciplinary team, delivering high-quality, confidential and non-judgemental care to our service users.

As a Sexual Health Healthcare Assistant, you’ll be part of our valued team based in our Bury Sexual Health Service. You will feel valued as a Healthcare Assistant within HCRG Care Group, receiving access to exclusive rewards and benefits including:

• A salary of £25,500 - £27,098 pro rata, dependent on experience, with access to our group pension
• Free tea, coffee and milk at your base location
• Membership of My Reward Hub, giving you access to discounts on everyday purchases like grocery shopping as well as cashback and voucher offers for treats for you and those special to you
• Access to your wages as you earn them to help cover life’s emergencies and avoid overdraft fees or high interest rates
• Online and face to face help with your mental and physical wellbeing – from healthy recipes and activity challenges through to post trauma support, legal, debt and life management help, as well as career coaching and counselling
• Access to eLearning, bespoke career pathways and opportunities for continuing professional development through our ‘Outstanding’ learning and development team, The Learning Enterprise
• An open, just culture where you’re encouraged to have and implement ideas which can help us deliver our purpose: changing lives through transforming health and care – backed up by at least £100,000 of ringfenced innovation funding each year

As a Sexual Health HCA, you’ll play a vital role on the frontline of service delivery—supporting patients, clinicians and the wider team to provide safe, effective, and respectful care. This is a hands‑on clinical role where you’ll have the opportunity to develop specialist skills and work both independently and as part of a supportive team. You’ll bring compassion, professionalism and a commitment to maintaining patient dignity and confidentiality at all times. You’ll also demonstrate a proactive approach to learning, quality improvement, and delivering excellent care.

We have a full‑time (37.5 hours) and part‑time (30 hours) opportunity available. There may be a requirement to provide cover at other service sites. The role involves traveling to various locations across the service, therefore access to transport is essential. You will be expected to work flexibly to cover clinic opening hours, which may range between 8:00am and 7:00pm, with occasional shifts up to 8:00pm at spoke or peripheral clinics.

Main Responsibilities:

• Support sexual health clinics with patient care and chaperoning
• Take patient histories, observations and samples
• Carry out asymptomatic screening, pregnancy testing and venepuncture
• Process specimens and assist with microscopy
• Provide health promotion and sexual health advice, including condom use and screening guidance
• Support results management and partner notification
• Assist with HIV, PrEP and ongoing care pathways
• Ensure clinical areas are safe, stocked and compliant with infection control standards
• Help triage patients and guide them to the right care pathway

What we’re looking for:

• Experienced as a Healthcare Assistant (Band 2/3 or equivalent) with a completed Care Certificate
• Passionate about delivering non‑judgemental, confidential patient care
• A strong communicator with excellent interpersonal skills
• Comfortable working both independently and within a multidisciplinary team
• Motivated, flexible and able to adapt to a busy clinical environment
• Ideally experienced (or interested) in sexual health, HIV or contraception services
• Venepuncture and microscopy
• Knowledge of sexual health pathways and screening
• Experience with clinical systems and patient records

Other requirements:

• Full UK driving licence and access to a car for travel between clinic bases and outreach locations

We change lives by transforming health and care. Established in 2006, we are one of the UK's leading independent providers of community health and care services, working with health and care commissioners and communities to transform services with a focus on experience, efficiency and improved outcomes. We deliver and transform adult and children community health services, primary care services including urgent care, sexual health, dermatology and MSK services as well as adult social care and wellbeing services. Across England, we support communities of many millions and directly help more than half a million people each year - guided by our simple values: we care, we think, we do. We're committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from a broad, diverse range of people who want to join our team. We’re a Disability Confident Committed company, so we work to provide facilities, work environment adjustments and technical solutions to be as inclusive of everyone. As you’d expect, safeguarding and protecting the children, young people and vulnerable adults that we work with is of the utmost importance so we have policies and procedures in place to promote safeguarding and safer working practices and everyone who joins the team is subject to a safer recruitment process, including the disclosure of criminal records and vetting checks.