Housekeeper
We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnic minorities, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us.We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.
Job overview
We are seeking an individual to join our inpatient mental health service in our newly developed Housekeeper role.
As a Housekeeper under the supervision of the Registered Nurse and Nursing team you will support in ensuring a clean and safe environment where the individual needs of our service users are met in a timely and effective manner utilising best practice.
Working as part of the team, you will assist in maintaining a clean and therapeutic environment, ensuring supplies and equipment are ordered in a timely manner, monitoring and ensuring equipment is fit for purpose, as well as welcoming and greeting visitors to the ward.
You will enjoy working as part of a highly skilled and motivated team within a dynamic and busy environment to deliver excellent care.
This post is subject to an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) Check. Successful candidates will be required to pay for the cost of the DBS Disclosure which is £44.00, the cost of which will be deducted from first salary.
Registration with the DBS update service is mandatory for new starters in those roles that require an Enhanced DBS.
Main duties of the job
The main duties of the role involve:
Ordering supplies/equipment
Monitoring and maintaining equipment
Maintaining a clean and safe Environment
General housekeeping and admin duties
Working for our organisation
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 11 million people.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together.We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Meeting Nutritional Needs- To promote a pleasant environment for eating, i.e. remove any clutter from tables.
- Take responsibility for food stores, ensuring it is clean at al times, i.e. discard out of date food, stock rotation.
- To ensure temperature of ward fridge is monitored as per trust policy.
- To ensure food in fridge is labelled and stored correctly.
- To take responsibility for the staff fridge, i.e. discard out of date food.
- To establish a pleasant and welcoming atmosphere to patients, visitors and staff.
- To carry out monitoring of service and equipment
- To establish delivery related to – cleaning, food, linen and the environment, with particular attention to the bathrooms and toilets (at agreed intervals).
- To ensure all requirements for maintenance/repairs to equipment are reported in a timely manner to Estates.
- To monitor response times for maintenance and report any issues to the Team Manager.
- To maintain the cleanliness of all nursing equipment and trolleys.
- To liaise with staff following the discharge of a patient with regards to the cleaning of the bed/bedroom in preparation for a new admission.
- Check curtains/blinds are in good working order and rectify any faults.
- To ensure that all alcohol gel dispensers are cleaned and replenished.
- Monitor that correct waste management is being adhered to, especially confidential waste.
- Keep notice boards and tidy and check that all posters/flyers are laminated and in date.
- Keep patient information boards and displays up to date and clean and tidy.
- Clinical
- Work collaboratively within the Care team to ensure that service user’s needs are met
- Recognise and respond appropriately to urgent and emergency situations
- Report any concern regarding service user care to the Qualified Practitioner
- Support an individual’s equality, diversity and rights.
- To ensure personal privacy, dignity and confidentiality is maintained at all times.
- To assist with bed making, where appropriate, ensuring an adequate supply of linen is available at all times.
- Liaise with domestic supervisor when deep cleaning is needed.
- Ensure any items of broken or severely soiled furniture are reported to the Team Manage and collection and disposal arranged.
- To receive and welcome visitors.
- To respond to telephone calls in a courteous manner.
- To receive and pass information to others, maintaining confidentiality.
- To ensure cost effective use of resources.
- To respond to patient concerns through communication with nursing staff.
- To promote effective communication with patients, colleagues, other professionals and visitors to the trust.
- Maintain a professional image at all times.
Person specification
Qualifications
Desirable criteria- NVQ 2 or equivalent level of experience within a care setting
Knowledge / Experience
Essential criteria- Ability to function effectively as a team member.
- Experience of working within and environment of service users with mental health problems
Skills
Essential criteria- Ability to communicate in a variety of settings with patients of varying levels of understanding
- Able to present factual information and refer questions to others where appropriateAble to present factual information and refer questions to others where appropriate
- Able to deal with sensitive issues with tact and diplomacy
- Ability to develop effective interpersonal relationships with colleagues in the health care settingAbility to develop effective interpersonal relationships with colleagues in the health care setting
- Basic understanding of mental illness
- Awareness of role of stock rotation/monitoring
- IT skills
- First Aid
- CPR Training
Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.
Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.
As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust’s guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.
Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email [email protected] to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.
We reserve the right to close any vacancy earlier than advertised in exceptional circumstances once we have received a high volume of applications.
The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £13 per year and maintain registration. Trans applicants who require a DBS check and do not want to reveal details of their previous identity can contact the DBS Sensitive Applications Team (01516761452 or email [email protected]) with their application number once they have completed their DBS application form.The team can prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.