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Job summary

Main area
Pharmacy Production Engineering
Grade
NHS AfC: Band 4
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
196-LIS10748E
Employer
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Pharmacy Production, Guy's Hospital
Town
London
Salary
£34,186 - £37,389 per annum
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
13/09/2026 23:59

Employer heading

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust logo

PMU Engineering Assistant

NHS AfC: Band 4

Guy’s and St Thomas’ is among the UK’s busiest and most successful NHS foundation trusts. We provide a full range of hospital and community services for people in south London and as well as specialist care for patients from further afield including cancer, renal, orthopaedic, respiratory and cardiovascular services.

Guy’s is home to the largest dental school in Europe and a £160 million Cancer Centre opened in 2016. As part of our commitment to provide care closer to home, in 2017 we also opened a cancer centre and a kidney treatment centre at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup. St Thomas’ has one of the largest critical care units in the UK and one of the busiest emergency departments in London. It is also home to Evelina London Children’s Hospital.

Evelina London cares for local children in Lambeth and Southwark and provides specialist services across south east England including cardiac, renal and critical care services. We lead a number of specialist service networks aiming to ensure children are treated locally where possible, but have access to specialist expertise when they need it. Our community services include health visiting, school nursing and support for families of children with long-term conditions. 

Our adult community services teams deliver care at the heart of the local communities we serve, working in partnership with GPs, local authorities and other healthcare and voluntary sector organisations. Working with our partners in Lambeth and Southwark, we are focusing on new ways of working to improve care for local patients.

In February 2021 the Royal Brompton and Harefield joined Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, bringing together world-leading expertise in the care and research of heart and lung disease. Our merger provides a once in a generation opportunity to build a lasting, world-renowned heart and lung centre, providing the highest quality care for patients and conducting world-leading research.

We have a reputation for clinical excellence and high quality teaching and research. We are part of King’s Health Partners, one of eight accredited UK academic health sciences centres. In partnership with King’s College London we have dedicated clinical research facilities including an MHRA accredited Phase I clinical trials unit.

Patients are at the heart of everything we do and we pride ourselves on ensuring the best possible patient experience as well as safe, high quality care. We are proud to have one of the lowest mortality rates in the NHS. Following a comprehensive Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection in 2019 we maintained our overall rating of ‘good’. Our adult community services achieved a rating of ‘outstanding’.

The commitment of our 23,500 staff is key to our success. We are one of the largest local employers and we aim to develop and support all our staff so they are able to deliver high quality, safe and efficient care. The 2019 NHS staff survey results show that we have one of the most engaged and motivated workforces in the NHS. We know this has a positive impact on the care provided to our patients.

We have one of the most ambitious capital investment programmes anywhere in the NHS.



Job overview

The Pharmacy Manufacturing Unit (PMU) at Guy's Hospital is an MHRA Licenced Unit manufacturing a broad portfolio of terminally sterilised and non-sterile Specials (unlicensed) medicines.  Additionally, under our MIA(IMP) License , the PMU provides clinical trial manufacturing activities through our collaboration with Kings Health Partners and other clinical trial organizations.

The PMU has an extensive portfolio of equipment and plant machinery to support pharmaceutical manufacturing activities, including processing & packaging lines as well as Water for Injection (WFI), Air Handling (AHU) and Autoclave systems.

The department is comprised of approx. 30 staff made up of operational teams, senior support and engineering teams.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will assist the PMU Engineering team in providing specialist engineering services to the PMU to ensure that all pharmaceutical manufacturing machinery and plant remains operational at all times. The key role responsibilities include:

• To carry out routine monitoring of the critical utility systems supporting pharmaceutical production and manufacturing process equipment. 
• To perform routine maintenance, fault diagnosis and assist in the repair of critical utility systems and process equipment as agreed with the PMU Engineering and Maintenance Lead. 
• To provide technical assistance for validation activities associated with the critical utility systems and processing equipment in conjunction with the Pharmaceutical Lifecycle Management team. 
• To raise non compliances and support investigations into deviations in relation to engineering and equipment systems.

Working for our organisation

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is one of the largest and most respected NHS organisations in the UK, with a strong reputation for clinical excellence, research and innovation. The Trust is part of King’s Health Partners, an internationally recognised academic health sciences centre.

Within the Trust, Technical Services plays a vital role in supporting patient care through the manufacture and supply of high-quality unlicensed medicines and clinical trial products. The Pharmacy Manufacturing Unit (PMU) at Guy’s Hospital is a well-established facility operating to MHRA standards, offering a diverse and rewarding working environment with opportunities to develop expertise in pharmaceutical manufacturing, quality systems and clinical trials. The Engineering Team plays a vital role in ensuring that the facility and infrastructure  of PMU is maintained to the highest safety and GMP standards.

Staff are supported through structured training, professional development opportunities and a collaborative team culture focused on safety, quality and continuous improvement.

 

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The following are the main responsibilities of the role (see attached Job Description):

Technical / Operational 

  • To monitor the performance of the PMU critical utility systems and process equipment by carrying out routine field checks in addition to entering, analysing  and reporting the data using spreadsheet software. 
  • To assist in the maintenance and operational efficiency of the critical utility systems and process equipment within the PMU.  This includes the Water for Injection production and distribution system plus supporting utilities, the Air Handling Units and Autoclave.  
  •  To diagnose and detect faults on utility systems and production equipment, communicating any findings to the appropriate seniors and recording faults on machine and system logs. 

Calibration and Validation

  • To perform routine preventative maintenance on critical utility systems and process equipment.
  • To carry out calibration activities on PMU processing equipment in accordance with current GMP guidelines, Regulatory and ISO standards, ISPE guidance after relevant training.
  • To carry out routine validation of critical systems within the manufacturing facility, after relevant training 

Quality Management 

  • To maintain logs and documentation in accordance with current guidelines and regulatory requirements.
  • To raise non-conformances and assist with deviation investigations on the Pharmaceutical Quality System.
  • To manage and maintain the engineering documentation folders ensuring all completed documentation is correctly scanned, filed and stored accurately to aid easy retrieval. 

Training / Education / Professional Development 

  • To assist with induction of new and rotational staff with regards to operational awareness of engineering systems and processing equipment.
  • Undertake training as and when required to obtain, maintain and develop skills and knowledge base.
  • Be able to learn and adapt to new techniques, embrace training and provide written and verbal instruction to staff and colleagues on all aspects or their work. 

Person specification

Education/Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • A Level 3 Vocational Qualification in an engineering relevant subject or equivalent specialist experience, coupled with occupational training.

Previous Experience

Essential criteria
  • Portfolio demonstrating experience of working within a broad range of occupational guidelines
Desirable criteria
  • Experience of working in a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility or similar GMP industry

Skills/Knowlede/Ability

Essential criteria
  • Demonstrated ability to clearly and accurately communicate complex technical information to a wide audience.
  • Demonstrated ability to organise self to deliver engineering team priorities.
  • Demonstrated ability to identify risk and carry out simple risk assessments with appropriate mitigation and escalation.
  • Demonstrated ability to work in restricted areas such as clean rooms or plant rooms wearing appropriate PPE
  • Demonstrated ability to comply with standard operating procedures and to assess other staff’s compliance with these procedures.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Timewise helps businesses to attract and develop the best talent through flexible working.Care quality commission - GoodDisability confident employer

Applicant requirements

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Garren Hector
Job title
PMU Engineering and Maintenance Lead
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
02071887188
Additional information

Ext: 57693

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