Job summary
- Main area
- Catering- CHEF
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 4
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week (5 out of 7 days including weekends and public holidays)
- Job ref
- 361-7046021-B
- Employer
- East and North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Lister Hospital
- Town
- Stevenage
- Salary
- £26,530 - £29,114 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 21/08/2025 23:59
- Interview date
- 01/09/2025
Employer heading

Chef Manager
NHS AfC: Band 4
Here at East and North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust,
Our mission is:
Providing high-quality, compassionate care for our communities
Our vision to 2030 is:
To be trusted to provide consistently outstanding care and exemplary service
Job overview
We are recruiting for a Chef Manager who share our vision to be trusted to provide consistently outstanding care and exemplary service to our patients.
The Chef Manager is responsible for leading and managing all aspects of the kitchen operations, including menu development, food preparation, staff management, stock ordering and control and ensuring an exceptional dining experience for patients, staff and visitors.
This role combines culinary expertise, leadership, and a passion for high-quality food and service. The Chef Manager oversees the kitchen's efficiency and adherence to food safety and health and safety standards.
You will establish and develop key working relationships with the Food Production Manager, Compliance Officer, Supervisors, Ward managers and Housekeepers, Administrators, Chefs and Catering staff.
At the heart of everything we do are our core values: Include, Respect, and Improve. We encourage you to embrace these values throughout the recruitment process and in your role with us.
Main duties of the job
Manage and control resources effectively in accordance with the Trust’s SFI’s/SO’s and other policies.
Participate in training as appropriate and put your skills and knowledge into practice. Training will be identified and carried out to fulfil the requirements of this job description. The post holder’s manager is responsible for their training and development.
Ensure that all staff carry out their duties in a safe, efficient and cost-effective manner in accordance with agreed employment policies.
Assist the Food Production Manager to ensure that your staff receive sufficient and appropriate induction and training to undertake the tasks required of them and evaluate the effectiveness of this. Provide corrective coaching as appropriate.
Working for our organisation
At East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, we are proud of the range of general and specialist services we provide and our 6,000 or so dedicated staff ensure our patients get the best care. Our ability to be flexible and innovative in the way in which we work and deliver our services to our catchment has never been more important than it is now.
We run the following hospitals:
- The Lister Hospital, Stevenage
- New Queen Elizabeth II (New QEII), Welwyn Garden City
- Hertford County, Hertford
- Mount Vernon Cancer Centre (MVCC), Northwood
We have ambitious plans to become an outstanding, patient-led Trust where dedicated staff provide high-quality, compassionate care to our patients. We continue to undergo significant transformation and our staff and patients are at the heart of delivering this ambitious agenda.
We are committed to a positive work life balance for our employees. This means that any employee is entitled to seek to work flexible working patterns and we are committed to listen and consider all requests. Such requests, of course, have to be made and considered formally, and will need to be balanced against service needs, but our starting point will always be to find ways to support making them happen.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification applicant pack for further detailed information regarding this role.
Person specification
ESSENTIAL
Essential criteria
- Good standard of general education
- Professional cookery L3 or equivalent qualifications
- Level 3 food safety
- Previous Catering experience at supervisory/team leader level in large scale production in a healthcare/hospital environment
- Previous experience of training staff
- Experience of Catering as a chef using cook from scratch methods
- Strong knowledge of different food preparation techniques
- General administration procedures
- Knowledge of Roster Management
- Strong knowledge of food safety regulations e.g. HACCP and FSA requirements
- Competent in Microsoft Office and ability to use email, internet etc
- Excellent communications skills to enable effective communications at all levels
- Good organisational skills
- Ability to multi-task and work efficiently
- Ability to liaise with catering staff on daily tasks
- Knowledge of Health & Safety requirements relating to catering services
- Ability to deal with non-routine situations and queries
- Ability to work effectively with others, working towards to common goal of the team
- Ability to use initiative
- Strong verbal communication skills
- Ability to train others
- Confident to give catering staff advice and guidance and able to deal calmly and effectively with complaints
- strong knowledge in Allergen management
Desirable criteria
- Health and Safety / Risk Assessment training or willingness to undertake
- Experience of appraisal / performance reviews
- Previous experience of working within the catering sector in the NHS
- Previous general administration experience
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
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Nicola Long
- Job title
- Food production Manager
- Email address
- [email protected]
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