Job summary
- Main area
- Catering
- Grade
- Band 3
- Contract
- Bank
- Hours
- Flexible working
- Other
- Job ref
- 438-PB3699
- Employer
- Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Royal Preston Hospital
- Town
- Preston
- Salary
- £24,937 - £26,598 Pro Rota, Per Annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 17/02/2026 23:59
Employer heading
Bank Chef
Band 3
Job overview
Please note on 1st March 2026, the Estates and Facilities Services for Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, will transfer to East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust and become part of OneLSC.
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust will be the Lead Provider of the service and the employer of colleagues working within the service, across sites.
If you are successful in your application, and commence work prior to 1st March 2026, your employment will transfer to East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust on 1st March 2026 under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations, 2006. There will be no impact for your job role, terms and conditions of employment or location of work.
If you are successful in your application, and commence work after 1st March 2026, your employer will be East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust.
Be More Than a Chef—Be a Vital Part of Patient Care at Preston Hospital
Cooking in a hospital isn’t just about preparing meals—it’s about making a meaningful difference every single day. At Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, our chefs play a key role in nourishing patients, staff, and visitors with nutritious, comforting food that supports recovery and wellbeing.
Join our passionate Catering team at Preston Hospital, where we prepare over 2,000 meals daily in our state-of-the-art kitchen—365 days a year. You’ll have the chance to showcase your culinary creativity, experiment with new dishes, and master the classics our patients love.
What sets you apart is your love for food and the pride you take in your craft. And you won’t be doing it alone—our friendly, supportive kitchen team is ready to welcome you and work together to deliver excellence. If you’re looking for a role where your skills truly matter, this is it.
Main duties of the job
We won’t shy away from saying that at times it will be a challenging role, but we know you will expect this and of course, this will be offset by how rewarding it is too.
Your day-to-day role will be to prepare, cook and present food for staff, visitors and primarily patients to the highest standards in line with the department’s quality control guidelines.
We already have a number of great people working within our hospitals, so we asked them what they enjoyed about this department, and this is what they had to say: https://vimeo.com/685894666/323be04684
You will ensure and observe the correct and economic use of materials and equipment, we want your ideas to help keep waste to a minimum and being creative to achieve this. You will have a good knowledge of special and therapeutic diets as well as religious, ethnic and other dietary needs as well as knowledge and experience of cook-chill production systems. You will also take responsibility for the supervision of our Kitchen Assistants and work with them to ensure all the activities get done on time to contribute to the smooth running of our kitchen facility.
Working for our organisation
So what can we offer you? Well as well as working for an award winning organisation, you will join a very strong and dedicated team who work so hard together and have fun along the way. The satisfaction of knowing you played your part in helping look after our patients is what will drive you the most.
We will help you develop your skills, give you opportunities to try new things and we actively encourage you to challenge us to constantly review what we do, our processes and approaches.
You wont have to work any unsocial hours like you would in many other sectors – in fact, our existing Chefs say this is one of the things they like the most.
We are a great, modern facility with all the best gadgets and equipment – albeit in a really big scale.
We would love you to come and have a look around to see exactly what it's like, meet our teams and get to know us – just contact Neal Cropper to organise it.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Communicate effectively with colleagues to ensure an accurate exchange of information about catering tasks and service needs
Communicate with a range of customers in person and over the telephone to understand individual needs and provide information relating to the catering service
Appropriate communication with colleagues within our service areas, promote team working and shared goals
Undertake all duties relating to food production and service, including:-
Serving of food in restaurants and for patients on meal assembly belts, in wards and other patient dining rooms. This to be carried out in a timely and attractive manner to enhance appearance observing portion control
Preparation and serving of food at functions anywhere on Trust premises.
• Allocate work and support ongoing training of kitchen assistants under your supervision.
• Meet all required deadlines
• Ensure foods are wholesome and safe
• General preparation of raw meat, fish and poultry, including weighing, traying up into containers and labelling correctly, paying attention to prevent any risk of cross contamination.
• General preparation of all bakery items for both staff and patient menus.
• Cooking of food as per standard recipes to meet the required departmental requirements, Following daily menus and production lists using a variety of traditional cooking methods, maintaining the ‘Better Hospital Food’ standards.
• Cooking of food for adhoc events for as per production lists.
• Ensure sufficient food is prepared for each meal using figures provided.
• Have knowledge of special therapeutic diets and be able to respond at short notice.
• Ensure current hygiene regulations are adhered to paying particular attention to temperatures of food during storage, preparation, cooking and service.
• Ensuring all food products are covered and have appropriate labels with dates attached.
• Competent in the application of food hygiene at a minimum of level 2 (desirable level 3) and qualified in HACCP to level 2
demonstrating diligence at all times
• Supervise catering assistants on the patient service belt if the need arises due to unforeseen circumstances.
• Ensure security of trust assets including foodstuffs and reporting any thefts or losses.
Health and safety
• Report any defective equipment or health and safety hazards
• Escalate to a manager if necessary
• Taking the piece of equipment out of action if required.
Proactively support the continued development of the catering service
Maintain and develop own competence
Undertakes any training deemed necessary by the Trust or catering management team
Person specification
Qualifications & Education
Essential criteria
- Level 2 Certificate in Food Hygiene
- Good general education
- Basic Health and Safety
- Food Production Qualifications – C&G 706 /NVQ Level 2
- Level 2 certificate in H.A.C.C.P
Desirable criteria
- Level 3 Food Hygiene Certificate
Knowledge & Experience
Essential criteria
- Previous Experience in the Catering Industry
- Previous experience in dealing with the public.
- Awareness of confidentiality in an NHS environment
- Awareness of the standards of hygiene and cleanliness within a healthcare setting
- Knowledge of Therapeutic diets.
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of Cook-Chill production
- Certificate in diet cookery
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
This post will require a submission for Disclosure to be made to check for any unspent criminal convictions.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Neal Cropper
- Job title
- Catering Production Manager
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 01772522724
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