Found one!

71. Band 3 Pharmacy Dispensing Assistant - Heartlands Hospital

Still looking

They didn't write, they didn't call, but I can take a hint.............

Finally! I heard back from Heartlands Hospital.

Well kind of.

The HPA works within the Heartlands Hospital Pathology Laboratory where the employees from the two organisations work side by side.

This is (effectively) the job I applied for at the HPA at Heartlands. I'm guessing they hired someone internally.........

Job Reference: 295-6404YA

Job Title: Band 3 Medical Laboratory Assistant

Area of Work: Pathology

Employer: Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust

Department: Clinical Biochemisty

Location: Birmingham

Salary: £15,190 to £18,157 pa

Job Type: Permanent

Staff Group: Additional Clinical Services

Pay Scheme: Agenda for change

Pay Band: 3

Working pattern: 37.5 Hours Monday-Friday:Flexible between 8.00am to 10.00pm

Closing Date: This job advert will close as soon as sufficient applications have been received. Please apply for this job as soon as you can, if interested.

Description

Department of Laboratory Medicine - Heartlands Hospital

Medical Laboratory Assistant

37.5 hour post: Monday – Friday: Flexible working hours between 8.00am – 10.00pm

We are looking for motivated and reliable people to join our friendly Pathology team. Based in Specimen Reception the main duties include the receipt, sorting, and labelling of patients’ samples, data entry of patient information onto the laboratory computer, and clerical work.

The job also involves dealing with telephone enquiries and visitors to the department, including patients. You must be able to demonstrate good communication and keyboard skills and the ability to file alphabetically and numerically.

You are required to have a reasonable standard of general education, i.e. possession of pass certificates at GCSE or equivalent and have at least one-year clerical/data entry experience. Accuracy and attention to detail are essential.

Full training within the Reception area will be given and there may be opportunities to work towards NVQ qualifications. However, there is no opportunity to progress into the individual specialist laboratories.

It is essential to the service requirements that applicants can work flexibly to cover the annual/sickness absence of other staff and will involve evening/weekend and Bank Holiday cover.

For more information please contact Xxxxxxxxx Xxxxx - Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx Xxxxxxx on 0121 xxx xxxx.

The Heart Of England Foundation Trust only accepts ON-LINE APPLICATIONS.

PLEASE NOTE: IN MOST CASES CONTACT WILL BE MADE VIA EMAIL, THEREFORE PLEASE ENSURE YOU MONITOR YOUR INBOX.



I won't be adding this to my Jobs Basket.

Charming!

I am skint. I have very little money and I have to go to London for Christmas.

My mood is very low and it's getting worse with little or no prospect of getting better any time soon.

Looking for jobs is starting to look pointless as everyone is starting to wind down for Christmas. The jobs I can apply for are scarce and the only jobs that seem to be out there are so limited that it would be a waste of time even ringing for application packs

"Do you have an interest in caring for patients with a wide range of musculoskeletal disorders?"

"Are you looking for work as a personal trainer?"

"Are you qualified to NVQ Level 2 in Cleaning and Support Services?"

No. Not really.

I gave up trawling for work in a really miserable mood. And then I found this......

this didn't help my mood either when I started trawling the Internet for news.

Gingerism rules.

Great.

I can see clearly in a few days time...

To take full advantage of my dolee status, I made an appointment to see the optician at Boots in Wolverhampton.

The glasses aren't doing what they once did and I'm having trouble distinguishing whether that moving blob in the distance is a truck or a bus.

So I went through the tests. Field of vision, crude focus, the eye puff test and the take-a-picture-of-the-retina test.

Then I went in with the Opthalmologist for the "proper" eye test.

This girl was new. She was pushy from the get go. I made it clear that I was unemployed as I had to show her my HC2 certificate which entitles me to free eye tests and cheap NHS glasses. She said she understood and sympathised.

As the eye test progressed, it became obvious that my eye sight had deteriorated. It took an embarrassingly long time for the red and green lights to appear of equal strength and for the black dots to come into focus. I still can't read that bottom line on the eyechart either.

Again the Opthalmologist sympathised. The only people who seemed to be able to read that bottom line were service personnel. They seem to be feeding them something.

The weird hairs growing out of the corners of my eye were irritating me as they were starting to curl towards my eyeballs. She prescribed hypromellose eye drops and told me to stop plucking them out as that could lead to infection.

After the eye test, she spelled out the options. My eyes had deteriorated significantly and as I neede prescriptions for far and close work, I needed (she emphasised needed) varifocals or, at the very least, bifocals.

As I was unemployed, she continued, I was entitled to financial help with the cost of the glasses and as she was recommending complex lenses, I was entitled to an E NHS voucher as opposed to the standard A NHS voucher.

She hustled me out and sent me back onto the sales floor. The sales girl and I sat down and discussed the options. She recommended the most expensive "gold standard" varifocal lenses. Finally we started talking about prices.

How much would the glasses be?

Smiling, she quoted more than three months mortgage interest payments for the lenses alone. The frames would be an additional cost on top of that.

Pardon?

She made a play of double checking. Yep. More than three months mortgage interest payments.

Then she glanced down at the paperwork in front of her and corrected herself. With the E NHS voucher, that'll only be three months mortgage interest payments.

After I was sitting stunned for a little while, she looked at the cheaper options. The "silver standard" would be nearly three months mortgage interest payments with the E NHS voucher and with the "bronze standard" lenses that would be two and half months mortgage interest payments.

I repeated again, slowly, that I was unemployed and that even with the E NHS voucher, I would not be able to afford a "tin standard", even if they did such a thing.

With a kind of ease which suggested she had done this sort of thing before, she turned the E on the form to an A.

I needed two pairs then, she said, one for distance and one for reading. They were doing a 2 for 1 offer on Boots own brand frames which included the cost of simple lenses and she tried to lead me to the higher priced (and admittedly nicer) frames on the expensive stands.

I went to the lower priced stand with the "little old lady" plastic frames. There were a few metal frames with nose cushions. I pointed to two slightly different metal frames, one for distance and one for close up.

Financially, it turned out to be a very good choice. The A NHS voucher covered the cost of the first pair of glasses and with the 2 for 1 offer, I didn't have to pay for the second pair either.

Aesthetically, it's another story. They do look lame. However, they're free and beggars can't be choosers.

The Sales girl showed me to the till, as I still had to pay £10 for the photograph of my retinas which will remain on file until my next eye examination. She smiled through gritted teeth and told me I'd get a call when my glasses would be ready.

I thanked her politely and walked away wondering what someone with less willpower would have done.

Keeping all my options open

I applied for the NHS job before I left the house. I filled in the application form for the Metrology position and took it to the Post Office to be sent by Guaranteed Delivery.

69. Trainee Metrologist - National Measurements Office, Teddington

70. Band 2 Pharmacy Assistant - St Mary's Hospital, Paddington.

I went to formally accept the provsional offer as well.

The list of documents was fearsome. I had to bring

My passport

My birth certificate

A billing letter from Scottish Power

The most recent current account statements from both my banks

Life, home and contents documents

My P45

My last payslip

My NHS medical card

A CRB form completed according to the detailed instructions given in the offer pack

AND

A short formal letter accepting the offer of a position

Once upon a time, a simple "Yes" would have been enough.

I got the bus and went up to the HR office where all the documents were photocopied before being handed back to me every which way.

The next appointment will be for the Occupational Health medical (!).

No. They couldn't tell me when that would be.

No. They couldn't tell me when I might be starting.

Okay, I'll carry on living in suspense then.

They were very nice, but the situation is one of those "How long is a piece of string?" things. The OH medical could be this month or next, the CRB check could take a month or two and only when everything is in place can they know for definite when I'll start.

Good grief.

Still applying

68. Aquisitions and Supply Officer - King's College Hospital

Still waiting....

67. Data Quality Officer - Lewisham

Okaaaaaaay.....

Before I signed on, I went online to check the price of travelling to London for the 18th.

I printed off prices for travelling around London. Jeepers.

If I got the coach to Victoria then I had the option of tube, tube and overground or bus.

Single Fares 2009

Victoria [London Underground] to Hampstead Heath

Cash £4.00 At any time

Oyster £2.20 Monday to Friday from 06:30 to 09:30 and from 16:00 to 19:00

Oyster £1.60 At all other times including public holidays

By bus it's a simple £1 per ride up to the fourth bus ride which costs 40p and after that travel is free. It's called Oyster Daily Capping. Currently, a one day bus pass is £3.40 and the Oyster card is automatically capped not to exceed the current value of a one day pass.

Booking a train ticket at this late stage was going to be deadly expensive and I was pretty sure the JobCentre wasn't going to waste money in these financially straightened times, ESPECIALLY after the £1.10 palaver.

I visited the National Express Coach Ticket Office and got a quote for a coach ticket to London. They don't print prices anymore. The price varies according to when you book now so if I wanted to book the ticket today it was £18.60. It was going to cost more the later I left it.

By the time I came to sign on, I was prepared. My work search diary was up to date, I had the provisional offer a job AND I could provide proof of preparation for my next interview.

Looking good!

The lady who took my signature was very impressed. And she knew Hampstead as well. Congratulating me on my success she went off to check with The Royal Free as to whether there was a genuine interview. She was over half an hour. I nodded off in the heat.

She bustled back and explained the delay. She had spoken to someone at the hospital who confirmed the interview and had then spent an age checking to see whether they paid fares for candidates. They didn't.

So. They were prepared to issue a rail travel warrant.

Eh?

A. Rail. Tra. Vel. War. Rant. She repeated it slowly as if I were retarded.

Okay.

Once handed this flimsy slip of paper, I checked to see if I understood this correctly.

So, on the day I want to travel, I hand this to the cashier in the ticket office and he'll give me a return ticket to London.

Yes.

That's all I have to do?

Yes.

Okaaaaaay. It was coming up to my thirteen week review...

Ooooh. The lady had been clicking a series of screens on her computer when she suddenly got up again and walked away.

She returned with a letter inviting me to my 13 week review interview. I folded it up and put it into my Jobseekers Booklet wallet.

Was there anything else?

Um....no.

And that was that.

I'm bored now.

Round and round and round and round....

I got up early - ish, finished all the housework I was going to do, packed my case, switched off the central heating system and sorted out all the stuff needed for the launderette.

Disinfectant? Check. Ibcol Floral Bouquet

Washing powder? Check. Um.....Dreft Hand Wash powder - I'll be fine as long as I don't add too much and the attendant doesn't catch me putting it in the washing machine.

There are strict rules, you know.

Machine powders have less by way of foaming agents. This is important. The manufacturers seem to think that we need to see suds to think that clothes are clean at the end of the wash cycle. To an extent, it's true. Sudsy bubbles do help get your clothes clean, but it's a careful balancing act.

By agitating the clothes far harder than hand washing, the machines create suds aplenty. However, machines effectively "choke" if there are too many suds and will force foam out back through the drawer, out of the machine and onto the floor. It could even bust the door mechanism.

Machine wash powders have fewer of these suds chemicals to prevent anything going wrong and hand wash powders have more as we don't agitate the clothes as much as a machine does.

Putting hand wash sudsy stuff into a launderette washing machine is bad and the attendants are on the lookout for this sort of abuse.

I lugged the quilt and the illicit stuff to the launderette a couple of streets away.

This launderette, as far as I'm concerned, has always been there. When we were children, the quilts and heavy blankets were taken to this place for washing twice a year and it was a rare treat to see Mum succumb to technology.

I was always taken with this place. Having seen Mum slaving day after day doing as much as possible by hand, I loved labour saving devices. There was even a special coin-op machine that dispensed mini packets of laundry powder and special powdery conditioners. I loved this place. I wanted to work there when I was a kid. I even loved the smell of the place. Hot tumble drying clothes and soap powder. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm...........

Over the years, the launderette has had a few repaints and changed hands, but the washing machines remained the same. They take more money now, of course. The tumble dryers were replaced with modern gas powered silver things, but the layout, from the white, pink and brown terrazzo floor, the thin wobbly bench sitting between the two banks of washing machines lining the walls at the front of the shop, the step by step instructions engraved on a piece of laminate plastic on the wall over one bank of washing machines and the long thin bench attached to the wall under the dryers at the back hasn't changed since I was five years old.

Mum hated using a washing machine. Her OCD was all encompassing and not only dictated how often things should be washed but how they should be washed. And with what. The launderette forced her to use the machines AND buy different cleansers.

The launderette was treated with thin lipped unhappiness and constant complaints. Machines never clean as well as hand washing. Apparently.

I didn't care then and still don't. I've never seen much of a difference for normal wash loads. I will, however, use Colour Catchers, soda crystals, disinfectant (Zoflora Flowershop) and the correct powder (colour or delicate). I will soak if necessary.

Me? Problem? Nooooooooooooo.........

With this place, there was always the problem of defective machines. They often didn't have an OUT OF ORDER sign on them, so it was possible to load the machine with washing, pour the powder into the drawer, put the money in and..........nothing.

Then came the drawn out saga of getting the attendant and trying to explain that there was money in the machine but the machine wasn't working. Getting a refund was easier than trying to get the precious powder out of the drawer and into another machine. It involved a kind of poop scoop technique with a plastic bag. It often ended with washing powder stuck under the fingernails and trying to rinse them in the gushing water in the working machine. As far as I was concerned it all added to the experience.

What can I tell you? It was the seventies. There wasn't much by way of fun back then.

Anyway, there was a large washing machine free and I stuffed the quilt into it. Selecting "Warm wash with pre-wash", I put the coins in and only when the water started gushing through the drawer did I carefully pour the powder (with the carrier bag still around the box so the attendant couldn't see what shouldn't have been there). And the disinfectant. Lots of disinfectant. All of the disinfectant.

No problems at all. I didn't even have to wait for a dryer. I still wasn't quite sure about the quilt after about £6 worth of drying. I couldn't put the dryer on "HOT" as the quilt was entirely artificial and would have shrivelled.

I lugged it back to the house, rejigged the laundry that was already drying and draped the quilt over the clothes horse in the front room. I checked the locks, the central heating and the 'fridge, grabbed my suitcase, doubled locked the front door and the porch door, swapped my door keys round so I would have my Wolverhampton keys to hand when I landed at my front door and went home.

Tired and miserable.

Nearly there

There was yet more housework, more laundry, a bit of shopping and the ceremonial wrestling of the stinking double quilt into a large bin bag for the launderette tomorrow to get through before I got up to the Charing Cross Hospital.

Dad had been moved to a large downstairs ward and was with a number of other similarly aged patients. I got there early as I wanted to drop off his socks and thought I could leave them with the nurse in charge. The lady at the desk misunderstood my intentions and told me I could see him as I clearly didn't know the visiting times. Just to make sure next time that I showed up after 14:00.

Nope he wasn't happy. A nurse was trying to get him to stay still as she had to cut some of the stitches. The wound didn't look good. The entire right big toe was missing and there were obvious problems with the second and third toes.

I left the socks; the nurse and I tried to keep Dad calm whilst she cut some of the stitches but it was slow going.

He was on a drip which was hooked up to a rolling stand and he became distracted by that.

Then the nurse saw what he was doing and told him to stop. He'd started to worry at the screw fitting connecting the drip to the cannula in his arm and the three way tap it was attached to as well.

The nurse tried to change the cannula but that meant unscrewing the three way tap and drip from the cannula. Dad had overtightened the fitting and it wouldn't budge. She had a long go at unscrewing it. She went to fetch help and I tried to give it a go.

It shifted loose by the time she came back. With Dad complaining loudly, the nurse changed the cannula and moved on to another patient.

After the nurse, left, I stayed a little longer and Dad carried on worrying at the drip stand. I was then asked to leave as it wasn't visiting time yet.

I went to the internet cafe to find out what the message I received last night was all about. I was going to be interviewed at The Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead.

Wow.

I was invited to click on the link to arrange an interview time and date. No probs.

I clicked on the link and instead of arranging an interview, it told me when I was going to be interviewed.

15:00 Friday 18th December 2009. Take it or leave it.

Okay then, I'll take it. I printed off the page so I could show the Advisor on Monday when I signed on. I was going to need help with the fares for yet another trip to London.

I went for a wander and at 14:00 I went back to the hospital and found Dad sitting in the chair beside his bed. He had unscrewed the adjustable pole for the drip stand, had separated the two pieces and now the drip line, sitting with the drip bag on the bed beside him, was filling up with blood.

Oblivious to the bag beside him, he told me what he'd done, all the while swinging the hooked pole around as if trying to find a new place for it. It was broken, look at it, it shouldn't be allowed, it could be dangerous....

I took the hooked drip pole from him, placed it high in its rolling base, screwed the set back together and reset the bag. Almost immediately, the liquid in the bag and drip righted itself, all the cloudy red murk started flowing the right way towards his arm and the drip started dripping again.

He started worrying at the drip itself including the little wheeled slider which adjusted drip flow. Alternating between all open and stopped. I wrestled it from him and set it to drip at a slow but steady rate.

I went to find a nurse. I found the nurse who had changed his cannula earlier. I told her what had transpired. She went to check and I went with her. We found Dad in the process of unscrewing the drip stand again. He was trying to demonstrate that the pole, completely extended would reach the ceiling.

No chance.

He was adamant that the pole was long enough to reach all the way to the ceiling. We tried to get him to calm down again, but he was having none of it. In the end, I extended the pole as far as it would go and he was satisfied then.

He had also fiddled with the cannula fitting again. This time, when the nurse changed it, there was no trouble. It was clear now that Dad couldn't be left by himself. He was a clear danger to himself at this rate.

I was sent on errands for razors and then, separately, for grapes. This took time as it meant leaving the hospital and going to Boots and Sainsbury's. The hospital shop is extortionate and I have so little money that I needed to economise any way I could. And, frankly, I needed to get away for a little while.

As I went back and forth, I met the nurse on occasion and she told me that they were trying to get Dad moved to his own side ward with someone to look after him round the clock. I tried to explain to her that although he was cantankerous, feeble and had a failing memory, he wasn't normally this bad.

Oh yes, she said, this happens in some patients when they are recovering and are on IV antibiotics. It was quite normal. I wasn't reassured.

I left at meal break, had a wander round and returned at 18:30.

He was transferred to his own side ward. Again, he wasn't happy that there was someone by the open door looking in on him. Like he was going to do something wrong.

(!)

I repeatedly told him that I was leaving tomorrow, that today was Saturday and tomorrow was Sunday. I couldn't see him tomorrow as I had to go back to Wolverhampton. Having established he didn't need anything else brought in for him, we kissed goodbye and I left.

I texted my brothers to let them know where he was and left the hospital. It was cold. It was dark. It was wet. It was miserable. It matched my mood.