Head Cook
Location: Wirral
Salary: £23,949 – £26,282 pro rata.
Job type: Full Time – 30-37.5 hours per week over 5 days Monday to Sunday.
The Company:
Claire House Children’s Hospice helps seriously and terminally ill children live life to the full by creating wonderful experiences and bringing back a sense of normality to family life. We help families smile again when life could not get any tougher.
The Role:
The Head Cook will independently plan, prepare, and deliver high quality nutritional meals for children, families, visitors, and staff, including special dietary requirements. They will be able to co-ordinate weekly menu planning with the Deputy Hospice Manager whilst undertaking ordering and stock rotation to support this. This role will line manage an additional cook in the team and also line manage and coordinate of a team of volunteers. The Head Cook will be responsible for all health and safety matters relating to the kitchen, ensuring the highest level of hygiene, and health and safety standards at all times.
Key Responsibilities:
Meal/Food Preparation –
- Coordinate menus and special dietary requirements, liaising with Deputy Hospice Manager and clinical staff regarding individual patient needs for e.g. pureed diets, specific allergen requirements
- Prepare and serve high quality and healthy meals within agreed timescales and in a cost effective manner for children, families and staff
- Work with the wider care services teams, providing food, snacks, and/or cakes as requested for various groups, events, and meetings
- Work with the wider care services teams to provide a catering service for larger scale special events; for example annual memory day service, annual light for love event
Kitchen Management –
- Ensuring that all food is prepared and served within a clean and hygienic environment adhering to food hygiene regulations at all times
- Management of the day-to-day food supplies and orders
- Responsible for stock rotation for fridge, freezer and dry food stores, ensuring no stock is out of date
- Responsible for the receipt and safe storage of deliveries of food items
- Documentation of all the required daily food safety checks in ‘Safer Food Better Business’ record and 4 weekly review also undertaken and documented
- To ensure that systems such as refrigerator temperature monitors, and food labelling are carried out at all times
- Ensuring all records are kept up-to-date at all times
- Budget control
- Responsible for all Health & Safety matters related to the kitchen/catering department
- Ensure continual maintenance of catering equipment, reporting any equipment which is not working effectively or is felt to be a risk
- Ensuring all appropriate risk assessments and policies and procedures are in place, reviewed as required and followed at all times
- To ensure the C.O.S.H.H regulations are fully complied with, data sheets of products are up to date, risk assessments are carried out and the outcomes communicated to staff
- Ensure kitchen & dining area are kept clean & tidy
Benefits:
- Generous annual leave – 35 days including bank holidays increasing by one day after 5 and 10 years-service
- Company pension scheme (up to 4% employer contribution)
- Life cover 2 x salary
- Free access to an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) and counselling service
- Free on-site car parking
- Free eye sight test
- Cycle to Work Scheme
We are actively seeking candidates from a diverse range of backgrounds.
At Claire House we welcome applicants from all backgrounds and value everyone as an individual. We are committed to organisational practices, which promote diversity and inclusion for all employees and volunteers regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, sex, marriage, and civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity status, race, religion or belief. Connecting these differences creates a productive environment in which everyone feels valued.
Closing date for applications: 22nd December 2022 – Please note that the vacancy will be closed early if sufficient suitable applications are received.
First stage interviews will be held in January 2023.
Please click on the APPLY button to submit your CV and complete the application form for this role.
Candidates with the relevant experience or job titles of: Restaurant Chef, Breakfast Chef, Experienced Chef, Kitchen Chef, Catering, Food Catering, Catering Chef, Chef Assistant, Food Preparation, Cook, Assistant Chef, Cook Assistant, Kitchen Assistant, Kitchen Manager, Food Hygiene, Kitchen Supervisor may also be considered for this role.
