Medical Secretary

Job overview

An opportunity has arisen within the Oncology Department for an experienced hard working, efficient and self-motivated person to join our team as Medical Secretary working 37.5hrs per week. (12 month fixed term)

This is a busy and interesting post in which you will be expected to communicate effectively with members of the Oncology team, other teams, Oncology patients and other service users.

With excellent communication and interpersonal skills, you will need to be able to work well both independently and as a member of this dynamic team to deliver a high quality efficient service.

Thorough working knowledge of Microsoft Office packages is essential. An RSA II qualification is desirable and understanding of medical terminology would also be an advantage.

Reliability, punctuality, integrity and the ability to work calmly under pressure are key qualities and excellent organisational skills are required.

***Preference will be given to internal Trust staff, as well as ‘Priority’ and 'At Risk' status including NHS At Risk staff throughout Devon who are able to display recent relevant experience as dictated by the Person Specification.***

Main duties of the job

• To provide administration support for 2 Consultants and other clinical staff.
• Liaise and book patient appointments
• Monitoring and validating primary target lists
• Clinic Dictations to be Audio Typed
• Action Data Quality Reports
• Liaise with other Trusts and Multi Disciplinary teams

Working for our organisation

It is sometimes necessary to close vacancies before the closing date. If you have not heard from us within 4 weeks of the closing date, please assume that you have not been shortlisted.

• Prioritise own workload including the typing of clinics, booking patients, discharge summaries and medical reports. Inform GP’s of patient results via letter dictated by Consultant.
• Manage RTT, Follow up and New PTL in line with the Trust’s access policy.
• Ensure effective communication with all members of the multi-disciplinary team.
• Sort and deal with all correspondence, keeping a satisfactory record and filing system.
• Collate results with patient casenotes, ensuring that they are seen and actioned promptly by the relevant clinician.
• Take appropriate actions with regard to telephone calls from patients, GPs and other agencies using initiative, within Trust guidelines.
• Maintain an up to date diary for the Consultants / team, inform relevant staff of cancelled and reduced theatre and outpatient sessions due to Consultant leave, junior doctors leave, on-call commitments, CME, Audit and Directorate meeting.
• To obtain hospital casenotes and x-rays from both within the Trust and external agencies when required by the Consultant and/or team.
• To ensure that the casenotes are traced accurately using PiMS at all times and retuned to Health Records in a timely manner. To raise hospital casenotes as necessary, ensuring that accurate and full details are entered onto PiMS in line with the Trust’s APN for health records.
• Required to cover for other colleagues during annual leave/sickness or peak workloads.
• Arrange patient admissions as directed by the Consultant/team, taking into account clinical priority ensuring that any relevant investigations or pre-assessment appointments are booked.
• Inform the ward of patient admissions and provide hospital notes, rebook cancelled patients/informing patients of cancellations.
• Ensure that appropriate clinic follow up is actioned as appropriate, i.e. outpatient appointments, investigations, add patients to waiting list, re-admissions and referrals to other Consultants/departments.
• Work with the junior doctors to ensure that the discharge summary/proformas are completed.
• Ensure timely dispatch of clinical letters to GP’s.
• Obtain results ensuring that the Consultant /or medical team see them and action in a timely manner.
• Provide other secretarial assistance to the team as required, typing up correspondence, references for junior staff and administration and maintain filing system of this correspondence.
• Exposure to distressing/emotional circumstances i.e. typing letters of a distressing nature, dealing with distressed, anxious and angry patients and relatives in person or by telephone.
• Requirement to exert physical effort when dealing with quantities of notes and x-rays and when retrieving notes from outpatients after Consultant clinics each week and filing them in the office to await typing.

Requirement to work with DSE for at least 75% of the working day.

For further details please see the attached JD & PS

Person specification

Knowledge & Experience

• • Previous demonstrable experience in a similar role
• • Demonstrate ability to use all main software packages.
• • Demonstrate use of hospital software iPMS.

• • Previous demonstrable experience of working in an Oncology Department
• • Demonstrable experience in Minute taking

Qualifications

• • Audio typing qualification or equivalent.
• • Proven NVQ 3 in Business and Administration or equivalent demonstrable experience

• • Shorthand Qualification
• • To have gained or to be working towards ECDL qualification or equivalent.

Aptitude & Abilities

• • Excellent organisational skills.
• • Ability to communicate at all levels.
• • Excellent telephone manner.

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL COMMUNICATION WILL BE ELECTRONIC, PLEASE CHECK YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT REGULARLY INCLUDING YOUR JUNK FOLDER.

If you need support with the online application process or require reasonable adjustments with the application and/or interview process please contact the Recruiting Manager for this post.

We recognise that work life balance is important for our colleagues and so we invite requests from applicants about less than full time/flexible working for our advertised roles. We recommend contacting the manager of the role prior to applying and we commit to giving requests full consideration.

We welcome and encourage applicants who identify with all protected characteristics to apply for our roles. We believe that diversity strengthens our teams and improves our patients' experience. At UHP we aim to create an inclusive workplace and hospital where everyone feels they belong and included.

It is sometimes necessary to close vacancies before the closing date. If you have not heard from us within 4 weeks of the closing date, please assume that you have not been shortlisted.

Providing false information is an offence & could result in the application being rejected or summary dismissal/police action if an applicant is successful.

This is an automated process & the information will only be used for these purposes prior to your taking up the position with us.

For Doctors Roles:

Unsolicited CVs and Candidate Profiles/Details

University Hospitals Plymouth has a commitment to sourcing candidates directly and as such we do not accept speculative CVs from agencies.

We do, however, work with a defined list of preferred HTE Framework suppliers who may be invited to support us in sourcing candidates for particular roles.

In line with our preferred supplier list, we only pay agency fees where we have a signed agreement in place and an agency has been instructed by a member of the Trust’s Medical Workforce team.

We do not pay agency fees where speculative and unsolicited CVs are submitted to the Trust or Trust employees by any other means than the official route above. Where this is not observed the Trust reserves the right to contact these candidates directly and initiate discussions without payment of any agency fee.

Any candidate details (whether written or spoken) or CVs that are referred directly will not constitute an introduction. The Trust will under no circumstances be responsible for any recruitment fees in relation to these contacts.

Submission of any unsolicited CVs, candidate’s details and/or proposals to the Trust will not be considered further and will be deemed evidence of full and unlimited acceptance of this Agency Protocol.

In order to establish and maintain good working relationships with the Trust’s agency suppliers, we ask that this Protocol is adhered to and thank you for your co-operation.