Senior Medical Secretary - ref. q22406903

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We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates as they are under-represented within the Trust.

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Job overview

Band 4 Senior Medical Secretary: Paediatric Immunology

We are looking to recruit a band 4 Senior Medical Secretary within the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children; Paediatric Immunology Department 21.75 hours per week, ideally over 3 days.

We are looking for an experienced, enthusiastic and dedicated individual to provide an effective and efficient secretarial service to that department. The successful candidate will ideally have a range of secretarial/PA experience, ideally in a hospital environment, though other administration/PA experience will be considered.

The applicant should have excellent organisational and interpersonal skills and the ability to work well under pressure. The ability to use their own initiative is essential. As the post deals with patients, relatives and healthcare professionals on the phone, and occasionally face to face, applicants must have excellent communication skills and will be expected to have a courteous, empathetic telephone manner.

The successful candidates will need to have a good working knowledge of proof reading/audio typing skills and a good working knowledge of managing databases.

Date of interview: It is planned that interviews will be held on 26 February 2025.

Main duties of the job

Communication:

• To act as a point of contact for queries from clinical and non-clinical staff
• Liaise via telephone and email with other clinical/clerical teams to action urgent appointments or procedures where necessary and ensure that all relevant departments are notified accordingly
• Act as a point of contact for patients, relatives and carers. The post holder should be polite and empathetic to the patient’s needs at all times and be able to communicate effectively when dealing with difficult situations/conversations
• Returning calls promptly and keeping callers updated with information in an effective and efficient way
• Escalate patient queries, capacity problems and general issues to the role’s line manager or relevant clinical staff as appropriate

Organising and Planning:

• Checking and sorting investigation reports and passing information on to clinical team as required
• Ensure the dispatch and production of all clinical correspondence is maintained by pro-actively monitoring the digital dictation and speech recognition system, and to escalate where delays are identified
• Provide monthly key performance indicator information to the Line Manager and discuss with the team any appropriate actions that need to be taken

Working for our organisation

Anonymous information will be used from your application in order to ensure we’re meeting our pledge.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For further information please contact: Lisa Davis, Deputy Medical Secretarial Manager on 0117 34 27455.

For a more detailed job description and main responsibilities, please refer to the job description document attached to this vacancy.

Person specification

Skills and Abilities

• Effective and polite manner when dealing with people, both face to face and on the phone
• Able to work under pressure and meet deadlines whilst maintaining a high standard of accuracy
• Ability to work effectively in a busy team, adjust to change and motivate others
• Ability to work independently, managing own workload, whilst providing supervision and support to others
• Confidence to handle difficult conversations with patients, relatives and carers
• Ability to adapt to use new computer packages and programmes
• Effective organisational skills
• Good IT skills including Microsoft packages
• Attention to detail
• Ability to deal with non-routine issues on own initiative

Knowledge and Experience

• Clerical/administrative experience/Secretarial
• Understanding of specialist medical terminology
• Experience of dealing with the public, both on the telephone and in person
• Knowledge of NHS policies and/or procedures

• Previous NHS experience

Education and Qualifications

• Educated to GCSE, grade C or above (or equivalent) in English Language and Maths
• Qualified in word processing or audio typing (or equivalent)
• Business and Administration Level 3 NVQ or equivalent experience

• As an equal opportunities employer actively working towards a diverse workforce we aim to recruit and retain a workforce which represents the rich diversity of the local population at all levels and are committed to designing our services around the needs of individual patients and those around them. Anonymous information will be used from your application to ensure we’re meeting our pledge.
• The Trust is committed to investing in and caring for all our staff. We will support you in maintaining and improving your health and wellbeing, as well as your career development through management and training support - developing exceptional people for exceptional careers.
• UHBW is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people, and vulnerable adults.
• To comply with Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016 all applicants must be able to speak fluent English to an appropriate standard which will be assessed at Interview.
• If you require sponsorship for a visa to work in the UK, to avoid disappointment, please check to ensure you are eligible under the UKVI points based system.
• The Trust uses electronic new starter forms on Trac to collect personal details. Information collected is securely stored and used to set up the employee record on the ESR HR system.
• By applying for this post, you are agreeing to University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are offered a job, information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.
• Please be aware of scams – unless specified above, we will only communicate with you via @recruit.trac.jobs or nhs.net e-mails and we will never ask you for any payments.

IMPORTANT:

Please note that if you apply for a position with this Trust, you may be contacted via Trac or via email. This includes invites for job interviews. We therefore recommend that you regularly check your Trac account and email accounts. We may also contact you by texting the mobile number, if provided, on the application form.

Due to the high number of applications that are received for some posts we may close this vacancy before the advertised closing date. Therefore, please apply for this post as soon as you can, if you are interested and you meet the requirements of the Person Specification

Only those candidates who clearly demonstrate how they meet the person specification will be shortlisted for this job.

As a guide interviews should usually take place within 3 weeks of the closing date.

When providing employment reference details, please provide correct work-related email addresses so references can be sought promptly when we are looking to progress your application. Your referee must all be known to you in a line manager or professional lead capacity.