NHS - Medical Support Secretary - Cancer

Here at East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust,

Our mission is: Providing high-quality, compassionate care for our communities

Our vision to 2030 is: To be trusted to provide consistently outstanding care and exemplary service

Job overview

We are recruiting for a Medical Support Secretary – Cancer who shares our vision to be trusted to provide consistently outstanding care and exemplary service to our patients.

The successful candidate will provide and support the Macmillan Clinical Nurse Specialist Team, Lymphoedema Team, and Secretarial team with efficient and effective ranges of admin support within the Cancer Services Directorate.

At the heart of everything we do are our core values: Include, Respect, and Improve. We encourage you to embrace these values throughout the recruitment process and in your role with us.

Main duties of the job

To handle enquiries from staff, patients and relatives via email, telephone, and face to face communication.

To provide administrative and secretarial support to the Nursing teams and support medical secretaries in delivering a high standard service for all patients.

Responsible for making patients' appointments and for informing the patients of arrangements made.

To Liaise with GPs, other hospitals, clinics, and other external agencies.

Ensuring all treatment forms and referrals are processed in an efficient and prompt manner, ensuring all scans, results and histology are collated.

Liaise with Outpatients, Medical secretaries, Chemotherapy booking team, Radiotherapy booking teams to ensure patient pathways are followed with minimal delays.

Working for our organisation

At East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, we are proud of the range of general and specialist services we provide and our 6,000 or so dedicated staff ensure our patients get the best care. Our ability to be flexible and innovative in the way in which we work and deliver our services to our catchment has never been more important than it is now.

We run the following hospitals:

• The Lister Hospital, Stevenage
• New Queen Elizabeth II (New QEII), Welwyn Garden City
• Hertford County, Hertford
• Mount Vernon Cancer Centre (MVCC), Northwood

We have ambitious plans to become an outstanding, patient-led Trust where dedicated staff provide high-quality, compassionate care to our patients. We continue to undergo significant transformation and our staff and patients are at the heart of delivering this ambitious agenda.

We are committed to a positive work life balance for our employees. This means that any employee is entitled to seek to work flexible working patterns and we are committed to listen and consider all requests. Such requests, of course, have to be made and considered formally, and will need to be balanced against service needs, but our starting point will always be to find ways to support making them happen.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification applicant pack for further detailed information regarding this role.

Person specification

Knowledge

• Knowledge of workings of clinics / hospital procedures
• Knowledge of office systems including Microsoft Office, Word, Outlook and Excel

• Knowledge of and commitment to continuously improving Services through an ability to sustain clear performance focus on achieving demanding goals
• Knowledge of medical terminology

Previous Experience

• Previous experience of delivering high standard work in a fast-paced, high volume environment
• Experience of working with difficult customers and challenging situations
• Previous experience in a Health or Care setting
• Experience of working in a diverse environment, valuing equality for patients and staff
• Experience of working both in a team and autonomously

• Previous oncology experience
• Experience using Hospital PAS system

Qualifications

• 5 Grade A-C GCE or equivalent, including English & Maths
• Recognised secretarial qualifications or relevant experience

• RSA typing

Skills

• Good computer skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to liaise effectively with a wide range of multi-disciplinary staff
• Excellent written communication skills, with attention to accuracy
• Excellent organisational and time management skills to meet deadlines
• Strong customer care skills, treating customers with dignity and respect
• Ability to work well in a busy environment, under pressure and to deadlines
• Tact & Diplomacy skills to deal with sensitive issues discreetly

• Ability to follow complex protocols and feed back to senior staff as appropriate

Other requirments

• Understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion
• Role model our Trust values every day

Our values

We want our staff to believe in, demonstrate and live our values in everything we do.

Include

We value the diversity and experience of our community colleagues and partners, creating relationships and climates that provide an opportunity to share, collaborate and grow together.

Respect

We create a safe environment where we are curious of the lived experience of others, seek out best practice and are open to listening and hearing new ideas.

Improve

We are committed to consistently delivering excellent services and continuously looking to improve through a creative workforce that feels empowered to act in service of our shared purpose.

Committed to our Community

In particular we encourage applications from candidates with disabilities, and candidates from Black, Asian and Minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds who are currently under-represented in various parts of our workforce .

We understand the importance of balancing work and home life. We are committed to support flexible working for our staff wherever possible and all our employees are given the opportunity to discuss potential for flexible working.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and achieved our status in 2019.

We will remove barriers that prospective candidates might face at any stage of our recruitment process. If you have a disability and would like the advert in an alternative format, or would like to talk about how we can adjust the interview process to best support you, please contact us by emailing [email protected]

We are also proud to support our UK armed forces by supporting Reservists, Cadet Instructors, Veterans and military spouses/partners into employment and offering supportive policies that value their contribution to the community and to our Trust.

Our approach is inclusive, recognizing diverse challenges and creating a supportive environment where carers feel valued.

When you apply...

Please note that vacancies may close prior to the advertised closing date in certain circumstances. Please ensure that you make your application as soon as possible.

All correspondence relating to vacancies will be via the e-mail address you have provided on your application form. Some servers automatically send e-mails to your junk mail so please check as well as your inbox.

As a publicly funded employer, we need to ensure we utilise our funds responsibly, this may mean we are unable to support sponsorship required to gain the right to work for particular positions. We strongly advise you to contact the line manager or a member of the Resourcing Team before applying to confirm if we will be able to support with sponsorship for that post.

King's Trust Support

Please contact Enquiries.H&[email protected] for support.

Secondments/Fixed term

Where a vacancy is advertised as a temporary position, the duration will be specified in the advert. If the vacancy becomes permanent towards the end of the specified duration, the successful applicant may not be required to re-apply and can be slotted into the role on a permanent basis if appropriate.

If you are an internal applicant applying for a temporary working arrangement, please see the attached notes on secondments.