Medical Secretary

Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust; Cheltenham; On-site; GBP 28,000 - 31,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Free car parking

27 days leave plus bank holidays

NHS pension

Training and development opportunities

Job summary

Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust in Cheltenham is seeking a full-time Medical Secretary to support Consultants and the Medical Team across Charlton Lane and Wotton Lawn Hospitals. This 12-month fixed-term role requires RSA II/OCR II typing, audio typing, and a strong knowledge of medical terminology.

You will work within a busy team, manage clinics, maintain confidential records, and ensure high standards of customer care while using MS Office applications.

Qualifications

• Proven Medical Secretarial experience.
• Previous experience of working in the NHS.

Responsibilities

• Provide confidential administrative and PA/Secretarial support to Consultants and their Medical Team.
• Work as part of the secretarial team ensuring deadlines are met and adequate cover is provided.
• Project the professional image of the business through excellent customer care in all activities.
• Be the first point of contact for the Consultant and Medical Team; handle enquiries from patients and professionals.
• Plan and organise clinics to meet capacity and demand and manage case notes for clinic preparation.

Skills

Medical terminology

Audio typing

Typing

Interpersonal skills

Education

City & Guilds Level 3 Diploma for Medical Secretaries

OCR/RSA Level 3 or equivalent

Tools

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Word

Excel

Transcription software

Job description

Main area Administration Grade Band 4 Contract 12 months (Fixed Term) Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Monday to Friday) Job ref 327-26-533-A

Site Charlton lane and Wotton Lawn Hospital Town Cheltenham and Gloucester Salary £28,392 - £31,157 per annum (pro rata) Salary period Yearly Closing 30/08/2026 23:59

We love what we do and we think you will, too!

At Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust (GHC), we provide joined-up mental health, physical health and learning disability services to people of all ages across Gloucestershire. We run community hospitals and provide care and support in people’s own homes and in a range of other locations across the county .

We are on a mission to enable people to live the best life they can and we have a vision to work together to provide outstanding care . We put people at the heart of our services, focusing on personalised care by asking ‘what matters to you ’.

We’re passionate about making sure that everyone can contribute to achieving our mission and w e are continually working to support healthy and happy high-quality team s in all areas of the Trust .

Our application process aims to understand each candidates knowledge, skills and experience. We have found that candidates that use AI to generate their answers can lack specificity and fail to address key criteria outlined in the job description.

It is really important to personalise your application to convey your individual skills, knowledge, and experiences effectively and for us to understand why you are applying for this role with GHC. We discourage over reliance on AI-generated applications as it will lessen your chances of success in securing an interview with us .

Job overview

We have a vacancy for a full-time Medical Secretary to work between Charlton Lane and Wotton Lawn Hospitals within an established team. The post is fixed term for a period of 12 months, working Monday to Friday 37.5 hours each week.

Relevant secretarial experience is essential as the environment is fast-paced requiring a broad knowledge of medical terminology, RSA II/OCR II Word Processing/Typing and audio typing experience. You will work as part of a committed supportive team and be able to deal confidently and professionally with colleagues, GP surgeries and patients, maintaining confidentiality at all times.

You should have a friendly, positive, problem solving approach, be self-motivated, willing to learn and enjoy using your own initiative, within the remit of the post. You will need to be an excellent team player with the ability to adapt to various tasks according to service needs. As well as good verbal, written and numerical skills, you must be able to prioritise and organise your own workload well, and be able to work effectively and efficiently.

You will be skilled in IT applications; including, Microsoft Outlook, Word and Excel and have excellent interpersonal and strong communications skills. You should be able to adapt to a busy changing environment and be able to work with people under pressure.

Main duties of the job

• To provide a full confidential, administrative and PA/Secretarial service to Consultants and their Specialist Registrar / Senior House Officer / Hospital Practitioner
• To work as a member of the secretarial team ensuring deadlines are met and adequate secretarial cover is provided
• To project the professional image of the business through demonstrating excellent customer care in all activities.

Working for our organisation

We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people’s homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.

Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us. In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that:

• 72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.
• 76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.
• 81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust’s priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.

This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement. However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To be the first point of contact for the Consultant and his / her Medical Team. Dealing with enquiries from patients, carers and professionals and offer non clinical help and advice, and utilise experience and knowledge to identify when urgent action may be required by the Consultant or his / her Medical Team
• To deal sensitively with patients, exercising empathy and recognising that they may sometimes be verbally aggressive. The post holder has direct contact with relatives and carers and needs to demonstrate tact and diplomacy if they are angry and to deal sensitively with them if they are upset or worried
• Plan and organise clinics in order to meet fluctuations in capacity and demand, which involves patients being seen in the outpatient clinic or in the community.
• Case notes of patients to be prepared in advance of clinic and to trace case notes form Medical Secretariat to the Consultant / Medical Team to ensure the efficient functioning of the centralised patient filing system.
• To ensure that all necessary information is available to the Consultant and his / her Medical Team and the PA/Medical Secretariat by maintaining accurate and accessible records and files, including electronic and centralised patient filing systems and the Consultant’s personal filing system, and to manage an action tracking / bring forward system
• Use the relevant systems to book new and follow up clinic appointments (this information is used by the Trust to produce statistics on waiting list deadlines). To access Pathology for results of investigations etc. and to accurately amend patient personal information
• Provide timely and accurate typing from transcription software and manuscript of all patient related correspondence following patient reviews or because of multi-disciplinary meetings. This includes written correspondence with General Practitioners, involving the accurate transcription of detailed and sometimes complex medical information that may be of a sensitive nature. Letters may sometimes need to be sent out in the absence of medical oversight as a matter of urgency and to this end need to be accurate
• Managing the flow of all correspondence involving dictation, email, audio typing, word processing, and filing, and to draft replies or sending standard responses to routine mail
• Assisting the Consultant’s time management as well as his / her Medical Team through effective PA / secretarial diary management, including organisation of annual leave. This involves notifying other Consultants of the absence of a Consultant in order to ensure there is adequate medical cover. Consultant / Specialist Registrar on-call rotas and the setting up of clinics must also be taken into consideration, and copies of the on-call rota distributed to hospital switchboards and an in-patient unit as well as notifying them in a timely manner of any adjustments to the rota
• Carry out searches and provide statistical information for the Consultant and his Medical Team
• Contributing to the effective management of the PA/Medical Secretariat by assisting colleagues during their absence or with peaks of work etc. and by contributing ideas and suggestions to improve the effectiveness and image of the Medical Secretariat
• Organise and facilitate meetings / training events etc. through the typing and distribution of agendas and papers, arranging dates, venues and refreshments if required, including minute taking
• Adhere to all Trust policies, in particular, to act in accordance with the Data Protection Act and patient confidentiality, and the Freedom of Information Act and access to information
• Work associated with the individual responsibilities of the Consultant – this may be Clinical Lead, Programme Director, Research Supervisor for Specialist Registrars, Co-ordinator for medical student training
• Monitor and maintain medical stationery stock
• Actively participating in team meetings and discussions with colleagues and manager to make constructive suggestions as to how services could be improved within own work area, and implementing such changes with guidance from line manager
• Acts in ways that; support equality and value diversity. Treat everyone with whom you come in contact, with dignity and respect & recognise and report behaviour that undermines equality and diversity

• City & Guilds Level 3 Diploma for Medical Secretaries or OCR/RSA Level 3 or equivalent

Experience

• Proven Medical Secretarial experience
• Previous experience of working in the NHS

When joining us, as well as becoming part of a team that makes a difference, we also offer:

• Free car parking at many of our sites
• 27 days leave plus bank holidays, increasing up to 33 days with long service
• A broad range of training and development opportunities, including apprenticeships up to Level 7 qualification.
• A multi-professional preceptorship programme for all Newly Qualified; Nurses, Nursing Associates, Internationally Educated Practitioners, Allied Health Professionals and Return to Practice Practitioners.
• Generous NHS pension and enhanced pay when if you work unsocial hours
• Flexible, family friendly and agile working opportunities
• Recognition and long service awards
• Fast Track physiotherapy
• Access to discounts and salary sacrifice schemes; including Cycle to Work, Car scheme and discounts on travel, leisure and retailers.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.