Medical Secretary

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Tees Valley; On-site; GBP 21,000 - 26,000; Part time

Job summary

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is seeking a part-time Medical Secretary at James Cook University Hospital. The role provides comprehensive secretarial and administrative support to a service, with duties ranging from communication with patients and staff to arranging appointments.

Applicants should have strong IT skills and ideally prior medical secretarial experience within a healthcare setting, plus excellent communication, organisation, and confidentiality awareness.

Qualifications

• Preferably previous medical secretarial experience, but administrative background in healthcare is acceptable.
• Strong IT skills with Office suite and advanced typing/word processing.
• Good general education and knowledge of data protection regulations and patient confidentiality.

Responsibilities

• Receive, record, sort and distribute communications and take appropriate action.
• Handle telephone calls to/from patients, relatives, GPs, wards and other professionals.
• Act as point of contact for patients, carers and multidisciplinary team.
• Deal professionally with sensitive and challenging communication.
• Assist with arranging and administering appointments and clinics.

Skills

Excellent communication

Organisational skills

Office & Outlook

Advanced typing

GDPR awareness

Healthcare admin

Education

GCSE Maths/English

NVQ3 Secretarial

Medical Terminology

Tools

Word

Excel

PowerPoint

Outlook

Job description

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Medical Secretary

The closing date is 25 November 2026

The post holder will provide a comprehensive, effective and professional secretarial and administrative support to a service

The post holder will be expected to:

Communicate effectively and courteously with a range of internal/external stakeholders, which may include patients on a daily basis. Stakeholders may include medical staff, GPs, patients, relatives, members of the public and other disciplines within the Trust.

This list is not exhaustive Work with and effectively communicate with the team structure including line management

Main duties of the job

Preferably, you will have previous medical secretarial but as a minimum administrative experience, preferably in a health care setting. It is essential that you have strong IT skills, a good level of general education, an extensive knowledge of Office and Outlook (including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, email and internet) along with advanced typing/word processing qualifications/skills.

You will have excellent communication, interpersonal and organisational skills. It's important that you are flexible, able to act on your own initiative and work both independently and as part of a team. You must be able to work under pressure to tight deadlines and prioritise workloads as well as being positive and enthusiastic.

About us

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust have come together to form University Hospitals Tees. As a result, post holders may be required to work across sites within both organisations.

Across University Hospitals Tees, our ambition is to be the best place to work, ensuring we have the right staff in the right roles at the right time to deliver outstanding patient care and experience.

We are committed to supporting our staff through an inclusive and supportive working environment, offering health and wellbeing initiatives, staff benefits, and opportunities for personal and professional development.

We are committed to fostering an inclusive recruitment process and welcome applications from suitably qualified candidates, including those whose first language is not English.

We support the 'Making Every Contact Count' approach to behaviour change in the promotion of health and wellbeing of individuals and communities.

Job responsibilities

The post holder will work on their own initiative and make decisions within their remit, referring to their line manager as appropriate. The role requires the individual to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team, to provide high quality individualised care to patients to achieve agreed KPIs.

The post holder will be predominantly office based and undertake the following activities:

Receiving, recording, sorting and distributing any form of communication and take appropriate action including escalation where appropriate

Receive and make telephone calls to/from patients, relatives, GPs, wards and other NHS and non-NHS professionals/agencies, follow through all enquiries in a friendly and professional manner

Acting as a point of contact for patients, carers, relatives and other members of the multidisciplinary team

Dealing professionally with sensitive and challenging communication

Assist with arranging and administering appointments and clinics as required by the service

Person Specification

Knowledge

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Excellent planning, prioritisation and organisational skills
• Understanding of secretarial/clerical processes
• Efficient and accurate word processing skills
• Efficient and accurate proof-reading skills
• Awareness of General Data Protection Regulations and patient confidentiality
• Trust experience; knowledge of STHFT policies and procedures
• Experience in a clinical setting
• Knowledge of medical terminology
• Working knowledge of the functionality of Patient Administration Systems
• Understanding of a range of work procedures associated with outpatient clinic arrangements, secretarial office procedures and case note procedures

Qualifications

• GCSE in Maths and English or Functional Skills (level 2) or equivalent level of demonstrable experience (using the 'knowledge and skills' criteria above)
• NVQ3 level Secretarial or Business Administrative qualification, or equivalent level of demonstrable experience (using the 'knowledge and skills' criteria above)
• Medical Terminology qualification

Experience

• Secretarial and administrative experience
• Working knowledge of Office and Outlook, including word, excel and powerpoint, e-mail and internet
• Healthcare / STHFT, or any NHS Trust secretarial experience
• Previous experience working within a team

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Address

James Cook University Hospital, South Tees

Contract

Fixed term

Duration

12 months

Working pattern

Part-time

Reference number

328-CSU5-8371560

Job locations

James Cook University Hospital, South Tees