Medical Secretary - Cellular Pathology

NHS; Torquay; On-site; GBP 23,000 - 27,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading NHS trust is hiring a Medical Secretary for the Cellular Pathology department, providing secretarial support through typing, managing correspondence, and maintaining reports. The role requires excellent typing and IT skills with a good understanding of medical terminology in a busy hospital environment.

Qualifications

• Good standard of general education to include GCSE in Maths and English.
• Proven accurate typing and excellent IT skills.
• Proven experience in a busy office environment and customer-focused service.

Responsibilities

• Provide secretarial support including audio typing for histology and cytology.
• Maintain office processes including report distribution and record management.
• Respond to enquiries and manage departmental mail.

Skills

Typing

Organizational skills

Customer service

IT skills

Education

GCSE in Maths and English or equivalent

Tools

Microsoft Office

Hospital systems (PAS, Infoflex, Cyberlab, Ultragenda, Unit4)

Job description

Go back Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust

Medical Secretary - Cellular Pathology

The closing date is 19 June 2025

Our Medical Secretary will provide secretarial support to the Histology, Cytology and mortuary sections of the department ensuring that all procedures are undertaken according to laboratory Standard Operating Procedures (SOP's).

They will work with other staff including Biomedical Scientists, Medical Laboratory Assistants and Pathologists to provide an efficient service. The Department of Cellular Pathology has a total workload of 21,000 surgical requests annually. In addition, 100 frozen sections, 75 skin immunofluorescence and 14,000 immunocytochemistry tests are performed. Diagnostic Cytology receives 1,500 requests.

Main duties of the job

• Responsible for typing letters / correspondence for departmental consultants relating to patients.
• Responsible for typing Histopathology reports into the pathology computer system from audio tape.
• Responsible for typing Post Mortem reports from audio tape.
• Responsible for distributing reports appropriately using internal / external mail.
• Respond appropriately to enquiries from medical staff, secretaries and patients as to results of tests.
• Receive telephone enquiries for results and respond appropriately or redirect to Consultant Pathologist.
• Responsible for the maintenance of private case spreadsheet for consultants.
• Responsible for the recording of cases referred to other laboratories / reference centres.
• Responsible for packing blocks and slides for despatch to other laboratories / reference centres.
• Responsible for the maintenance of archive reports to enable location of pre-computer records, including paper and microfiche records.
• Responsible for determining the location of associated paperwork, blocks and slides of any case processed by the department in Cytology, Histology or the Mortuary.
• Advise laboratory management of changes to SOPs in accordance with changes in practice.
• Receive and distribute departmental mail appropriately.
• File and retrieval of blocks and slides from store as required
• Scanning of archived records and disposal of confidential records as required.

About us

The Cellular Pathology department at Torbay Hospital has a full time vacancy for a Medical Secretary Band 3. The position will be 8.30am to 5pm Monday to Friday.

The department handles around 21,000 diagnostic requests per year and performs a range of histological procedures. The department is critical to patient management by way of providing diagnosis for a range of different tissue samples. Turnaround times are excellent and well received by clinical teams.

The department uses the Clinisys WinPath LIMS system but this is due to be upgraded to EPIC/Beaker.

The successful candidate will need to be dedicated, dynamic, work well as part of a small, friendly team and show sound organisational skills. The primary role will be audio typing of histology, cytology and post mortem reports but there will also be other duties such as outlined in the job description. Excellent typing and IT skills are therefore essential. A good knowledge of medical terminology is highly desirable.

Torbay Hospital is situated within the English Riviera, in an area of outstanding natural beauty. It is adjacent to some of the country's best beaches and close to the Dartmoor National Park. To arrange an informal visit or discuss this post further, contact Ria McCoy on 01803 655205 or email [e-mail]

Job responsibilities

Full Vacancy details can be found on the attached Job Description/Person Specification. Please refer to your suitability to the post in your supporting information from the role requirements or person specification.

Person Specification

• Good standard of general education to include GCSE in Maths and English or equivalent
• Proven accurate typing
• Good knowledge of Microsoft Office software
• Proven experience of providing a customer focused service
• Proven relevant experience in a busy office environment
• Ability to work as part of a team or independently within a team environment
• Have knowledge of hospital systems, i.e.: PAS, Infoflex, Cyberlab, Ultragenda, Unit4
• NHS experience

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.

Employer name

Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust