Medical Secretary/Pathway Coordinator

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust; England; On-site; GBP 23,000 - 30,000; Full time

Job summary

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust is seeking an experienced Medical Secretary to join our busy department. The role works alongside a team of medical secretaries and closely with the Clinical team, requiring excellent organisational skills, meticulous attention to detail and a professional, confidential approach.

Key duties include managing schedules, transcribing letters, handling enquiries from GPs and patients, arranging appointments, maintaining patient pathways and filing

Qualifications

• Experience in a busy medical/secretarial environment.
• Strong organisational and communication skills.
• Awareness of patient confidentiality and data protection.

Responsibilities

• Organise own work schedule and prioritise tasks to meet deadlines.
• Transcribe from audio, copy type or shorthand for clinical letters and correspondence.
• Act as point of contact for Nurses, GP’s, patients and other departments.
• Assess enquiries and respond appropriately to maintain service quality.
• Make appointments in line with targets and notify line manager when not achievable.
• Maintain patient target lists and related reports.
• File investigation results and flag urgent items for clinical input.
• Maintain an efficient filing system to support department operations.

Skills

Office procedures

Prioritising workload

Calm under pressure

Analytical judgement

Organising complex tasks

Interpersonal skills

NHS experience

Patient pathways

Education

GCSE English (A-C)

Medical secretary qualification

Tools

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Excel

Job description

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust

Medical Secretary/Pathway Coordinator

The closing date is 17 November 2026

*Please note: Previous applicants need not apply*

We are looking for an experienced Medical Secretary to join our busy department. This role involves working alongside a team of medical secretaries as well as working closely with the Clinical team. We require a hard-working individual who has excellent organisational skills with the ability to manage and prioritise their work accordingly. Your communication skills must be first class alongside a professional and friendly manner. You must possess a high level of attention to detail and accuracy and an understanding of patient confidentiality and sensitivity is a must.

Main duties of the job

• Organise own work schedule, adapt the schedule as required to meet commitments to others within the agreed timescales and, where this is not achievable, give notification promptly with reasons to line manager.
• Transcribe from audio, copy type or shorthand (where appropriate), all clinical letters and other correspondence as required by the Nurses and team, ensuring layout, spelling, grammar and punctuation is consistent.
• Act as point of contact on behalf of the Nurses and the Trust and deal effectively and courteously with all enquiries from GP's, patients, other departments within the Trust and all other departments.
• Assess all enquiries and deal with effectively and respond appropriately.
• Act as point of contact for health service employees at all levels, both within the Trust and outside agencies.
• Make appointments as appropriate, in line with government and local targets. Where this is not achievable, give notification promptly to line manager.
• Validation of patient target lists, No Outcome reports and reports relating to patient pathways.
• File investigation results in appropriate health records and draw initiating doctors' attention to all incoming results, prioritising those which may require urgent clinical input.
• Maintain a filing system that facilitates the effective running of the department.

About us

We are one of the largest hospital trusts in England, with five hospitals and community clinics serving a local population of around 800,000 people. Our vision is 'great healthcare from great people'. Everything we do is guided by our values: 'People feel cared for, safe, respected and confident that we are making a difference'. We have a new way of working at East Kent Hospitals, called 'We care'. It's about empowering frontline staff to lead improvements day-to-day. We're looking for compassionate people to be part of our improvement journey for the patients, families and carers we care for every day.

PLEASE NOTE - WE CANNOT OFFER VISA SPONSORSHIP FOR THIS ROLE. If you hold a Graduate/Post Study work visa, you will only be able to work this role fixed term until the expiry date of your visa.

Job responsibilities

Please scroll down to access the full Job Description and Person Specification located in Documents to download.

If you have any further queries please dont hesitate to contact the line manager using the contact details below.

Qualifications and training

• Computer literate including Word and Excel.
• GCSE English - Grade A - C, or equivalent
• Medical secretary qualification.

Skills and experience

• Experience of a range of office procedures and practices.
• Previous 2 years admin experience or working for and within a team.
• Able to prioritise workload and meet deadlines using own initiative.
• Able to remain calm in a busy environment when working under pressure.
• Able to make judgements involving a range of facts, that require analysis
• Ability to organise a number of complex activities.
• Excellent interpersonal and organisations skills.
• Previous NHS experience.
• Experience of managing patient pathways and waiting lists.
• Skills in NHS computer software.

Personal/professional attributes

• Previous experience customer service, Office and Secretary
• Customer Service Course NHS experience To contribute to the improvement of the quality of service provide

Governance

• Upholds and models the Trust values

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

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust