Mental Health Services Administrator

Avon And Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Nhs Trust; Swindon; On-site; GBP 20,000 - 28,000; Full time

Job summary

A mental health care organization in Swindon is seeking an administrative professional to handle communication with medical staff and service users. This role requires excellent telephone skills and proficiency in Microsoft Office. Responsibilities include managing patient records, scheduling appointments, and supporting new staff members. The position is full-time, Monday to Friday, and demands strong organizational skills along with personal resilience to thrive in a busy environment.

Benefits

Friendly team environment

Commitment to diversity and inclusion

Opportunities for professional development

Qualifications

• Experience in a mental health or healthcare setting is preferred.
• Ability to work well under pressure within a team.
• Capability to manage sensitive information confidentially.

Responsibilities

• Liaise with various stakeholders including medical staff and service users.
• Provide clerical support including managing diary conflicts and appointments.
• Maintain electronic patient records and perform audits as required.

Skills

Excellent telephone skills

Organisational skills

Information governance understanding

Strong personal resilience

Microsoft Office proficiency

Job description

Key Responsibilities

Liaise with a wide range of stakeholders, both internal to the organisation and external, including:

• Medical staff
• Multidisciplinary teams (Community or Inpatient)
• Service users and carers
• Health and social care teams
• Third sector/voluntary agencies
• Community groups and local authority provision
• Other statutory agencies, e.g., Police, Ministry of Justice

Utilise written and verbal communication skills to connect with a wide range of people, including outside agencies, requiring tact and persuasive skills where there may be barriers to understanding or agreement.

Negotiate diary conflicts and competing priorities as appropriate.

Exchange verbal and written information with patients, staff, and carers relating to appointments and meetings.

Provide and receive routine and complex information, including dealing with enquiries from external stakeholders and the public. This may include sensitive information.

Provide and update patient notes and collate information.

Work within a multidisciplinary environment, ensuring that communication with appropriate team members is effective.

Receive and open mail (paper and electronic as necessary) and distribute/despatch accordingly, ensuring appropriate action is taken with high-priority items.

Manage both telephone and face-to-face contacts with distressed service users in a supportive and empathetic manner.

Exercise judgement when dealing with patient enquiries; analyse and resolve non-clinical patient problems, including resolving conflicting diary appointments or schedules, clinics, meetings, tribunals, etc., escalating issues to the Lead Clinical Services Administrator as appropriate.

Arrange and rearrange clinics and appointments as required.

Support the induction of new staff members as required.

Produce confidential correspondence and reports on a frequent basis.

Maintain an efficient and effective electronic filing system, Internet, Intranet, and patient records to access and extract information as needed.

Take and distribute formal minutes as necessary.

Perform clerical duties, including photocopying and scanning.

Undertake surveys or audits as necessary for own work. May be asked to contribute to audit and research projects within the service to inform service development and standards.

Assist patients during incidental contact by providing non-clinical advice or information to patients, relatives, or carers.

Work Environment & Hours

We are a friendly team and are looking for someone who enjoys keeping busy and is able to work well within a small team in a shared office space. The role is Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., based on the acute ward at Sandalwood Court. There will be occasions where you will be required to work across the four wards in the Swindon locality.

As well as being an excellent team player with the ability to prioritise, you should have a good understanding of information governance. Strong personal resilience is essential.

This role involves administration duties as well as telephone-based work; therefore, the postholder needs to have excellent telephone skills.

Reception cover will also be required as part of this role. You will be the first point of contact for service users, carers and other professionals making contact with the ward. The role requires an eye for detail and high level of accuracy.

There will be an expectation for the post holder to be highly motivated, flexible and multi-skilled with excellent organisational skills. You will possess excellent working knowledge of all Microsoft Office systems including Outlook, Word and Excel.

The post holder will be able to work to high standards and will be required to take personal details from people and upload onto the electronic patient record system RIO.

About the Organisation

Working for our organisation

We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust): a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care.

We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire, and in parts of Dorset.

Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.

At AWP, we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds. We are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities, and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives, and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.