PALS Officer

Merseywestlancs; Knowsley; Remote; GBP 28,000 - 31,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

Pension scheme

Staff health and wellbeing programme

Job summary

Mersey West Lancashire NHS Trust is seeking a PALS Officer to support patients, relatives and carers, resolving issues with sensitivity across NHS services. The role is primarily based at Whiston Hospital, with travel to other sites as needed.

Salient duties include guiding users, recording contacts on Inphase, and working with the Quality and Risk team. Flexible working and professional development are encouraged within a supportive NHS environment.

Qualifications

• NVQ3 level or equivalent qualification and experience
• GCSE level or equivalent qualification and/or experience
• RSA 2 in Typing / Word processing or equivalent qualification and/or experience

Responsibilities

• To provide information and guidance to patients, relatives and carers in a timely and efficient manner
• Record and feedback compliments from patients and carers; be accessible with a visible Trust presence
• Collaborate with staff and service managers to resolve concerns quickly
• Communicate with individuals in complex or sensitive situations to clarify concerns and options
• Take responsibility for recording PALS contacts on the Inphase system and share information with the right teams
• Support and signpost service users to appropriate advocacy or statutory services

Skills

Excellent communication

Problem solving

Initiative

Resilience under pressure

Teamwork

Education

NVQ3 level

GCSE level

RSA 2 typing

Job description

We want talented and enthusiastic people from all backgrounds to join #TeamMWL, with us you can learn, grow and develop yourself and your career, realising your true ambitions and aspirations.

Whatever you’re looking for in your career, you’ll find it here at MWL.

Main area Administration Grade NHS AfC: Band 4 Contract 12 months (Fixed Term: 12 months) Hours

• Full time
• Part time

37.5 hours per week (Mon - Fri (Core Office Hours)) Job ref 409-7940807-A

Site Whiston Hospital Town Prescot Salary £28,392 - £31,157 per annum. pro rata Salary period Yearly Closing 18/10/2026 23:59

After applying via NHS Jobs, your submitted application will be imported into our preferred Third-party recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs. You will not be able to track the progress of your application or receive messages through the NHS Jobs website, and furthermore, as an employer, we will not be able to respond to any e-mails sent to us via the NHS Jobs website. By applying for this post you are agreeing to "name of trust" transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are appointed to a post information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an enthusiastic individual to join the Trust within the Quality and Risk team as a PALS officer.

This role involves providing support, guidance and advice for people who have concerns about various aspects of care or who want general information about our Trust services. The successful candidate will be a person who enjoys the challenge of resolving concerns whilst working with patients and families in this front facing customer services role.

The post is predominantly based at Whiston Hospital but there may be occasions when you may be required to travel and work across Trust sites.

Please note, this position is available to both full-time and part-time hours.

These hours will be discussed at interview but please state what hours would be best suited to you in your supporting information.

Main duties of the job

To provide support, guidance, advice and information to patients, relatives, carers and staff, in a timely and efficient manner. To act as a liaison point for people contacting the service in order to resolve issues raised.

The successful candidate will have experience of working within the NHS, have excellent written and verbal communication skills and be required to use numerous computerised systems such as; Inphase, Careflow and Microsoft Office systems.

Please be aware, that we may close a vacancy earlier than stated, should a sufficient number of applications be received, you are therefore advised to apply at your earliest convenience.

Working for our organisation

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 9000 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.

We strongly believe that the communities we serve should all have access to Five Star Patient Care.

Our Services:

Acute Care

Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.

Primary Care

Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.

Community Services

Providing adult community services for St Helens and wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire. Our inpatient unit at Newton Community Hospital is where patients needing acute hospital beds can continue rehabilitation, freeing up space for more unwell patients. We also provide urgent care at our Urgent Treatment Centre located in St Helens town centre.

Specialist Regional Services

We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

Achievements:

• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To support individual patients, relatives and carers to obtain answers to queries and resolve problems and concerns quickly and efficiently which may be received from various sources. Record and feedback compliments received by patients and carers. Be accessible with a visible presence in the Trust.
• Work collaboratively with staff and service managers to ensure that any concerns or problems raised by service users and carers and their families can be resolved as quickly as possible.
• Communicate with people who may be in complex and sensitive situations and who may be highly emotional, aggressive or anxious. This involves using communication skills on a daily basis to help service users/carers to clarify concerns and provide/identify options.
• Respond to diverse, sensitive and sometimes complex enquiries and concerns raised by the public, service users and carers about Mersey & West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust services referring to any applicable Trust policies, procedures and guidelines.
• Negotiate timely and appropriate resolution of concerns with service users or carers and staff.
• To take an instrumental role in supporting PALS users, arranging meetings between service users and clinicians and occasionally supporting service users at these meetings in what can be highly complex and sensitive circumstances, in an efficient manner to reach satisfactory outcomes.
• Understand the Trust’s managing complaints and concerns policy and refer to the complaints team/Independent advocacy if appropriate. Provide advice and guidance to those who wish to make a formal complaint when issues cannot be resolved within PALS.
• To ensure all PALS contacts are recorded on the Inphase system and ensure that PALS activity is communicated to the appropriate personnel throughout the Trust.
• Assist PALS in local acute and community Trusts and other stakeholders who are trying to resolve issues that span across organisational boundaries.
• To provide support to patients, carers and families when accessing specialist advocacy or other voluntary and statutory services.
• To build and maintain good relationships with key stakeholders and the local community.

Education and Development

• Ensure colleagues across the Trust are aware of the role of PALS, through regular feedback with appropriate staff groups.
• Participate in raising awareness of PALS within the Trust, internally and externally, and with other statutory, voluntary and community organisations, including preparation and delivery of presentations.
• Contribute to the delivery of corporate induction as required. To ensure personal development plans are identified, maintained and followed to ensure all relevant mandatory training is undertaken.
• Demonstrate role and training support to new starters.

Administrative Responsibilities

• Act as a resource for up-to-date information on Trust services for all patients, relatives, and carers.
• Utilise empathetic and effective communication skills to decipher complex information from service users to understand and resolve concerns.
• Provide and identify support and appropriate signposting to those contacting PALS.
• To maintain own personal development following participation in annual appraisal.
• Maintain and extend personal knowledge with regard to current and changing issues within the Trust and wider NHS on an on-going basis.
• To maintain health and safety standards which ensure the wellbeing of patients, public and work colleagues.
• To undertake required mandatory training required for the post.
• To manage own workload, work unsupervised as appropriate, escalating any concerns to the line manager.
• To observe and maintain data protection and confidentiality as appropriate.
• To maintain a personal professional appearance.
• The above responsibilities are not an exhaustive list and are subject to change as the post develops.

Clinical Governance

• To work in close collaboration with staff from Complaints and the Quality and Risk departments,
• ensuring that effective communication is maintained in respect of PALS activities.

Person specification

Qualifications

• NVQ3 level or equivalent qualification plus significant knowledge and experience
• Educated to GCSE level or equivalent qualification and/or equivalent experience
• RSA 2 in Typing / Word processing or equivalent qualification and/or equivalent experience

Knowledge & Experience

• Knowledge of the function of PALS
• Experience of working within a customer care environment in an advisory capacity
• Experience of working towards deadlines
• Experience of providing information in a clear and concise manner
• Extensive knowledge of Microsoft Office and other applications
• Experience of dealing with conflict
• Fully aware of the need to maintain confidentiality and how this is achieved
• Experience of inputting data
• Knowledge of NHS complaints procedures, GDPR, clinical governance, health & wellbeing issues, acquired through training and experience
• Experience in a similar role or equivalent knowledge
• Experience of dealing with external NHS stakeholders
• Experience of Datix / Inphase system
• Experience of working within the NHS or Healthcare Setting

Skills

• Excellent communication skills, including listening and negotiating skills, face to face and over the telephone
• Able to problem solve
• Able to use own initiative
• Work well under pressure whilst prioritising a diverse workload with competing priorities within a busy environment
• Work individually or as part of a team

Other

• Ability to travel between all MWL hospital sites

Thank you for considering an application to work for Mersey West Lancashire NHS Trust. MWL is an exciting and forward-thinking NHS Trust who are one of the best places to work for in England.

Given sometimes we receive a high volume of applications to work for us, please be aware, that we may close a vacancy earlier than stated should a sufficient number of applications be received from which a shortlist can be confirmed. Therefore, you are advised to apply at your earliest convenience.

The Trust may contact you during the recruitment process for your feedback on your experience. We always aim for continuous improvement in our practice.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

We actively cultivate a professional environment of fairness, equality, dignity, and respect for all individuals. We welcome individuals from all backgrounds and value the unique skills, perspective and experience you bring. We are grounded in the belief that diversity enhances our collective strength, fostering innovation and excellence within our workforce. We welcome all applications irrespective of people’s race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion/belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity and in particular those from under- represented groups.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we commit to offering an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

If you are having difficulty completing an online application, or require any disability reasonable adjustments, to the application process, please contact [e-mail]

We also commit to offering an interview to all armed forces veterans who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

The Trust operates anonymous shortlisting where no personal information about you, including your name or personal details are shared with the recruiting manager. No equality information is shared at any time during the recruitment process with the recruiting manager or other people involved in the decision-making process.

The equality monitoring information you provide is used in the following situations: to review our recruitment practices; where a job is limited to a specific person to verify their eligibility to apply; and to offer disability reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Following the recent update on UK immigration policy for those on a Health and Care Visa or Skilled Worker Visa, please click here to check your eligibility before applying for this post as we may be unable to provide sponsorship.

eVisa Update

For successful candidates on selected work and study visa routes, who have completed and paid for their applications will no longer receive a visa vignette in passport as evidence of their permission to enter the UK.

Instead, you will be issued with an eVisa only, which is accessed by creating a UKVI account.

Before travelling to the UK, we advise applicants to:

• Understand how to generate an eVisa share code

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

If this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 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.

Please note if applicable, applicants will be required to pay for their DBS check. Costs are deducted from salary following appointment.

If you have not already done so, you are therefore encouraged to enrol for the DBS Update Service to which a small annual fee of £13 per year applies.

Flexible Working

We actively support flexible working patterns throughout MWL. Changes made to the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook mean that:

• All employees have the right to request flexible working from day one of employment.
• There is no limit on the number of requests they can make.
• Employees have the right to make requests, have them considered, regardless of the reason.

At Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, we will consider requests for flexible working. We would also encourage you to also discuss flexible working options at interview stage.

Working for Team MWL

Staff recognition is especially important to us; as well as performance reviews and appraisals, we recognise staff through Employee of the month. Along with supporting you to achieve your career goals we offer a generous pension scheme, unsocial hours payments (where applicable), 27 days annual leave on commencement (pro rata) and access to a range of NHS discounts. Our Staff Health and Wellbeing programme offer a variety of services.

The Trust is a non-smoking across all our sites. Failure to follow this rule could lead to disciplinary action. For more information, see the Smoke Free NHS website.

You will be expected to undertake the Trusts' commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.

You must ensure that your application, including personal statements and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.

The Trust will not accept applications which are found to be AI generated and will check all applications against AI detection software.

Additional Information

Before applying, we encourage you to review the Trusts Values and Behaviours which are We are KIND, We are OPEN, We are INCLUSIVE, which can be found here .

An applicant guide to help and support you with your application and what to expect during your recruitment journey can be accessed in the supporting documents.

Good luck with your application. We hope to welcome you to Team MWL very soon.

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.