Receptionist / Administration Assistant

North West Borough Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust; Sefton; On-site; GBP 18,000 - 24,000; Full time

Job summary

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust is seeking a reception/admin assistant to join the Reception Hub for Community Clinic Services in the Southport and Formby area. The role involves answering calls, managing referrals and providing efficient administrative support to direct patients to the right services quickly.

The post requires excellent communication skills, strict confidentiality, and the ability to work flexibly across community clinics after training.

Qualifications

• GCSE or NVQ 2 or equivalent experience.
• Experience with patient administration systems is essential.
• Strong keyboard and IT skills with confidentiality awareness.
• Ability to prioritise and work flexibly in a busy clinic context.
• Effective written and verbal communication, including telephone manner.

Responsibilities

• Be the first point of contact for service users, handling calls and providing information.
• Organise appointments and ensure patients arrive on time using the scheduling system.
• Process mail and maintain records with confidentiality and data governance.
• Support referrals and service coordination with accuracy and timeliness.
• Escalate complex issues to clinical teams as needed and work within the team.

Skills

Standard Keyboard Skills

IT Literate

Word Processing

Spreadsheet

Email software

Patient administration systems

Telephone skills

Confidentiality

Organisation

Teamwork

Handling invoices / cash

Education

GCSE or NVQ 2 or equivalent experience

Tools

Word processing software

Spreadsheet software

Email client

Job description

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnically diverse, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.

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Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the Reception Hub for Community Clinic Services at Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust within the Southport and Formby area.

The Reception Hub provides first point of contact for patients, carers and healthcare professionals seeking support from community health services. The successful candidate will play a key role in answering telephone calls, managing referrals and providing administrative support to ensure patients are directed to the appropriate services quickly and efficiently.

This role will require working at various community clinics once training is complete and the post holder is confident in the role.

This role is ideal for someone who has excellent communication skills and is committed to delivering a high standard of customer service.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be required to work within various Community Clinics and will be first point of contact for service users providing a professional telephone and administrative service.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Being the first Point of Contact for Service Users, handling incoming calls from patients, carers and healthcare professionals.Providing clear and accurate information in response to enquiries
• Recording and updating patient information on Trust systems
• Processing referrals and requests for community services
• Ensuring calls are handled efficiently and in line with service standards
• Managing calls and prioritising tasks within a busy contact centre environment
• Escalating calls or queries where appropriate to clinical teams or senior staff
• Completing administrative tasks linked to patient referrals and service coordination
• Maintaining accurate records while adhering to confidentiality and information governance standards
• Working as part of a team to maintain service performance and support operational targets

Working for our organisation

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Act as a first point of contact, providing customer services for patients, carers, staff, public, internal, and external customers, maintaining patient confidentiality at all times.

Ensuring appointments are organised and patients arrived in on time using the patient administration system to effectively utilise clinical time, including identifying and re-prioritising appointments.

• Contribute to the processing of all forms of incoming and outgoing mail.
• To be able to work without direct supervision, prioritising own workload to assist in the smooth running of the clinical services.
• Demonstrate working practices to new staff as part of the induction process.
• Recognise and assist as part of the team with the management of medical emergencies should they arise.
• To escape any issues or problem areas to senior colleagues within the team(s) as appropriate. Complex enquiries should be escalated according to locally agreed procedures.
• Observe a personal duty of care in relation to equipment/resources.
• To work in a flexible manner when cover is required, to support and maintain service delivery.
• Have an awareness of the Trust complaints procedure which will include defusing potential complaints or conflict and escalating appropriately as necessary.
• Contribute to any changes in procedures and implement procedures for the service.
• Communicate appropriately and sensitively with patients and carers recognising the need for alternative methods of communication to overcome distressing situations, physical and learning disabilities, visual or hearing impairments, dementia, challenging behaviour, cultural background, and preferred ways of communicating. This may include requesting the services of a translator.
• Provide statistical information as required for audit purposes.
• All post holders will agree to Commit to the vision of supporting Mersey Care in becoming a leading organisation in the provision of community services, mental health care, addiction services and learning disability care, and in doing so fully utilise their skills and experience to support the objectives of the Trust.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• GCSE or NVQ 2 or equivalent experience

Desirable criteria

• Customer Service Qualification

Skills

Essential criteria

• Standard Keyboard Skills

Knowledge / Experience

Essential criteria

• IT Literate
• Proven Experience of Word Processing, Spreadsheet & email software
• Experience of using patient administrative systems
• Effective communication and interpersonal skills including telephone skills and face to face communication
• Experience of general administration office skills - filing, photocopying, faxing, note taking
• Experience of working to conflicting demands and work effectively within teams
• Ability to work in a confidential and sensitive manner
• Ability to plan, prioritise and schedule own work
• Able to work flexibly in accordance with service needs
• Experience of handling cash/raising invoices relating to patient charges
• Good organisational skills
• Ability to work without supervision

Values

Essential criteria

• Continuous improvement - committed to making improvements to our services for the benefit of all
• Accountability - taking ownership to anticipate, develop and deliver high quality care
• Respect - how we treat others in an inclusive and supportive way
• Enthusiasm - demonstrate our passion and pride for what we do and how we do it
• Support - actively supporting others with compassion and courage

Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.

Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust's guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email