Secretary/Administrator

North West Borough Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust; Knowsley; On-site; GBP 21,000 - 25,000; Full time

Job summary

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust is seeking a full-time Band 3 Secretary/Administrator within Community Care Services. The role provides comprehensive administrative and reception support for patients, service users, carers and health professionals, and ensures confidential information is managed with accuracy and discretion.

The post holder will supervise administrative staff, coordinate clinics and appointments, maintain electronic patient records, and produce reports to support service

Qualifications

• NVQ Level 3 in Business Administration or equivalent required.
• GCSEs or equivalent education standard.
• Experience with patient administration systems is desirable.

Responsibilities

• Provide reception services for patients, carers, staff and visitors.
• Input, update and maintain electronic patient records.
• Coordinate clinics, appointments and diary management.
• Produce reports and manage administrative data.
• Supervise administrative staff and support service improvements.

Skills

IT literate

Good communicator

Organisational skills

Confidentiality

Education

NVQ Level 3 in Business Administration

GCSE level or equivalent

Tools

Microsoft Office

Data entry

Patient administration systems

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 opportunity has arisen for one full-time Band 3 Secretary/Administrator within Community Care Services at Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust.

This role provides a comprehensive, high-quality administrative and reception support service, acting as a key point of contact for patients, service users, carers, and health professionals. The post holder will support clinical and operational teams to ensure the effective, timely and confidential management of information and access to services.

The post holder will have responsibility for supervising administrative staff, allocating tasks and supporting the smooth running of the service.

You will have experience working in an administrative role, ideally within the NHS or a healthcare setting, with strong IT, organisational and communication skills. You will be able to manage competing demands, work accurately with confidential information, and provide a high standard of customer service.

An NVQ Level 3 in Business Administration or equivalent experience is essential. Experience of patient administration systems and working in a busy office environment is desirable.

Main duties of the job

• Supervisory responsibilities
• Act as first point of contact, providing reception services for patients, carers, staff and visitors
• Manage telephone, email and general enquiries, prioritising and escalating as appropriate
• Arrange clinics, appointments and meetings, including diary management and record keeping
• Create, update, and maintain electronic patient records in line with Trust policies
• Input, retrieve and quality-check sensitive and confidential information accurately
• Support referral pathways and liaise with internal and external agencies as required
• Produce reports, statistics and performance information using Trust IT systems
• Maintain supplies, support administrative systems, and highlight operational issues
• Contribute to service improvement activity and provide cover for colleagues when required

This vacancy is open to internal Mersey Care colleagues only.

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.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Act as a point of contact, receive and direct patients and visitors on arrival, providing reception services for patients, carers, staff, public, internal, and external customers.
• Sort and prioritise incoming queries in line with the written guidance.
• Respond to all telephone, e-mail and general enquiries ensuring that appropriate messages are emailed, or action is taken, escalating enquiries as and when required.
• Provide demographic details of cases when requested.
• Liaise with colleagues at all levels both within the team and across other agencies and in other organisations to request and compile health information in a timely manner.
• Responsibility for arranging clinics, booking appointments and associated data entry including the retrieval and maintenance of electronic patient records.
• Responsibility of creating new records and discharging records on the electronic records system.
• Ensuring the maintenance of the referral pathway process following Service procedures including liaison with other agencies and seeking consent as necessary.
• Input patient sensitive/confidential information onto patient administration system ensuring accuracy, updating information as appropriate.
• Record accurate and timely contact notes with patients on electronic record in line with Trust record keeping policy.
• The post holder will propose any necessary changes of local protocols to aid service improvement, and to ensure that all standard operating procedures and guidance documents are kept up to date.
• Maintain appropriate supplies for the team, being responsible for all necessary ordering of supplies/ equipment.
• Produce statistics, documents and reports using various computerised systems as appropriate for example data relating to key performance indicators.
• To highlight any operational concerns regarding administrative systems so that they can be reviewed.
• Work closely with clinical and operational teams to ensure that rotas are up to date and shared with the appropriate person.
• Participate in all necessary mandatory and targeted training to update skills and knowledge.
• Maintain comprehensive electronic health records as per standard operating procedures.
• Deal with all communications/correspondence confidentially as per Information Governance Policy and information sharing guidance.
• Supervision of other administrative support staff.
• To ensure the creation of new clinical records.
• Facilitating and contributing to meetings including booking meeting rooms, arranging refreshments, taking, and circulating notes and agendas as necessary. Meetings include but not limited to MDT meetings and service / team meetings.
• Support diary management as required. To work with others to plan ahead and manage diary commitments ensuring equal balance and best use of time for meeting commitments.
• To participate and be engaged in service improvement initiatives/ activities to enhance quality of patient care. For example, participation in task and finish groups.
• The post holder shall as necessary, provide cover for and undertake duties of absent colleagues.
• The post holder shall follow all the policies and procedures of the organisation.
• 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.
• Role model the values of the Trust - Continuous Improvement, Accountability, Respectfulness, Enthusiasm and Support- in all activities and interactions with employees, service users and other stakeholders.
• Challenge the stigma associated with mental health and learning difficulties.
• Comply with the Duty of Candour, defined by Francis as: 'The volunteering of all relevant information to persons who have or may have been harmed by the provision of services, whether or not the information has been requested and whether or not a complaint or a report about that provision has been made.'
• Work across professional and organisational boundaries to improve services for all.
• Maintain their specific knowledge base and develop new skills.
• Value the contribution of the patient/ service user voice.
• Operate within any organisational codes of practice or those from a relevant professional body.
• Respect equality and diversity across all areas of working practice and communications with staff, service users and other stakeholders.
• Take responsibility for the accurate and timely collection and recording of data and ensuring all personally identifiable information is protected and used only for the purposes for which it was intended.
• Comply with all health and safety legislation and local policies and procedures.
• Adhere to all organisational policies.
• Have knowledge and understanding of technology in the workplace which is sufficient to maintain their efficiency and also how technology can empower service users in a digital environment.
• Comply with the NHS Constitution in relation to the staff responsibilities that it sets out for NHS employees.
• Attend a one day Just and Learning & Civility and Respect training workshop.
• Be an ambassador for Just & Learning and Civility & Respect following the training.
• Positively advocate the just and learning culture within your team.
• Be a confident supporter and implementer of the Trust CARES Values including Civility & Respect within your team.
• Support their team/ services to create a positive environment for Just and Learning Culture.
• Participate in Just and Learning Culture events.
• Bring Just and Learning Culture updates/ information to the attention of team members and other MCT colleagues they work with.
• Support and encourage the sharing of concerns about the safety and quality of care with senior leaders with the aim of improving safety and quality.
• Actively participate in creating an open culture within your team so that concerns and difficulties can be discussed safely and respectfully.
• Listening and understanding others who have concerns and taking a collaborative approach to work towards a solution to improve civility and respect.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• NVQ Level 3 in Business Administration or equivalent
• Educated to GCSE standard or equivalent

Desirable criteria

• OCR or equivalent
• Customer Service Qualification

Knowledge/experience

Essential criteria

• IT literate
• Proven experience of word processing, spreadsheet, and email software
• Experience of using patient administration 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
• Ability to develop databases
• Computerised information systems

Desirable criteria

• Demonstrable knowledge of supervising other secretarial/administrative staff

Skills

Essential criteria

• Keyboard / Word Processing / Data Input
• Good communicator (verbal/written)
• Good organisational and interpersonal skills
• Ability and willingness to travel across the Trust

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.