Service Administrator (Receptionist) | South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust; Lewisham; On-site; GBP 20,000 - 25,000; Full time

Job summary

A healthcare provider in Lewisham is seeking a motivated Receptionist/Administrator to support the Community Mental Health Teams. The ideal candidate will provide reception services, administrative support, and collaborate with clinical teams. Essential skills include excellent communication and IT proficiency, as well as an ability to prioritize tasks in a busy environment. This role offers opportunities for career development and promotes work life balance, flexible working options, and employee discounts.

Benefits

Generous pay and pensions

Flexible working options

Career development programs

NHS discounts

Qualifications

• Experience using Microsoft Office packages (Word, Excel, Outlook).
• Ability to handle telephone inquiries and messages accurately.
• Well-organized and efficient in a busy work environment.

Responsibilities

• Provide effective front desk service, handling patient inquiries.
• Assist in accurate data entry and maintain administration systems.
• Report maintenance issues to the proper departments.

Skills

Excellent communication skills

IT skills (Microsoft Office)

Ability to prioritize workload

Flexibility and proactiveness

Job description

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced, motivated and enthusiastic person to work as a receptionist/administrator to support the Lewisham Community Mental Health Teams located in Forest Hill (London Borough of Lewisham).

The post holder will be part of an administrative team, responsible for providing a comprehensive Receptionist service and administrative support to the multi-disciplinary clinical teams and working closely with the Senior Administrators & Business Manager to ensure administrative processes are operating effectively and efficiently to required standards.

We are looking for a highly organized, efficient, flexible and proactive person with excellent communication skills to work in the busy Receptionist post, and who can balance work demands along with the changing needs of the service. The role requires the post holder to communicate with patients and visitors, and to develop collaborative working relationships with colleagues and external agencies.

The post holder must have an excellent telephone manner, good IT skills with experience using Microsoft Office packages (Word, Excel and Outlook) to produce letters/documents. Other tasks include, but not limited to, ordering of stationery, processing of post, scanning, photocopying, monitoring leaflet stocks and other tasks (see job description). You must be able to prioritise your workload, be effective at implementing good working practices as well as having a flexible and proactive approach to work in order to cover colleagues when required. You may be asked to work at another site, depending on service need.

Benefits

• The Team: This is a multi-disciplinary team of mental health practitioners including psychiatrists, nurses, occupational therapists, psychologists, social workers, mental health advisors, employment specialists and support workers supporting people experiencing serious mental illness.
• Generous pay, pensions and leave – a comprehensive pay, pensions and leave package which is dependent on the role and length of service.
• Work life balance, flexible working and support a range of flexible options, such as part-time working and job sharing dependent upon job role.
• Career development – there are plenty of opportunities to progress your career and we support your development through a number of programmes such as mentoring, coaching, positive people management, collective leadership and other talent programmes.
• Car lease – our staff benefits from competitive deals to lease cars.
• NHS discounts – with discounts up to 10% from a variety of well-known retail brands through the Health Service Discounts website.
• Trust Values and Behaviours – Kindness, Respect and Together: Kindness: Compassionate, hopeful, understanding and appreciative. Respect: Honest, equity, inclusive and civility. Together: Integrity, supportive, open and listen.

Responsibilities

1) Reception

• Provide an effective and efficient reception and switchboard service, dealing with telephone enquiries, taking accurate messages and passing them promptly to the appropriate member of the team, dealing with the public face‑to‑face, in a courteous and kind manner and identifying and informing as appropriate the responsible professional worker.
• Open the Reception/Switchboard at 9.00am and close the Reception area at 5.00pm Monday to Friday.
• Ensure the Reception/Waiting room/Interview rooms are organised and tidy at all times.
• Monitor supplies of patient information leaflets/posters in the Waiting Room and interview rooms, and produce copies of leaflets/posters as required.
• Deal sensitively with complaints from service users in accordance with South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust policies and procedures.

2) Administration

• Be responsible for date‑stamping, scanning (patient information), and distributing all incoming and processing of all outgoing mail.
• Assist in providing a comprehensive administrative service to the multi-disciplinary teams, including but not limited to copy typing, distribution of correspondence and reports, data inputting patient information, scanning documents and uploading to patient database, and photocopying.
• In liaison with the Business Manager, assist in establishing and maintaining efficient and effective administration systems to support the needs of the service, working with other members of the admin team as appropriate to achieve this.
• Assist in providing accurate and efficient data entry into Trust information systems and to assist in the collection of statistical information for the Trust and Social Services as required by the Business Manager/Service Manager.
• Assist in the booking of interpreters, taxis etc.

3) Environment

• Assist in reporting any maintenance issues to the Estates and Facilities Department, and liaise with any sub‑contractors attending in response to building repairs or audits.

4) Health and Safety

• Support the service in its compliance with all Health and Safety checklists/audits. This includes but is not limited to environment and fire safety checklists, and panic‑alarming testing.
• Undertake training as a fire warden and undertake this function when trained.

5) Service Requirements

• Undertake any other duties as required for the service by the Business Manager or Team Leaders.
• Work as a team member and be familiar with all aspects of work within the Administration Team, providing appropriate cover within the admin team during periods of sickness, annual leave as required by the Business Manager or Team Leaders.
• Deliver a high standard of customer care, representative or the service and the overall Trust objectives and commitments. Exercise diplomacy and professionalism, confidentiality and equality standards in accordance with all Trust policies.

6) Staff Development

• Attend regular supervision and annual appraisal meetings with the Business Manager.
• Participate in any training and developmental needs as required by the Business Manager.
• Complete all identified mandatory training and ensure this is kept up-to-date.

This advert closes on Monday 15 Dec 2025.