Support Medical Secretary

Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Oswestry; On-site; GBP 21,000 - 25,000; Full time

Job summary

A healthcare institution in Oswestry is seeking a Support Medical Secretary to assist Senior Medical Secretaries in typing clinic and operation notes, processing mail, and responding to inquiries. The ideal candidate will have strong secretarial skills, experience with medical terminology, and the ability to communicate compassionately with patients. This role requires discretion and attention to detail within a clinical environment.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in a secretarial role.
• Ability to handle sensitive information discreetly.
• Effective communication with patients and staff.

Responsibilities

• Provide accurate typing of various medical documents.
• Process incoming mail and prioritize distribution.
• Identify and expedite urgent appointments and investigations.
• Respond articulately to clinical and non-clinical queries.
• Maintain up-to-date patient demographics.

Skills

Good all-round secretarial experience

Proficiency in RSA II/III typing/audio typing

Good knowledge of medical terminology

Calm, compassionate communication skills

Strong communication/interpersonal skills

Job description

We are seeking to recruit a Support Medical Secretary to provide support/cover to the Senior Medical Secretaries in our new Veterans Centre. The role involves the accurate and high quality typing of clinic notes, pre‑op notes, operation notes, and correspondence of varied medical terminology via our Digital Dictation System. The successful candidate will work closely with senior secretaries and medical staff to ensure timely and accurate completion of clinical letters and other documents.

Key Responsibilities

• To provide accurate and high quality typing of clinic notes, pre‑op notes, operation notes, correspondence and clinic letters, as directed by the Senior Medical Secretary.
• Process incoming mail, date‑stamping, prioritising and distributing items on a daily basis.
• Identify, arrange and expedite urgent outpatient appointments, admissions and investigations, including multi‑department scans and biopsies.
• Assist with advice and guidance requests and patient pathways.
• Listen, analyse and respond to queries via telephone, e‑mail and face‑to‑face contact from clinical and non‑clinical NHS staff, patients, relatives and the general public in an articulate and sympathetic manner while safeguarding patient confidentiality.
• Record queries in the EPR system and pass to the consultant for response as directed by the Senior Medical Secretary.
• Show sympathy and empathy when dealing with anxious and distressed patients and bereaved families in difficult circumstances.
• Direct telephone calls appropriately and provide external callers with correct information regarding referral to a named specialist consultant.
• Check Big Hand for urgent dictation and miscellaneous dictation in the wrong section, alerting necessary staff and checking for missing dictations.
• Assist the Senior Medical Secretary with RTT patients on the MS2, C and U streams, ensuring investigations are arranged within appropriate timescales.
• Ensure all results and other documentation are scanned into the correct section of the EPR record, performing a quality assurance check for each scanned document.
• Complete Inter‑Provider Transfer forms accurately to coordinate patient pathways with other hospitals.
• Maintain all patient demographics are up to date, contacting patients or GPs when necessary to meet information governance and data quality standards.
• Deal with advice and guidance letters promptly and record the outcome on the Choose and Book system.
• Check Lorenzo and Bluespier to confirm that patients have been listed as necessary for surgery.

Qualifications

• Good all‑round secretarial experience.
• Proficiency in RSA II/III typing/audio typing or proven experience.
• Good knowledge of medical terminology.
• Discretion when dealing with sensitive and confidential information.
• Calm, compassionate communication skills with patients and staff by telephone and face‑to‑face.
• Strong communication/interpersonal skills.
• Under current Home Office Immigration Rules, the role does not meet UK Visas and Immigration criteria and is not eligible for sponsorship.

Application Process

Your application form must include a complete record of your employment history. Please explain any gaps in your employment/education history and reasons for these gaps. The Trust maintains the right to withdraw an employment offer or terminate employment if it is later found that an application for employment contained false, misleading or inaccurate information, including omissions of previous periods of employment or reasons given for gaps in employment. Please be aware that we reserve the right to close this job advert early where sufficient applications have been received.

Equal Opportunity

The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust embraces diversity, equality and inclusion. We are committed to ensuring disabled workers aren't disadvantaged when applying for and doing their jobs and offer an interview to all applicants with a disability who meet the minimum criteria for the advertised post. Reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 will be considered upon request.