Failsafe Officer - Ophthalmology, Band 4

Job overview

'Internal Applicants Only'

A second opportunity has arisen for a permanent Failsafe Officer within Ophthalmology at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust. The roles involves proactively managing patient wait times within the Ophthalmology Department to nationally agreed wait times for both new and follow-up patients. This will involve close liaison with consultants, patients, medical and nursing staff, patient access, appointments, support services and service managers and line management of a small administration team.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be required to provide dedicated work on patient wait times within the Ophthalmology Department to nationally agreed wait times for both new and follow-up patients. This will involve close liaison with consultants, patients, medical and nursing staff, patient access, appointments, support services and service managers.

The post holder will also be required to line manage a small administration team.

The role will proactively manage patients on our follow-up waiting lists and will range from coordinating hospital appointments and ensuring non-admitted and admitted wait times are adhered to. The successful candidate will also be required to assist with the management of the New and 2WW patients.

The post holder will be expected to work without direct supervision and be able to work autonomously and may be required to make decisions under pressure. They will be expected to liaise and communicate as appropriate. As such, the post holder will need a flexible approach to ensure processes are implemented, adhered to, maintained and improved.

The successful applicant will need to be able to cope with the ever-changing demands of such a position in a large organisation and have a positive and proactive approach.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

Proactively manage waiting times for individual patients to ensure national standards are not breached. Negotiate patient management arrangements with key staff.

Ensure the patient’s journey (both new and follow up) are processed in a timely and efficient manner and pro-actively escalate issues in the patient’s pathway so that potential delays are resolved at the earliest opportunity.

Liaise with the central booking office, pre-operative assessment and the patient access team where necessary to ensure patient wait times are met.

To communicate effectively and empathetically with patients and their relatives.

To work closely with surgeons, nursing and other departmental colleagues to ensure capacity is maximized.

To work closely with the Ophthalmology Coordinator to help maintain clinical rotas where required and cover duties when the Coordinator is on leave.

If appropriate, to manage a nominated team of administration & clerical staff.

To provide relevant information to key staff regarding patient waits and appointments.

To monitor and validate RTT PTLs, highlighting concerns or issues to the Lead Coordinator, Assistant General Manager and General Manager.

To liaise closely with the Validation team to support patient tracking from referral to treatment and for follow up, providing updates regarding admission and alerting him/her of any problems that may result in a delay in the patient’s treatment.

To lead the department’s response at regular Check and Challenge meetings, providing key information on patient waits.

To liaise with support services to ensure timely investigations are carried out and ensure results are communicated to clinicians at the earliest opportunity.

To highlight bottlenecks within the process, communicating regularly with the Lead Coordinator, Assistant General Manager and General Manager and where possible, suggesting and implementing solutions.

To work with the Lead Coordinator, Assistant General Manager and General Manager and clinical teams to support service improvement initiatives which help streamline the patient journey and improve the quality of care and service provision.

Additional Responsibilities

The post holder must at all times respect patient confidentiality in line with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and abide by all Statutory and Trust policies and procedures

As the post holder will manage a small administration team, they must complete mandatory training courses and participate in regular staff appraisal processes

The post holder will be required to undertake any other duties according to the needs of the service. This job description is not intended to be an exhaustive list of activities, but rather an outline of the main areas of responsibility. Any reasonable changes will be discussed and agreed with the post holder before variations to the job description.

Key Knowledge and Experience

- Educated to GCSE grade C or above (or equivalent) in literacy and numeracy or

- NVQ level three in administration or equivalent substantial experience in an NHS hospital.

- Excellent IT skills; good working knowledge of MS Office to include Word & Excel.

-Good working knowledge of Hospital EPR systems, BI Hub & other related systems.

-Good working knowledge of RTT.

- Good attention to detail with ability to multitask.

- Ability to work well under pressure and prioritise workload effectively.

- Excellent communication / interpersonal skills for dealing with people internal and external to the organization.

- Ability to produce accurate work and meet deadlines.

- Ability to work on own initiative and without close supervision.

- Good understanding of confidentiality.

- Capacity to understand information in data format and interpret this.

- Management of waiting lists and booking experience.