Medical Secretary

Job overview

To provide a high quality comprehensive and confidential secretarial and administrative support service to the Consultant and clinical team on a day-to-day basis.

You will work independently in an ever changing administrative environment. You will manage numerous workloads with priorities changing daily on a sliding scale.

You will be confident in communicating  with patients, internal and external stakeholders and across a breadth of seniority levels.

This role involves managing a patient caseload for your clinical team along with managing, scheduling and booking an elective theatre list.

Main duties of the job

The post-holder will have day to day responsibility for providing a comprehensive, efficient and confidential secretarial service to a team of consultants, clinicians and nursing staff.

Key responsibilities include constant liaison with consultant, medical staff, patients, other administration teams, General Practitioners, external bodies, ward staff and theatre staff.

It is expected that staff will be able to demonstrate a significant level of initiative in organising their workload and in taking decisions and action within clearly defined limits.

You will receive and take relevant action on telephone calls and other enquires from key contacts, dealing with internal and external sources to resolve any problems, queries, or complaints, making appointments, and arranging visits and meetings where appropriate.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To co-ordinate the day-to-day management and maintenance of the patient elective pathway in accordance with the Patient Access Policy.

Receive and take telephones calls, taking relevant action and dealing with other enquires, internally and externally. You will problem solve, resolving situations to prevent ongoing issues or complaints within the service. You will deal with any queries, make appointments and arrange visits and meetings when required.

As a medical secretary you will maintain consultant diaries, assist with scheduling consultant workload and communicate with other relevant parties concerning planning and rescheduling of work.

You will provide accurate, efficient typing from an audio-based dictation system, typing letters, results, discharge summaries, reports and general correspondence all within the Trust target frame.

You will open the post and prioritise for the consultants, dealing with matters not requiring clinical input and deal with general administrative tasks.

You will select cases for theatre lists within give guidelines ensuring the nation and local targets are met.

To replace cancellations, as and when necessary, with like for like cases or within guidelines provided, whilst considering the national targets for waiting times.

Inform patients of starving requirements depending on scheduling of theatre sessions.

Dealing with all patients enquires regarding cancellations, rescheduling, holiday bookings and suspensions.

To contact the patients and agree a convenient date for their admission, in line with booked admissions.

Advise patients of the pre-operative assessment appointments process and isolation period prior to surgery.

To manage waiting list entries, following the elective policy, amending pathways with the complexities for each patient. Where appropriate removing the waiting list entries and re-establishing entries when the patient is then ready of surgery to offer an admission date.

Liaise with clinicians regarding appropriate scheduling of patients such as case mix together with other key information to ensure the full utilisation of theatre lists.

Be responsible for producing operating lists for individual operating sessions, including special/clinical instructions, and circulating to the designated areas in a timely manner.

Informing the theatre staff of specialist theatre equipment required as directed by the medical staff and arrange for identified representatives to be present at the time of surgery.

To accurately in-put, up-date and monitor patient related information onto the computerised Patient Administration System.

To report and keep records of patient cancelled on the day of surgery to ensure the patient is re-dated for surgery within the 28 days national target.

To work closely with the Medical Secretarial team and Health records clerks to ensure the development of an efficient team to effectively support the Directorate.

To be responsible for the timely processing of all incoming and outgoing mail.

To act as a mentor for newly recruited staff, including an introduction into working practices and procedures within the Department.

You will be a dynamic key role in the team, assisting and covering for other teams members in times of absence.