Outpatients Booking Coordinator - Band 4

Job overview

As the Booking Coordinator, your responsibilities will include booking of new/follow up appointments and clinics for various specialties within local and national booking guidelines. You will be responsible for delivering an excellent customer service to patients whilst showing empathy and understanding to their situation. On a daily basis, you will be using your great communication skills by liaising with outpatient reception teams, secretaries and other internal stakeholders in the hospital.

You will be able to work in a calm, logical and methodical way and be able to multi-task on a variety of different urgent queries. You will be familiar with the data protection act and responsible for maintaining patient confidentiality. The department works in line with a number of the government targets around patient waiting time and would suit someone who is familiar with challenging but rewarding targets.

Main duties of the job

The successful candidate will have clear, concise verbal and written communication skills honed from previous experience to enable accurate records and confidence in dealing with multi-disciplinary teams, patients and carers via telephone and using the database. Please review the person specification, which is attached to make sure you match to this role. You will be working within a larger team of booking coordinators, and feel comfortable working towards a rewarding goal that will help patients, the hospital and reduce pressure on the NHS.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification

The successful candidate will have clear, concise verbal and written communication skills honed from previous experience to enable accurate records and confidence in dealing with multi-disciplinary teams, patients and carers via telephone and using the database. Please review the person specification, which is attached to make sure you match to this role. You will be working within a larger team of booking coordinators, and feel comfortable working towards a rewarding goal that will help patients, the hospital and reduce pressure on the NHS.

KEY RESULT AREAS/MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• To register the referral and patient details on Cerner PAS ensuring a high level of data accuracy and amending inaccurate data e.g. change of patient contact details or surname. To enter referrals ensuring they are entered onto the correct ‘waiting time’ group in compliance with national operational referral-to-treatment (RTT) requirements.
• The post holder will also be required to have a good working knowledge of the eReferral System (eRS).
• To highlight any referrals which require urgent attention and deal with them promptly.  This can sometimes involve discussions with the medical team directly to arrange where the patient needs to be booked. This also involves rapidly highlighting capacity concerns in the urgent and Two Week Rule (TWR – suspected cancer) pathways to ensure that patients are seen according to clinical priority and also that the Trust achieves the national cancer targets.
• To book follow up appointments and ward follow up appointments in line with clinician requirements and appropriate timelines
• To dispatch all the necessary paperwork; for example, informing patients of their appointment details or notification the GP that the patient failed to attend their appointment.
• Deal with written and telephone enquiries for departments within the relevant Outpatient service transferring information to other departments as appropriate.
• Link with other clinical services as appropriate for the patient’s needs to ensure that the patient’s requirements for diagnostic tests are met before the patient attends an outpatient appointment e.g. MRI scans.
• Deal with patients in a mature manner when speaking to them on the phone.  This may sometimes involve dealing with distressed patients and a sensitive and re-assuring approach is required in difficult situations.
• Have a detailed understanding of the principles of patient confidentiality, data protection and safeguarding.  These principles should be maintained at all times.
• Be responsible for cancelling and re-scheduling patients at the request of the consultants or their team when they take annual/study/professional leave.  This will involve making decisions for future bookings for the patient you will need to have an understanding of the department’s medical priorities in order to plan these appropriately.
• If the clinic is under 6 week notice, then ensuring that the specialty are compliant with the policy and that Associate Director or Operations approval is obtained prior to the cancellation of the activity, this will involve liaison with the specialty and escalation to the Outpatient Service Manager if required.
• Monitor Outpatient clinics on a weekly basis to ensure correct utilisation of appointment slots and to liaise with the Appointment Centre Team Leader or department staff if clinic appointments are being under-utilised.
• Have an up to date and competent understanding of referral-to-treatment (RTT) priorities; this includes waiting times by specialty and policies involving patient choice.   Be open to future changes involving the booking of appointments and attend training when necessary.

The hours for the position are Monday to Friday between 08:30 and 16:30.