Outpatients Team Leader

Job overview

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust is delighted to offer a fantastic opportunity to work with us.

Please see below for detailed job description of the role.

Main duties of the job

This role leads a dedicated team of Outpatient Clerks to deliver a seamless, high quality administrative service across the Cancer Care Outpatient Department, ensuring patients and their families experience efficient, compassionate support at every stage of their care. Working across multiple sites, the post holder keeps services running smoothly by coordinating referrals, appointments, waiting lists, clinic changes, and patient communications, while ensuring all processes meet Trust standards.

They act as a key point of escalation for complex queries, maintain accurate patient records, and foster strong working relationships with clinical and administrative colleagues to support safe, timely patient pathways.

Alongside operational duties, the role has a strong leadership focusing on managing rosters, performance, supporting recruitment, staff development, and ensuring the team remains fully trained and confident in all systems and procedures. It’s a dynamic, people centred position that combines service coordination, team leadership, and a commitment to delivering an exceptional patient experience within a busy cancer outpatient environment.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To lead a team of Outpatient Clerks to provide a comprehensive and quality administration service.

To work across the Cancer Care Outpatient Department (including Hamwic House and C7) and provide cross-cover for other staff across the centre to ensure a consistent and effective administration service is maintained at all times.

To provide an excellent customer service to patients, relatives/carers and external agencies, ensuring that administrative processes are co-ordinates around the patient and their needs.

• Ensure that staff adhere to the Cancer Care Outpatient (Hamwic House /C7) standard operating procedures at all times, highlighting to senior management any situations where this is not achievable.
• Ensure that personal ESR and Healthroster information including shift patterns and annual leave is kept up to date.
• Cover a range of shift patterns
• Attend any meetings relevant to the Team Leader role.
• Ensure complex queries or issues escalated by the team are dealt with in a timely manner.
• Manage the team’s workflow to ensure activity is distributed evenly within the team.
• Order and maintain agreed levels of stock in the department.
• Ensure patients are communicated with effectively in relation to their appointments via email, phone or letter.
• Ensure transport and translation services are arranged where necessary.
• Ensure appointments are in line with the Trust’s access policy, highlighting issues and taking corrective action where necessary.
• Process requests for clinic changes, cancellations and creations.
• Courteously and efficiently receive all telephone enquiries from patients, carers and external agencies in relation to hospital admissions, appointments and general enquiries, ensuring that accurate records, both manual and electronic, are maintained and appropriate action is taken in a timely manner.
• Ensure that patient phone calls are answered in accordance with Trust policy.
• Deal with concerns / complaints as appropriate, immediately escalating where necessary to the Operations Coordinator for action.
• Manage and co-ordinate the induction of new team members, sharing knowledge and expertise of the administrative processes and functions and the role of the centre.
• Attend mandatory training required for administrative staff as outlined in the Trust Mandatory Training Framework.
• Be proficient in the use of all electronic systems in relation to patient data and undertake training as required if new technology / systems are introduced, to ensure competencies are maintained and efficiencies of the administrative processes are maximized.
• To provide day to day management of the Cancer Care Outpatient Clerks