Patient Advice and Liaison Lead

Job overview

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Patient Experience Team as the Lead for the Patient Advice and Liaison Service. You will be able to bring your skills to the team who work together in order to assist patients, relatives, carers with their enquiries and help resolve any problems or concerns they have. You will also work with the Patient Experience Manager to develop the services to ensure they meet our patient’s needs.

This is an interesting and varied role in a busy unpredictable environment. The post holder will require excellent customer service, communication and organisational skills with the ability to manage a variety of task throughout the working day. The work involves dealing with people at an extremely difficult time in their lives and you must be able to complete the necessary tasks whilst acting in a caring and compassionate manner.

This is a rewarding post, within a supportive team, focused on improving the experiences of people visiting our hospitals.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be required to act a lead for the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) and Bereavement Office. To provide managerial support to the PALS and Bereavement Officers.

To provide a personal, visible and accessible Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) and play an active part in making contact with the Trust as easy as possible. To provide support individual patients, carers and relatives through the Trust’s services to answer enquiries and requests for information about the NHS and aspects of care. Work within the Patient Experience Team and assist with the resolution of queries and concerns raised by patients, relatives and visitors within the expected timescales by internal means or by referral to external agencies.

To co-ordinate the day to day functioning of the Trust’s Bereavement Service, ensuring prompt and correct documentation relating to the death of a patient within the Trust. Liaising with external agencies to ensure the funeral arrangements for every deceased patient are carried out without delay. To provide correct, information, supportive and appropriate advice to bereaved relatives/next of kin.

To monitor patient experience feedback to identify trends and themes alerting staff to these and working with them to action change ensuring that these actions are reported using established mechanisms.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Management and Leadership

Provide day to day managerial support for the Patient Advice and Liaison and Bereavement Service.

Participate in staff appraisals and 1:1’s, identifying training and development in line with the Patient Experience Team and Trust Objectives.

Work flexibly within the remit of the role to ensure office cover at all times and, undertake such management duties as necessary to ensure a consistent approach to enable continuity of service.

Identify trends from Patient Advice and Liaison enquiries and Friends and Family Test results.

Ensure Standard Operating Procedures are updated.

Patient Advice & Liaison Service

Provide a personal, visible and accessible Patient Advice and Liaison Service and play an active part in making contact with the Trust as easy as possible, signposting patients, service users, relatives and/or carers.

To have frontline direct contact with patients, either by telephone, email, correspondence or face to face.

Manage difficult situations to ensure concerns are understood and help identify a way to resolve the issue.

To support individual patients, carers and family members in order to resolve problems and concerns, offering a number of options and sources of information where possible, including other local and national support networks as necessary.

To liaise with health, voluntary and statutory services on behalf of clients to help resolve problems and concerns.

To listen to patients’ concerns, suggestions and experiences and raising these with the people who manage services.

To help patients understand the NHS complaints procedure and how to make a complaint, explaining what support can be offered by the Patient Advice and Liaison Service and what a formal complaint investigation involves.

To work within agreed protocols regarding confidentiality, consent and equal opportunities.

Assist with ensuring patients have access to the Trust’s interpreting service in accordance with the Interpreting and Translation Guidelines.

Participate in Safeguarding of Adults by tensuring the PALS Office continues to be a designated safe place.

Ensure all enquiries are recorded on the Datix Patient Experience Module.

Bereavement Service

To be responsible for ensuring that clear and accurate records are kept relating to each death within the hospital.

To maintain the Bereavement Spreadsheet and ensure up to date information is recorded.

To be responsible for ensuring that relatives are contacted the next working day and given all relevant paperwork and are provided with information regarding formal requirements.

To support the prompt and correct completion of the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death in line with statutory legislation.

To support the prompt and correct completion of cremation papers in line with statutory legislation.

To liaise with the Medical Examiner Office and Mortuary so that patients can be released from the mortuary in a timely manner.

To act as a point of contact between medical staff and relatives, to liaise with the Chaplaincy, Risk Management Department, Medical Records Department, HM Coroner’s Office and Registrars of Births and Deaths.

To liaise with Funeral Directors and Coroner’s Officers as required, to ensure procedures and arrangements towards the issue of death certificates are expedited.

Arrange and accompany bereaved relatives to viewings in the mortuary viewing room.

Return patient’s property to their next of kin or nominated representative.

Make arrangements to register the death of patients who do not have any next of kin or nominated representative.

Arrange funeral through the Trust’s contracted Funeral Director for patients who do not have any next of kin, nominated representative or any funds in the estate to pay for the funeral.

Arrange monthly shared cremation for early pregnancy losses.

Friends and Family Test

Raise awareness of the Friends and Family Test to increase response rates.

Monitor feedback received through the Friends and Family Test and identify any low scoring areas or negative comments.

Highlight good and poor comments with ward/department Manager.

Patient Property

To be responsible for the collection of or the acceptance and safe keeping or safe disposal of patient valuable and non-valuable property in accordance with the Trust Policy.

Awareness of health and safety issues if property is contaminated (e.g.: blood, faeces, urine, vomit, lice) or contains sharps and ensuring that protective clothing (gloves and aprons) is worn.

To have responsibility for the correct return to the patient or the next of kin or disposal of patient’s property in line with Trust Policy.

To investigate the whereabouts of deceased patient’s property when there is a discrepancy between ward documentation and relatives’ recollections of patients’ property.

Record information relating to lost property reported to the PALS Office on database.