General Surgery Lead Elective Admissions/SAAU

The General Surgery Lead Elective Admissions/SAAU will work closely with other members of the administrative team and clinical teams, including managers, administrators, nursing and medical staff, allied health professionals and support workers.

The post holder will be required to liaise with a range of staff internally and externally across the Trust and with partner and external organisations.

As the most senior member of the specialty administration function, the post holder will take on delegated duties from divisional management team members.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

• Communicate complex or sensitive information clearly, effectively and appropriately with the multidisciplinary team, patients and their family, visitors or carers, and other clinicians involved in the care of the patient.
• Manage and answer telephone calls related to the service in a courteous and prompt manner.
• Provide patients with information about appointments or non-clinical advice and guidance regarding their care.
• Resolve complex queries, using analysis, experience and judgement to determine when to pass the caller on to a member of the clinical team.
• Support administration staff to resolve complex queries that they have escalated, taking ownership of the query and ensuring a satisfactory outcome.
• Act as a point of contact for the department or specialty, dealing with queries from stakeholders and passing on relevant information to appropriate team members or departments as required.
• Receive and respond to e-mail and In-Basket queries, monitoring, managing and triaging email correspondence to generic inboxes.
• Using hospital information systems including Epic, produce accurate correspondence for patients, GPs and others involved in care, and ensure its timely dissemination to stakeholders.
• Deal with stressful situations that may arise when dealing with patients who are anxious or distressed, or where there are barriers to understanding, using tact, diplomacy and empathy at all times and in line with Trust values.
• Use developed communication skills in order to deal with patient concerns or complaints with empathy and understanding, finding a solution that assures the patient.

Coordinating Care

• Take overall responsibility for the administrative work carried out by the administrative team within a designated specialty or department.
• Receive and register referrals on hospital information systems in line with the Trusts Elective Access Policy, ensuring that the administrative team are supported in doing the same.
• Book, or reschedule, appointments or diagnostics for patients, in accordance with the Trusts Elective Access policy.
• Proactively monitor the patient pathway in order to ensure that all elements of a patients care are arranged appropriately, and in a timely manner.
• Identify potential delays or issues with a patient pathway or potential breaches, and take preventative steps to avoid these.
• Manage the outpatient waiting list, ensuring escalations are provided appointments within breach.
• Lead and take part in PTL meetings.
• Prepare information for MDT meetings.
• Ensure adequate preparation for clinics or admissions, receive and collate reports of investigations such as blood tests and x-rays, and preparing information for clinical teams before the next clinical appointment of the patient.
• Responsible for procuring items related to patient admissions, or contacting theatres for equipment.

Person Specification

• Experience of managing and supervising groups of staff.
• Extensive previous secretarial PA / managing administrative staff experience.
• Experience in Healthcare.
• Excellent analytical and problem solving skills.
• Experience of audit and change management.
• Experience of training staff.
• Excellent word-processing and spreadsheet skills, including Microsoft word and excel.

Benefits

• Competitive salary: £36,943 to £44,900 per annum.
• Agenda for Change pay scheme.
• Band 5 position.
• Permanent, full-time contract.