PALS Officer

Job summary

The Complaints and Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) department is led and delivered by Group Corporate Nursing which is accountable for the strategic oversight and management of the Complaints and PALS team at both Sites.

The role of the PALS department is to collect feedback, give non-clinical advice and support with rapid response resolution to informal problems. The PALS team identifies improvement opportunities arising from feedback and monitors the implementation of actions. The PALS department is able to help resolve simple concerns from patients, their families and carers quickly. The PALS service is provided face-to-face, by telephone and e-mail.

The PALS and Complaints departments also ensure that concerns are managed according to Group and Trust policy and the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009, ensuring that information from concerns is used to improve the Trust services at Site and across the Group.

***Please note that previous applicant need not apply and that this vacancy may close early should we receive a large volume of applications***

Main duties of the job

TTThe main tasks include:

Point of contact for patients and carers

To support, respect and actively listen to individual patients and carers, to resolve problems and concerns, by being an accessible and visible presence within the Trust

To work with General Managers, Clinicians and Matrons and others to facilitate speedy resolutions and solutions that will improve the patient experience.

To record the nature of all enquiries to the PALS team, the action taken and the outcomes onto the Trust Risk Management Database (DATIX).

To monitor the data entered onto DATIX, identifying, and reporting on themes and trends to inform and influence service improvements.

To signpost patients, carers and their families to the correct routes

To collect feedback on services and share this with the relevant teams

To provide inpatient support for patients requiring resolutions on the ward after local resolution has failed

To receive compliments and share this with the relevant teams

***For further information on the main duties of the role please refer to the attached Job Description***

About us

With nearly9,000 dedicated staff caring for patients around the clock, they are the largest healthcare provider in southwest London.Their main site, St George's Hospital in Tooting - one of the country's principal teaching hospitals - is shared with St George's, University of London, which trains medical students and carries out advanced medical research. St George's Hospital also hosts the St George's, University of London and Kingston University Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences, which is responsible for training a wide range of healthcare professionals from across the region.As well as acute hospital services, they provide a wide variety of specialist care and a full range of community services to patients of all ages following integration with Community Services Wandsworth in 2010.St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust serves a population of 1.3 million across southwest London. A large number of services, such as cardiothoracic medicine and surgery, neurosciences and renal transplantation, also cover significant populations from Surrey and Sussex, totalling around 3.5 million people.The trust also provides care for patients from a larger catchment area in southeast England, for specialties such as complex pelvic trauma. Other services treat patients from all over the country, such as family HIV care and bone marrow transplantation for non-cancer diseases. The trust also provides a nationwide state-of-the-art endoscopy training centre.