Job responsibilities
Provide medical secretarial support for the ORLAU Consultants and senior clinical team.
Provide personal assistant support for the executive aspects of Clinical Director and Consultant roles.
Undertake administrative tasks as required as part of the wider ORLAU admin team.
Undertake day to day supervision of ORLAU admin team.
Demonstrate a high degree of judgment and autonomy in performing day to day duties, planning own workload and monitoring work of admin team members within priorities and protocols as defined by senior management with advice available from manager/clinical staff as necessary.
Provide Medical Secretarial support to ORLAU Consultants and senior clinical team:-
a. Exchange information with patients and staff to arrange appointments and admissions verbally, in person and in written format. This often requires the use of tact and empathy, particularly towards parents/carers of severely disabled children. Patients frequently need to be reminded and persuaded to complete detailed patient questionnaires prior to their visit.
b. Deal with telephone calls from distressed patients or parents, some of which can be verbally aggressive or occasionally abusive, requiring a considerable amount of tact,patience and diplomacy. There will be barriers to understanding, particularly with adults for whom English is not their first language or who may be suffering from degenerative conditions affecting their speech, hearing or cognition.
c. Communicate administrative and clinical informatione.g. funding issues, advice regarding the gait assessment process or referral mechanisms, to a wide range of health service and external agencies in relation to ORLAU services.
d. Schedule patient appointments in the clinical diary. This can be a complex task, requiring an in-depth knowledge of the day to day operation of the Movement Analysis Service and the various procedures undertaken. It requires co-ordination of the diaries of various members of the clinical team together with Outlook diaries for the various clinic rooms.
e. For each patient transaction there is a requirement to update data and information across a range of hospital systems, including Lorenzo, SF4, Electronic Patient Record, ORLAU patient pathway databases and spreadsheets and Outlook clinical diaries, ensuring members of the MDT team can view current patient status.
f. Ensure patients who have not confirmed gait assessment appointments are contacted, and that cancelled appointment slots are filled or converted to other uses.
g. Maintain awareness of clinical activity targets, ensuring the department achieves annual targets for gait assessment activity, reporting any concerns to Manager.
h. Have an overview of RTT in relation to gait analysis waiting lists and bookings. This involves balancing the pressures from patients with an open RTT clock, with the clinical needs of patients without a clock. Generally this is undertaken autonomously using own knowledge and judgement but may occasionally require some liaison with managers and/or clinical staff to agree priorities.
i. Ensure that intended plans for investigation and review arrangements detailed in reports and correspondence are followed through.
j. Chase up the results of investigations. Ensure clinicians are informed without delay if abnormal results are received.
k. Transcribe gait assessment reports, and reports from orthotic and outpatient episodes, the majority of which are complex and specialised in nature, utilising the Trusts BigHand and SF4 Secretary Assistant systems.
l. Attend regular Gait Laboratory Management meetings, contributing to discussions and providing relevant data and information asrequired.
m. Involvement in production of information brochures and flyers about the service, usingappropriate software.
Provide Personal Assistant support for the executive aspects of Clinical Director and Consultant role
a. Arrange meetings which can involve a range of professions and agencies. Make travel arrangements. Organise Consultant diary. Book training. Administer study leave and annual leave requests.
b. Organise the personal diary for the ORLAU Clinical Director and other consultants, ensuring changes are communicated to other diary holders.
3. Undertake administrative tasks as required as part of the wider ORLAU admin team.
a. Update the ORLAU patient pathway databases with booking dates and patient information.
b. Access and update patient information via the Trust PAS system, National Strategic Tracing Service etc.
c. Cover Reception office during periods of reduced staffing. This requires the ability to converse with a wide range of visitors and with patients who will often struggle to communicate due to physical or language barriers. ORLAU treats a diverse range of patients with varying levels and types of disability from across the West Midlands, North and Mid Wales and further afield. This may also involve safe keeping of patient and visitor valuables and occasional while they are visiting ORLAU, ensuring lost property/items left behind in Reception are dealt with appropriately.
d. In all of the above duties the post holder will be vigilant in terms of patients RTT (Referral to Treatment) status and will be proactive in the management of the patient pathway e.g. prioritising typing tasks by RTT status where necessary (taking into account clinical urgency) and ensuring there is no delay in the next stage of the RTT pathway e.g. fast tracking referral to another clinician within the Trust or externally, organisation of investigations or ensuring arrangements are made for provision of orthotic devices.
e. Take and transcribe minutes for monthly admin team meetings.
f. Contribute to the continual improvement of services suggesting changes and additions to processes and procedures as necessary and implementing agreed changes to admin procedures.
g. Participate in six monthly departmental meetings.
h. Use and day to day maintenance of standard office equipmente.g. photocopier, printer, scanner.
Undertake day to day supervision of ORLAU admin team.
a. Participate in recruitment, selection and induction of secretarial and administrative staff.
b. Train and advise secretarial and clerical staff in procedures appropriate to the Movement Analysis Service.
c. Explain administrative procedures to new clinical staff.
d. Monitor admin team workload and work quality, reporting back to Manager as necessary.
e. Initiate and participate in first stages of grievance, disciplinary and capability procedures involving admin team members.
f. Investigate Datix reports and troubleshooting forms that relate to administrative processes.
g. Approve admin team annual leave and other leave requests.
h. Maintain admin team rota, ensuring sufficient cover at all times, setting up short term arrangements to cover periods of sickness and other unexpected leave. This will occasionally involve signing off time sheets for agreed overtime etc.
i. Undertake and record annual appraisals and wellbeing conversations with members of the admin team.
j. Undertake demographic, working from home and other risk assessments with admin team members as necessary.
k. Delegate tasks to admin team members in support of own role.
Additional Information.
a. Concentrate in a busy office with members of the multidisciplinary team constantly in and out with questions and discussion taking place between other team members. Tasks which require particular concentration include scanning in a range of documents to specific folders on EPR system ensuring accurate entry including relevant dates, typing lengthy and detailed gait assessment reports often extending to several pages in length, taking and transcribing minutes of admin team meeting and other ad hoc meetings.
b. Using a VDU for a large percentage of every working day.
c. Employ a high degree of speed and accuracy for audio transcription of gait assessment and other clinical reports, requiring a knowledge of specialised terminology and context and a high standard of grammar and spelling.
d. Handle complex and confidential information about patients which can occasionally be distressing.
e. Deal with the occasional abusive/aggressive caller or patient in Reception Office.
f. Exposure to (i.e. in the vicinity of) screaming and crying etc. from young and sometimes very disabled patients in nearby clinic room.
g. Exposure to (i.e. in the vicinity of) occasional unpleasant smells when patients have been incontinent.
