Theatre Personal Assistant / Secretary

Job description

Job responsibilities

Communication

To build a good relationship with all staff within and external to the department, to enable you to help with any issues that arise.

To attend Teams meeting weekly with other departments to update theatre schedules.

To act as the central communication and information co-ordinator to the Directorate promoting efficient and accurate information throughout on a Directorate, Departmental and Trust-wide basis.

To act as the first point of contact between the Directorate and the Trust and other internal and external agencies at both local and national level. Dealing with enquiries and assessing calls for urgency and priority, forwarding calls where appropriate.

To support and facilitate the Management Team in maintain good communications with other Directorates and Senior Management.

The post holder is required to always communicate in a polite and confident manner to all calls received in the office.

To be responsible for the arrangement, coordination of attendance and communication of meetings. Take minutes of meetings as required, producing draft minutes for the relevant Chairs approval, including preparation of agendas and collation of papers for future meetings. Liaising with relevant personnel to chase any action points where necessary.

To partake in the Clinical Governance meeting preparation for Theatre Services. This includes producing the agenda with the Clinical Governance Lead, independently producing a PowerPoint presentation outlining: Complaints, PALS, Datix, Plaudits received. Work with the Directorate Lead Nurse & Matrons on producing a presentation for nursing staffing updates. Sending out meeting invites and taking minutes and circulating these once approved by the Chair.

To maintain Theatre Datix/Complaints/Plaudits database. Co-ordinate the response to all Datix/complaints received ensuring they are responded to within the Trusts policy and time scale. This will require occasional contact with patients advising them of non-clinical advice.

Service Delivery and Improvement

Responsible for providing a responsive and efficient PA support service, including administrative and secretarial support to the Perioperative Theatres Team whilst always maintaining confidentiality, being the central point of contact for the Perioperative Theatre Team.

The post holder is responsible for updating, maintaining and developing electronic confidential filing systems, to co-ordinate and input electronic diaries for all regular and ad hoc meetings.

Responsible for the management of incoming mail and outgoing correspondence, ensuing appropriate distribution and follow up action as required.

Autonomous judgement and experience to decide which documents require immediate attention and drafting non-standard responses.

The post holder will be required to organise their own work tasks and be able to prioritise their workload, deal with any queries that arise during the working day in an efficient and polite manner.

To prepare and develop business plans, briefing notes, summaries and reports as required.

Plans and organises meetings, events and conferences on behalf of the Perioperative Theatre Team.

The post holder is required to use their own initiative when dealing with problems and to make any reasonable and necessary decisions on events as they occur.

Uses skills to investigate Theatre issues and proposes solutions, enabling and dealing with complex enquiries.

Using judgement and experience in helping to determine the relevant urgency of requests and information received from patients and other external organisations.

To manage the many conflicting priorities that the post requires.

Ensuring clear protocols for the prioritisation of work.

In the absence of the Rota Coordinator, to provide cover to ensure the theatre service continuity.

Please refer to JD for any further information.

Person Specification

Essential

Essential

• Ability to prioritise workload without supervision.
• Minute taking skills.
• Diary management.
• Experience of organising events, seminars, meetings, courses and conferences
• Evidence of an advanced working knowledge of Microsoft Office Products.

Desirable

• Project management experience
• NVQ or equivalent in secretarial studies.
• Evidence of a working knowledge of Bluespier and Healthroster.

Skills

Essential

• Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines in tight timescales
• Evidence of having undertaken own development to improve understanding of equalities issues
• Advanced working knowledge of Microsoft Office Products: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

Essential

• Evidence of having championed diversity in previous roles (as appropriate to role).
• Evidence of having undertaken own development to improve understanding of equalities issues

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer details

Employer name

University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust (279)

Address

RSCH

Theatres Level 5, Eastern Road

Brighton

BN2 5BE

Employer's website

https://www.uhsussex.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)