Leeds Teaching Hospitals

Senior Medical Secretary (XN04)

The closing date is 31 March 2026

Job summary

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a full-time senior medical secretary within the National PNH Service. This role is a permanent post. This would be an ideal opportunity for someone looking to expand their experience and knowledge. The successful candidate will provide comprehensive secretarial and administrative support within the National PNH Service, based at Bexley Wing, St James's Hospital.

We are looking for someone who is highly motivated, flexible, and hard-working. General secretarial duties will include the typing of correspondence, clinic letters, minute-taking, diary management, dealing with telephone enquiries, and supporting various referrals to treatment targets.

Expected Shortlisting Date

01/04/2026

Planned Interview Date

08/04/2026

Main duties of the job

As an experienced medical secretary/personal assistant, you should possess excellent organisational skills and be used to working with senior colleagues in a complex, busy environment. In addition, you will be required to arrange and attend meetings, including agreeing on agendas and minute-taking.

Good interpersonal and communication skills are essential. You must have experience and expertise in audio typing, with excellent IT skills and a professional telephone manner. You will need to be able to demonstrate exceptional skills in customer care and, in particular, ensure all matters relating to your work are dealt with in a sensitive and timely manner. You will be able to adapt, prioritise your workload, and take initiative. An understanding of the need for confidentiality is essential.

About us

We are one of two designated centers commissioned to provide specialist support to PNH patients and their families throughout the country. The service is delivered from the Haematology department in Bexley Wing, St Jamess University Hospital, with currently eight outreach clinics in cities throughout the United Kingdom.

The successful candidate will be working in a small administration team alongside one other secretary and will be secretary to the 2 clinical leads for the PNH service.

This position is a unique opportunity to expand your skills and knowledge working for a national service providing care and support to patients with a rare disease. There are opportunities to learn from the clinical team to understand more about PNH and other related diseases, including attending workshops, participating in case discussions, and gaining insights into patient care practices.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals is committed to our process of redeploying 'at risk' members of our existing workforce to new roles. As such, all our job adverts are subject to this policy and we reserve the right to close, delay or remove adverts while this process is completed. If you do experience a delay in the shortlisting stage of the recruitment cycle, please bear with us while this process is completed, and contact the named contact if you have any questions.

Date posted

12 March 2026

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 4

Salary

£28,392 to £31,157 a year

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time, Flexible working

Reference number

C9298-ONC-0626

Job locations

St. James's University Hospital

Beckett Street

Leeds

LS9 7TF

Job description

Job responsibilities

. JOB PURPOSE/SUMMARY

To provide a consistent and high-quality Personal Assistant (PA) service to a group of clinicians and their teams while supervising the provision of a comprehensive medical secretarial service by a group of staff. The Senior Medical Secretary will have oversight of the referral to treatment time pathway for their consultants patients, ensuring they are managed efficiently and effectively through their agreed clinical pathways and, where it is not possible, that the correct escalation procedures are followed.

. PRINCIPAL DUTIES & AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

The post-holder will:

Provide a wide-ranging PA service to a group of clinicians (the number of whom will be determined by departmental requirements and the job plan commitments of the clinical team concerned).

For the group of consultants responsible for managing the flow of patients, ensuring tests and/or appointments are booked within the necessary timescales, escalating potential for delays to the PSC/Business Manager to ensure that prompt action is taken at all times in order to support strategic capacity/demand planning for the organisation.

At the request of the PSC and where relevant, undertake investigation for informal PALS complaints.

Co-ordinate and transcribe/process responses to formal patient complaints together with the clinician ensuring that investigation outcomes are generated within the timeframe agreed with the patient.

Coordinate and supervise the day-to-day activities and workload of a small team of medical secretaries (and work closely with relevant PSC/Assistant PSCs as appropriate) and any supporting clerical staff.

Support the Team Medical Secretaries to ensure that service provision meets relevant quality standards.

Be the departmental super-user/system administrator for voice recognition and digital dictation

Take a lead in developing new systems and processes to support ongoing service delivery and the maintenance of a high-quality service for the patients of Leeds and beyond.

Senior Medical Secretary role

In managing diaries for the clinical team the postholder will be expected to co-ordinate the cancellation or alternative provision of outpatient activity, ensuring the communication meets Trust targets where appropriate and escalating to the PSC/Business Manager in cases where the cancellation of clinical activity may prevent national targets from being met.

Supervise a small team of medical secretaries and related clerical support staff, including the allocation of work and the organisation of daily departmental cover.

Managing and prioritising departmental workload on a day-to-day basis.

On a regular basis to review relevant waiting time reports (e.g., 18-week reports) for the consultants responsible for ensuring, in all cases, that the next steps for the patient are identified and booked. Where this is not possible, liaise with the Business Manager/PSC for appropriate action to be undertaken.

To support the clinical teams in the delivery of excellent patient care by actively working with colleagues and other departments to ensure that all patients registered within the service are proactively supported through their patient journey (this would include, but is not limited to, liaising with the relevant MDT teams about fast-track patients and escalating clinically urgent patients to the relevant staff groups for action where required).

Ensuring all phone calls are answered within the department during core office hours

Opening and dealing with departmental post and allocating the resulting work to appropriate staff.

Monitoring turnaround times for clinical correspondence and taking corrective action as required, in conjunction with the assistant PSC/PSC, in order to meet the 5-day turnaround standard.

Participate in yearly appraisals for the team medical secretaries together with the PSC/Business Manager to support on-going staff development

Providing PSC/Business Manager and consultant staff with relevant information relating to administrative services.

Take minutes at secretarial staff meetings and attend other administrative meetings as required.

Undertake duties required as the administrator and super user for the digital dictation/voice recognition system, including identifying new workflows, updating workflows as required, and providing general advice on the system to team secretaries.

Responsible for ensuring office equipment is in working order and office supplies are maintained and replenished.

PA/Administrative Support (non-clinical) to Consultant/Clinical Team

Provide a comprehensive PA service to the Clinical Director/Lead Clinician and other medical colleagues.

Provide administrative support to clinical nurse specialists where appropriate.

Support clinicians with their teaching and research portfolios by organising regular meetings with trainees, supporting in the writing of research materials and organising meetings and conferences as and when required. This includes but isnt limited to providing support to academic, educational, research and supervisory roles.

Taking phone calls and covering departmental phones when required.

Deal directly with patient enquiries on behalf of the consultant/clinical team.

Co-ordination of annual leave for consultants, liaising with the Business Manager for approval and then completing the necessary documentation to organise the cancellation of outpatient activity as required.

Administration duties to support departmental clinical audit and clinical governance where required, such as the collation of information for reports.

Diary management for consultant staff, including organising meetings, preparing meeting paperwork and taking minutes as required.

Organising travel arrangements for consultant staff.

Other general administrative duties that may be required to fulfil the role.

THE LEEDS WAY VALUES

Our values are part of what make us different from other trusts, so we see this as a strength, as well as a responsibility. They have been developed by our staff and set out what they see as important to how we work. Our five values are:

Patient-centred

Collaborative

Fair

Accountable

Empowered

All our actions and endeavours will be guided and evaluated through these values

Additionally, the following are core values which relate specifically to this post:

This is a senior secretarial role, and as such, the individual will be expected to work independently as well as part of a team. The individual should be patient, focused, professional and flexible in their approach to work.