Job responsibilities
Theatre Scheduling team
Knowledge and Experience
- An ability to manage logistics within a spatial framework on a live document within constraints and targets
- A highly developed ability to be flexible and adapt to changes, some with immediate effect on a constant basis
- Able to work without management supervision and with a certain degree of autonomy
- Must have an orderly and methodical approach at all times with attention to detail and accuracy, despite being under pressure from constant telephone calls and interruptions. This includes the foresight and ability to pre-empt problems and being able to guide staff through the appropriate processes
- Able to support supervisor with delegated tasks, other scheduling officers and apprentice as required
- Ability to self-reflect to ensure efficient processes and communication with stakeholders
IT Proficiency
Proficient computer skills including
- Use of relevant hospital systems (PAS, TrakCare, Theatre Man etc.)
- A good understanding of Microsoft Office software, including Teams, Excel, PowerPoint and Word
- To be familiar with, and able to work with the Trust Information Systems including SharePoint software and support continuous improvement contributions from key stakeholder leads (TrakCare and Business Intelligent)
Post holder should have the ability to create, modify and print from the systems as well as resolving queries and errors. The job requires the ability to support audits to match manual and electronic data.
Communication and interpersonal skills
- Must have excellent communication skills to be able to negotiate with staff in circumstances that require good listening skills and tact
- Ability to find ways of solving or pre-empting problems
Organisational skills
- An excellent understanding of the need to maintain accurate patient information (which is regarded as highly confidential) and keep it securely on both the computer system and paper records
- Must be aware an overarching general knowledge of Trust Values and Vision
Key outputs
Theatre floorplans
- To undertake the day to day processes associated with the provision of a series of comprehensive theatre floorplan to achieve:
- A fully-utilised resource which impacts partially on the Trusts ability to achieve the national activity targets and fully impacts on the Trusts ability to achieve the surgical waiting times target
- A tool for the use of the theatre and anaesthetic staff to allocate resources, (human, equipment and stock), to the right theatre at the right time. Without this function, patients would be cancelled, which, again, would impact on the Trusts surgical targets
- A tool for the use of Medical Secretaries, General Managers and Booking staff to manage the timetables of medical staff, including the re-utilisation of vacant lists
- A tool for the use of Pre-Assessment staff, Booking staff and Medical Secretaries to manager the booking of patients on theatre lists
- A tool that provides the same information concurrently to all of the stakeholders to aid decision-making on capacity and demand
- A tool to identify any extra capacity in the event of increased demand
To ensure that the theatre floorplan is maintained, updated and disseminated rapidly and efficiently, on a regular basis, with the purpose of preventing any personnel logistical errors, (for example, the possibility of two surgeons, with two lists of patients, arriving for the use of the same theatre)
- Including updating the Specialty and Centralised Medical Leave Worksheets
- Providing training to the services on how to update their respective medical leave worksheets to ensure the information is captured accurately at all times
To ensure that changes on the Medical Leave Worksheets which are driven by outside forces are swiftly reflected on the floorplans, such as:-
- Indicating cancelled lists from the floorplans to inform all stakeholders of vacant capacity
- The creation of private patient lists so that the data is included in the utilisation figures
- Creating additional lists as requested by surgeons who want to increase their operating time
- Creating lists for the emergency patients from data submitted by the Emergency Co-ordinator in theatres
- Changes implemented by the outside staff, such as staff working in the community hospitals
Stakeholder engagement
- To engage with Theatre and Anaesthetic teams when requesting additional sessions or cancelled sessions to be reinstated
- To ensure that all the stakeholders are informed of every change that is made to the floorplans, especially the key stakeholders theatre nursing staff, medical secretaries and anaesthetic medical secretaries. (Failure to communicate effectively could mean, for example, that an anaesthetist is committed to a list that has already been cancelled)
- Checking and chasing up any computer data not completed by the nursing staff in theatres regarding the movement of patients through the theatres.
This key information ensures the accuracy of the theatre utilisation reports for the Trust Board, which are a measure of surgical activity targets
Patient information, Reporting and Data management
- To ensure that all information, particularly confidential information relating to patients, is filled in an orderly and secure fashion
- To conduct audits to ensure accuracy of information and create, run, amend and produce reports from the Theatre floorplans e.g. monthly figures around the total number of cancelled sessions and split sessions
- Support with the processes around the patient cancellation post to ensure accurate capture of information and communication with the respective services
- Support theatre management and BI in the development of automated reports within the scheduling remit
