Therapies Receptionist and Outpatient Appointment Co-ordinator

Job description

Job responsibilities

Key Working Relationships:Internal:Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Therapy Support Workers, A&C staff and other Health Professionals.External: Patients, Visitors, General Practitioners and Consultants.

Risk Assessment:

This post involves working with display screen equipment for the majorityof the post holders working hours. The post holder will participate in non-patient manual handling activities including bending, reaching, and stooping.

There is regular need for prolonged concentration e.g. booking appointments.

There is occasional involvement in distressing and emotional circumstances e.g. dealing with complaints and angry and upset patients by telephone or in person.Exposed to regular interruptions and unpredictable workload patterns.

Job Purpose:

To act as Receptionist and Appointments Co-ordinator for the outpatient therapy Department, providing supervision of more junior staff e.g. Apprentices, Band 2s. To efficiently and courteously deal with all patient enquiries, meeting, greeting and directing patients as appropriate. Maintenance of therapists appointment diaries via PAS booking system, booking appointments and ensuring the efficient day to day administration of the front desk.

Key Duties

1. To manage the day to day running of the therapy's reception working with other reception staff and the therapy team. The majority of this work will be undertaken at your base, but there may be a requirement to work across sites based on your individual job role and/or cover sickness/leave.
2. To meet, greet and direct all patients and visitors to the Department.
3. To deal with the day-to-day incoming referrals. To ensure that all referrals contain the required information to allow pathways to be linked and clock status to be corrected.
4. To ensure that referrals are added to the appropriate outpatient therapies waiting list by speciality for clinical staff to prioritise them within the agreed timescales.
5. To ensure that patients receive an acknowledgement letter or are immediately accepted/appointed in line with agreed booking processes, administrative procedures and the patient access policy.
6. To ensure that all patients receive the correct instructions and correspondence related to their therapies Appointment. To work with the team lead / clinical lead in required changes to letter templates.
7. To ensure therapists diaries on PAS are outcomed at the end of each day.
8. To ensure that all inter-provider transfers are completed electronically to the named nhs.net account within 48 hours of the decision to refer.
9. To cancel and reschedule patients or whole clinics in the event of sickness / unforeseen circumstances requiring last minute changes
10. To regularly review the therapies waiting lists to ensure that it is accurate and up to date, identifying any potential 18 week clock breaches, incorrect clock data and ratify the un-outcomed appointments on a weekly basis informing the appropriate Team Leader of any issues.
11. To regularly review the therapies waiting list to update the appropriate Team Leaders in MSK Outpatients, Pelvic Health, Neurology, Rheumatology, Vestibular and Respiratory with regards the waiting times for treatment.
12. On a monthly basis validate any patients that are showing as having waited longer than an agreed timeframe, so that waiting time information submitted to the PCT is accurate.
13. To make new appointments as appropriate from the partial booking system for all patients referred to the outpatient therapies service.
14. To receive patients at clinic reception, checking details and booking onto the patient administration system. Booking patients out of clinic and/or making follow up appointments as directed by the therapists.
15. To action changes to individual appointments whilst ensuring the patients are seen within the agreed clinical priority and that written confirmation is immediately sent. This involves the managing of messages received by digital platforms e.g. trust text message system.
16. To maintain an accurate filing system for patient records to facilitate retrieval as necessary.
17. To manage telephone enquiries from patients, relatives, Medical Practitioners and Consultants ensuring that the appropriate action is taken including messages for therapy staff.
18. To telephone patients, sometimes at short notice, to offer them appointments or reschedule appointments.
19. To ensure that letter, telephone and face to face communication with patients, colleagues and managers is professional, timely in line with health records policies and procedures.
20. To respond to any queries and complaints from patients, managers or clinicians regarding clinics, referrals, bookings and waiting times, ensuring that any serious issues are passed to the appropriate team leader.
21. To issue and file current treatment cards each day dealing with the DNAs, SOSs and cancellations appropriately.
22. To monitor all outpatient clinics to ensure that all clinic slots are utilised to the maximum and where necessary fill any vacant slots and also to prevent overbooking of clinics.
23. To alert appropriate individual to order stock.
24. To supervise and develop junior administrative staff.
25. To liaise with colleagues to ensure that there is adequate cover during holiday periods and where possible sickness.
26. To ensure that all policies and procedures are adhered to and training undertaken where new policies and procedures are implemented. In particular, those for Health Records, confidentiality, and information security.
27. To participate in yearly appraisal.
28. To make notes available to the legal department as required.
29. To report any maintenance problems to appropriate agencies.
30. To do other clerical duties to facilitate the smooth running of the outpatient department e.g. maintenance of equipment loan records.
31. To ensure that general administrative work associated with referrals, appointments and waiting lists is undertaken according to the expected medical records standards.
32. Due to the shared nature of the department, welcome and redirect patients attending other clinics.
33. To complete micro-session changes on PAS as required
34. To carry out any other duties, within the grade, as requested by other members of your team, Team Leaders, or Therapy Management.

Person Specification

Other Job Requirements

Essential

• Ability to undertake the manual handling aspects of the role on a daily
• basis.
• Willing to undertake in-house courses.
• Awareness of Confidentiality and Information Governance.
• Able to work hours/days required.

Desirable

• Ability to travel / work across sites.
• General understanding of physiotherapy.

Experience

Essential

• Evidence of previous clerical experience.
• Good typing/word processing skills
• Familiar with Windows packages
• Manual and computerised filing systems
• Good knowledge of computerised systems

Desirable

• Reception experience with experience of working with hospital patient IT systems
• Previous NHS experience
• Previous experience of arranging appointments

Skills and Knowledge

Essential

• Proven ability to respond to enquiries appropriately in a timely manner.
• Proven ability of organising and prioritising workload.
• Proven ability to respond to enquiries appropriately in a timely manner.
• Able to maintain departmental records.

Personal Qualities

Essential

• Adaptable and ability to work well under pressure
• Good telephone manner
• Able to work as part of a team
• Good rapport with colleagues and patients
• Flexible approach to working pattern and duties
• Good communication skills-verbal and written

Qualifications

Essential

• GCSEs, grade C or above or equivalent in Maths and English
• RSA II or equivalent qualification or experience

Desirable

• Customer Care training or equivalent qualification or experience.

Internal Job Vacancy

Essential

• This vacancy is currently only open to internal applicants from Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. Could you please confirm below that you work at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.

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

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

Address

Kidderminster General Hospital

Bewdley Road

Kidderminster

Worcestershire

DY11 6RJ

Employer's website

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