Team Lead - Private Care Division in Kingston upon Thames

The Team Lead role provides an invaluable patient focused service, working within the Private Care unit of the hospital for consultant surgeons and physicians. The main responsibilities will be processing and typing referrals to other organisations, dealing with patient queries and providing a high quality secretarial, administration service at a leading Cancer Centre which prides itself on clinical excellence. It will also include supervising the work of a team of Medical PAs/Secretaries. This will include the undertaking of performance appraisals and objective setting for staff, managing local recruitment processes and managing staff in relation to Trust policy and procedure, with the support of the Business Administration Manager.

The successful candidate will be enthusiastic and experienced, who enjoys patient contact and working in a multi-disciplinary environment to support the delivery of a quality service. You must be able to demonstrate good communication skills, flexibility, reliability and have an organised approach to work.

Main duties of the job:

• Patient access to healthcare professionals and subsequent treatment planning in the specialist hospital setting relies upon good quality organisational and administrative support.
• The medical secretary is often the first point of contact for users of the Trust’s services, and is central to the co-ordination and effective functioning of the Clinical Unit Team.
• The post holder will be responsible for the provision of an efficient secretarial service to a Consultant team within the Clinical Unit.
• They will liaise with all colleagues within the multidisciplinary team, and with internal departments and external agencies to ensure the continuity of patient treatment.

Working for our organisation:

The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust is a world-leading cancer centre. Our role is to offer our patients the best cancer care available anywhere in the world, and to continue to make a global contribution to finding better ways of diagnosing and treating cancer. We employ over 4,500 staff in a diverse range of careers including nursing, medical, science, radiography, pharmacy, occupational therapy, finance and administrative services. We have two hospitals – one in Chelsea, London, and one in Sutton, Surrey – as well as a Medical Daycare Unit in Kingston Hospital.

At The Royal Marsden, we deal with cancer every day, so we understand how valuable life is. When people entrust their lives to us, they have the right to demand the very best. That’s why the pursuit of excellence lies at the heart of everything we do.

At the heart of the hospital is our dedicated team. We offer a stimulating and dynamic working environment, a wide range of staff benefits, learning and development opportunities and clear career pathways. There are opportunities to work flexibly across a range of areas and specialities and we welcome flexible working requests from point of hire to support employees work life balance. We are looking for employees who aspire to excellence, share our values and can play a crucial role in our on-going achievements.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities:

• To assist with arrangements for patient admissions, liaising as necessary with the medical team, diagnostic departments, admissions office, transport desk etc.
• To liaise as necessary with the Senior Sister and clerical supervisors within Outpatients to ensure effective clinic management (for example, cancelling, reducing and overbooking of clinic lists).
• To manage local team meetings and attend secretarial lead team meetings, escalating serious problems to the attention of the Assistant Service Manager.
• Jointly arrange and provide cross cover with the other team leads, supported by the Business Administration Manager.
• To support other departments during times of extreme staff shortage or increased workload to ensure that the Trust provides a continued service to its patients.
• Support the administration of SHO, SpR and Consultant rotas and on-call arrangements as required.
• To supervise the work of Medical PAs/Secretaries, depending upon team arrangements.

Person specification:

• Educated to degree level or equivalent.
• Association of Medical Secretaries and Practice Managers Receptionists (AMSPAR) qualification or equivalent.
• Customer care course/experience.
• Previous experience working as a highly effective PA.
• Experience of working in a hospital or healthcare environment.
• Full range of IT skills, including spreadsheet analysis.
• Ability to work pro-actively and cooperatively with senior management and clinical and admin staff.
• Excellent interpersonal skills with particular ability to liaise and communicate effectively with multi-disciplinary team members.
• Experience of effectively managing challenging/conflict situations.
• Ability to handle sensitive information without compromising confidentiality or trust.
• Experience of training and developing junior staff.
• Evidence of good leadership qualities including ability to motivate others.
• Excellent communication skills across the organisation and with a wide range of staff with differing levels of responsibility and different professional backgrounds.
• Ability to make decisions, organise and prioritise a varied workload, to use own initiative and work unsupervised.
• Ability to use Royal Marsden HIS/EPR system.
• Report writing skills.
• Commitment to self-development.
• Commitment to promoting equality and diversity in the workplace and in service delivery and development.

The Royal Marsden values diversity and is committed to the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority groups. We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates, LGBTQ+ candidates and candidates with disabilities.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we are working to create a workplace that enables all staff to reach their full potential. We are committed to this because we know that greater diversity and inclusion will lead to an even greater positive impact for the people we serve.

Due to the high volumes of applications we receive, we reserve the right to close any adverts before the published closing date once we have received a sufficient number of applications. We advise you to submit your application as early as possible to prevent disappointment. Please ensure your information is accurate to avoid errors with processing your application. All applicants will be contacted by email to the address supplied on your application. Applicants are advised to check their email accounts regularly and to ensure that email filters are set to allow our emails.

Flu Vaccination – What We Expect of our Staff:

At The Royal Marsden we have an immune compromised patient population who we must protect as much as we can against the flu virus. Each year, seasonal flu affects thousands of people in the UK. Occurring mainly in winter, it is an infectious respiratory disease capable of producing symptoms ranging from those similar to a common cold, through to very severe or even fatal disease. The wellbeing of our staff and patients is of the utmost importance to us, and it is the expectation of The Royal Marsden that all patient-facing staff have an annual flu vaccination, provided free of charge by the Trust.