Community Cardiology Administrator

Southport and Formby Health is an established and successful GP Federation created in 2016 to enhance the delivery of healthcare services to the local population. Our mission is to provide NHS services and shared resources on behalf of local GP practices and we successfully deliver the Community Cardiology Service as part of this mission.

Our aims:

• To provide a greater range of NHS services such as outpatient clinics and diagnostics locally for the benefit of patients.
• To deliver services closer to the patient in their own community.
• To be a high quality, responsive, forward thinking organisation that demonstrates an inclusive culture of encouragement, support and celebration of its diverse workforce and the communities it serves.

The Community Cardiology Service is located within the Family Surgery, Birkdale and back office administration duties take place within our offices located in Southport Business Park. The successful applicant will be flexible between 08.30-16.30, Monday to Friday and be willing to work 25 hours per week for the duration of the 12-month contract.

Main duties of the job include providing comprehensive administrative and reception support within the Community Cardiology Service, ensuring smooth coordination of outpatient and diagnostic pathways. Key responsibilities include:

• Scheduling appointments, processing clinical letters and referrals, and assessing inbound referrals to determine suitability.
• Supporting clinical triage by ensuring all referrals contain appropriate information and by coordinating appointments across multiple cardiology services.
• Acting as the first point of contact for patients, carers, and clinicians, delivering a professional reception service with courtesy and efficiency.
• Managing day-to-day administrative tasks, including booking and rescheduling appointments, managing templates, incoming and outgoing referrals.
• Monitoring service email inboxes, maintaining accurate patient records, and discharging patients back to their referrers once care episodes are complete.

Strong organisational skills, initiative, and attention to detail are essential to support both clinical and non-clinical staff and ensure an efficient patient journey.

The Community Cardiology Service was established in April 2017 and is located within Family Surgery in Birkdale, which is a local, welcoming and comfortable environment for patients compared to larger hospital settings.

Benefits of the service:

• Triage of all referrals is completed by a clinician to determine appropriate next steps.
• Face-to-face appointments if further treatment is required.
• Expert care, with access to a dedicated consultant cardiologist and echocardiogram technician.
• One-stop appointment for most routine appointments with a short waiting time.
• Direct access to appropriate diagnostic tests.

This is a great opportunity to join our small but growing team in the Community Cardiology Service. We are forward thinking and proactive, and every day brings a new challenge to keep us on our toes. Our patients love the service we offer in the heart of the community, and over 95% say they would recommend us to their friends and family when asked in our feedback surveys each month.

Job responsibilities:

• Schedule all outpatient and diagnostic clinic appointments.
• Review and process clinical letters and referrals from clinical team and forward to all appropriate parties.
• On the day of patient appointment (3/4 days per week up to roughly 36 letters).
• In addition of an onward referral to tertiary and secondary care.
• Review all inbound referrals and exercise judgment to accept or reject if necessary with appropriate reasons back to referring clinician.
• Process and signpost all qualifying referrals to the appropriate clinical triage or diagnostic service, ensuring that the consultant or technician has the required supporting information.
• Contact the patient to arrange an appointment with the appropriate outpatient and/or diagnostic service, coordinating appointments effectively between the different services.
• Provide reception for all clinics, acting as the first point of contact to patients, carers and relatives visiting the community cardiology service, receiving them in a friendly and professional manner.
• Prepare diagnostic machines for extended ECGs and ambulatory BP monitors prior to each clinic if required.
• Following the return of equipment to the Community Cardiology Service, download extended ECG and ambulatory BP readings for interpretation if required.
• Return diagnostic reports and clinical management plans to the referring clinician/GP in a timely manner.
• Provide administration support for clinical and non-clinical staff in clinics.
• Deal with telephone enquiries from GPs, patients, and relatives in a courteous and professional manner, and to ensure appropriate messages are passed onto the relevant professionals in a timely manner.
• Use initiative when assisting patients with queries, in person or by telephone.
• Track all outbound onward referrals made by the service to ensure they are received and actioned.
• Manage own workload and daily administrative duties to support the service, including DNAs, tasks to general practice, clinical management plans, booking and rescheduling appointments, scanning documents, and forwarding to the relevant recipient, processing new referrals, and tracking outbound referrals.
• Chase patient test results from other providers.
• Review patient templates, contacting practitioners for information if not provided.
• Check post and scan on patient record, notifying clinician.
• Coding of recall appointments and letters.
• Scan on all Echo results and send to requesting clinician to add recall if indicated.
• Check and manage the Community Cardiology email address inbox and process queries.
• Discharging patients back to the referring clinician once patient care has been completed.

Person Specification:

Qualifications:

• Maths and English GCSE at grade C or above.
• Good standard of general education.

Skills:

• Good typing skills.
• Ability to use own judgement and common sense.
• EMIS Clinical System understanding of medical terminology.

Experience:

• Experience of working in a healthcare setting.
• Previous experience of handling confidential records.

Personal Qualities:

• Ability to manage workload without direct supervision and to use own initiative.
• Ability to prioritise work and complete essential actions.
• Ability to work well in a team.
• Ability to deal with competing demands and remain calm under pressure.
• Flexibility to travel to other sites to work if required.

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.