Administrator/Receptionist

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is situated on the west coast of Lancashire, with services covering the local authority areas of Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre. The Trust is part of the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System (ICS) supporting a population of around 1.6 million people. We have three main hospitals providing acute services to around 330,000 local residents. The organisation also provides specialist tertiary care for cardiac and haematology services, delivers community health services to over 445,000 residents including those in North Lancashire and hosts the National Artificial Eye Service across England. Plus, we provide urgent and emergency care services to an estimated 18 million people who visit the seaside resort each year. We employ over 7000 people from 68 different countries. We welcome and encourage applications from anyone with protected characteristics, as well as supporting reservists and Veterans who are looking for a rewarding and challenging career within the NHS. Blackpool Teaching Hospitals encourages flexible working in all our roles to support staff in maintaining a healthy home-life balance. Working patterns such as part-time working, self-rostering, compressed hours, annualised hours, term time, reverse term time and flexitime working can be explored.

This post is based within the Primary Intermediate Mental Health Team (PIMHT). The post holder will work closely with the Administration Manager and the team to provide a full administrative and secretarial service. Key tasks for the post holder are to coordinate and provide administrative support to all staff within the service, including taking and processing referrals, usually by email, entering these on the clinical record keeping system, managing the appointment system, handling client information, answering phone calls to the service and covering reception. The post holder may occasionally be expected to undertake work from various bases when required.

Main duties of the job:

• To provide a comprehensive administrative and information service to the Primary Intermediate Mental Health Team, in respect of managing appointments, dealing with correspondence, composing routine and non-routine letters as required and other documentation related to the service and taking personal responsibility for confidential issues.
• To manage incoming calls, emails, post and messages, dealing with those aspects that do not require the personal attention of the senior staff, and subsequent direction to the appropriate member of the department/organisation.
• To be responsible for arranging, convening and the administration of meetings, including booking rooms, drafting agendas, collation of papers for distribution, ensuring availability of reports, taking and preparation of action notes and minutes.
• To establish and maintain effective office systems, including the maintenance of referral, filing and archiving systems and other related documents that would be required for internal and external review, including data collection, with the use of Excel spreadsheets.
• To maintain and update clinical and non-clinical electronic systems.
• To provide information to clinicians and/or managers about actions from meetings, due dates, review dates for policies, procedures and protocols as appropriate.
• To maintain confidentiality of patient information, ensuring all patient records are correctly stored, and telephone conversations are not overheard by the public.
• To liaise with clinicians when receiving queries from families, healthcare, social care professionals and other agencies.
• To input service and patient information onto the appropriate clinical systems, ensuring data quality is maintained, prioritising information effectively to ensure patient confidentiality is not breached.
• To be responsible for using own initiative to prioritise, plan, action and complete own day to day work in line with local and national access and waiting targets.
• To support the local induction of new administrative team members, including one to one training on software packages and office procedures.
• To establish and develop an effective working relationship with the administrative and clinical team, to ensure that their work is fully supported and presented in an accurate, timely and appropriate manner.
• To maintain a working knowledge of all aspects of the work of the team, and the wider NHS environment.
• Identifying personal training opportunities keeping up to date with Knowledge and participation in Trust mandatory training as appropriate.
• To liaise as required with other members of staff within the Trust and external organisations as necessary.
• To be aware of the workload and pressures and provide support to other members of the administrative team, where and when necessary.
• To be prepared to work flexibly to support the team in ensuring that the service continues to run smoothly during holiday and sickness times. This includes providing admin support to our Rough Sleepers service when required.
• To support the clinicians/managers, in line with agreed departmental administrative objectives and procedures.
• In discussion with other members of the team, to suggest appropriate working practices, which will enhance the service.
• Ensure a supply of essential items is maintained (e.g. office equipment, clinical supplies and stationery stock).
• There may be opportunities to undertake other duties and responsibilities of a similar level from time to time subject to prior agreement.

Person specification:

• Education & Qualification: Good level of basic education to include GCSE maths and English, NVQ level 2, or evidence of administrative knowledge and skills equivalent to level of qualification NVQ 3 Team Leadership or Business Administration or Customer care or equivalent experience.
• Experience & Knowledge: Good knowledge and understanding of reception / office procedures. Experience of working with a range of Microsoft Office packages (e.g. Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Access). Experience of using Trust IT systems. Experience of working in Healthcare.
• Skills & Ability: Excellent communication / customer care skills both written and verbal demonstrating sympathy and compassion. Advanced keyboard / IT skills including audio typing. Ability to manage and prioritise own and others’ workload and use own initiative. Good organisation skills and ability to multitask. Ability to take and transcribe notes of meetings in a timely manner. Ability to maintain relevant recording and information systems. Ability to deal professionally with enquiries from staff, service users and stakeholders. Ability to problem solve. Understand confidentiality and apply the principles in everyday working practice. Work effectively and flexibly as part of a team to meet the needs of the services.

Any invitation to interview will be sent to the email account stated on your application form. If the role you have applied for requires a Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) check we will administer this as part of your pre-employment checks. Please note, you will be required to repay the cost on appointment. This will be collected via a salary deduction. You can choose whether to pay this over 1-3 months from your salary or as a one-off payment on commencement in post. The level of check required depends on the role that you have been offered. Currently the charges are - Basic DBS check £25.50, Standard DBS check £25.50 and Enhanced DBS check £53.50. You are encouraged where possible, to register for the DBS update service. This is an annual registration fee of £16. By registering for the update service you will not have the additional cost of repeated disclosures. Should you withdraw your application, you may be required to reimburse the cost of the DBS check. DBS checks remain free of charge for volunteer positions. By submitting an application for this vacancy you are confirming your agreement to the above in the event you are successfully appointed. The DBS Code of Practice can be accessed here. Please ensure that you read the Person Specification attached below as your application will be judged against this.

Please note that every effort will be made to keep the vacancy live until the published closing date, though there may be instances where such interest is generated, that for administrative reasons the post may close earlier. Please note that in line with national NHS guidelines this Trust operates a strict non-smoking policy. Members of staff are not permitted to smoke on Trust premises or grounds at any time nor take breaks during working hours for the purposes of smoking. The Trust does not offer interview expenses to shortlisted candidates unless indicated in the advert.