Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, (LGT), is a community-focused provider of local and acute care, delivering high-quality services to over one million people living across the London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich, and Bexley. We provide whole-life care and are here to support our communities to live healthier lives as well as taking care of them when they need us the most.
Employing almost 7,500 colleagues, affectionately known as Team LGT, we provide services at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, University Hospital Lewisham, and at over a dozen community settings in Lewisham. We also provide some services at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup.
We have recently launched our new vision and values to mark the LGT10 – the tenth anniversary of our Trust forming in 2013. Our trust vision is to be exceptional. In the quality of our patient care; our support for colleagues; and in the difference we make through our partnerships and in our communities.
To achieve this we value Respect, Compassion, and Inclusion; Being accountable over staying comfortable; Listening over always knowing best; and Succeeding together over achieving alone.
Our hospitals and community sites provide a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services, as well as emergency and planned care. The Trust is rated as “good” or “outstanding” in over three-quarters of the services inspected by the Care Quality Commission.
Every year our work includes performing 10,000 procedures in our theatres; bringing seven and a half thousand new lives into the world; carrying out 570,000 visits to patients in their homes or communities and providing emergency care for more than 300,000 patients arriving in our busy Urgent and Emergency Departments.
LGT is a centre for the education and training of medical students enrolled with King’s College London’s GKT School of Medical Education. We are a training centre for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals. We are pioneering new roles that will support the changing needs of our patients and are one of the largest employers of physician associates in the country.
We are committed to working with our partners to deliver the best outcomes for our local communities. This means playing an active role in the South East London Integrated Care System (ICS), and in formal partnerships including the South East London Acute Provider Collaborative, provider partnerships with our local mental health trusts and borough-based boards of the ICS in Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham.
An exciting opportunity has arisen within the Cancer Services department for the role of Cancer MDT Coordinator at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust. This post provides an opportunity to join an enthusiastic Cancer Services team within the Trust. This is a key post within cancer services and an exciting opportunity to coordinate the ongoing work and service development across our integrated organisation. We are looking for an innovative, enthusiastic and dynamic individual who is well organised and motivated to join our cancer data team.
The role is based at Lewisham Hospital with potential cross cover at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
PLEASE NOTE: We are unable to offer sponsorship for this post
Main duties of the job
The post holder will ensure that all their assigned Cancer MDT is managed and coordinated effectively and is responsible for maintaining consistently tracked suspect cancer pathways to a high standard.
This role involves navigating patients through their pathways to treatment or discharge, ensuring that all patients are escalated in a timely manner to managers & clinical teams when needed and coordinating the preparation and chairing of MDM meetings, with the aim of improving the care and experience of cancer patients treated within the Trust.
Experience within cancer services and knowledge of Cancer Waiting Times guidance and working knowledge of Somerset would be desirable as well as a good understanding of patient pathway navigation and MDT management/coordination. In return we can offer you an interesting and rewarding opportunity to make a valuable contribution to the delivery of patient services.
Working for our organisation
Our people are our greatest asset. When we feel supported and happy at work, this positivity reaches those very people we are here for, the patients. Engaged employees perform at their best and our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiatives contribute to cultivate a culture of engagement. We have four staff networks, a corporate EDI Team and a suite of programmes and events which aim to insert the 5 aspirations:
1. Improving representation at senior levels of staff with disabilities, from black, Asian, and ethnic minorities background, identify as LGBTQ+ and women, through improved recruitment and leadership development
2. Widening access (anchor institution) and employability
3. Improving the experience of staff with disability
4. Improving the EDI literacy and confidence of trust staff through training and development
5. Making equalities mainstream
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Job Summary:
6. To Coordinate the Trust Multi-disciplinary Team (MDT) meetings and provide administrative support.
7. To coordinate specialist inter-Trust Multidisciplinary Team meetings (SMDT) held via videoconferencing and provide administrative support.
8. To collect and register all patients diagnosed with cancer using Trust’s Cancer Information System.
9. To track all patients referred with an urgent, suspected cancer and all patients with a positive diagnosis of cancer at Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Trust.
10. Ensure all cancer patients with a potential to breach the two-week wait, 31 and 62 day cancer waiting time targets are identified and presented at the respective multi-disciplinary team meetings.
11. Manage individual pathways within the MDT forum to ensure delays are minimized or eradicated.
12. Develop good communication channels with the Cancer Centre.
Main Responsibilities:
13. Co-ordinate the list of patients identified to be discussed at the Trust/Specialist Multi-disciplinary Team meetings. This may involve identifying and adding incidental findings to the list, checking pathology results /reports checking admission list, chemotherapy data and palliative care reports.
14. Add cancer waiting time dates in the list to ensure all MDT members are informed about the patient pathway dates.
15. Provide cover for other MDT coordinators in any leave of absence.
16. Track all patients referred with an urgent, suspected cancer and all patients with a positive diagnosis of cancer using referrals, pathology and inpatient reports, and MDT lists.
17. Prospectively monitor the patient journey times for all patients in the above categories.
18. Ensure all potential breaches are identified in a timely manner and by linking in with the Cancer Multi-disciplinary Team Co-ordinators ensure all potential breaches are discussed at the multi-disciplinary team meetings.
19. Develop a management plan for each identified patient enabling corrective action to be taken to ensure the 31 and 62 day cancer waiting time targets are met and patient experience is improved.
20. Ensure a robust system to collect and monitor information is developed and implemented.
21. Ensure completeness of cancer waiting times data.
22. Produce report of breach analysis and outcomes on monthly basis.
23. Collate all relevant internal and external information such as previous scans reports and liaise with relevant MDT members.
24. Establish connection for all SMDT meetings via video conferencing.
25. Take full responsibility of collecting MDT attendance of all attendees.
26. Ensure all relevant details are completed in MDT proforma and highlight to the MDT lead if there are gaps.
27. File MDT Management plans in patient notes.
28. Record audit quality treatment data for Cancer Reform Strategy, Thames Cancer Registry and National Audits.
29. Follow Trust’s data collection protocol.
30. Support the Cancer teams in retrieving all missing data to ensure data is complete, correct, consistent and secure.
31. Ensure any Inter-trust transfers (ITT) are sent within 38 days and tracking of patients at external trusts is carried out in line with cancer targets. Any breaches are recorded with a breach reason and a breach analysis is produced.
32. Ensure all information is available to all relevant members (secretaries, mangers and booking clerks) to ensure national targets are met.
33. Highlight capacity issues to Trust’s management team.
34. Escalate any delays to the relevant parties
35. Highlight any problems and propose changes to the Trust’s management team.
36. Ensure patients notes are correctly tracked and made available to the MDM and are tracked back to the relevant people.
External Responsibilities
37. Develop good communication channels with the Cancer Centre.
38. Co-ordinate patient referral information to/from the Cancer Centre, to reduce delays in any aspect of the pathway and prevent breaches.
Service Redesign
39. Work closely with the Service Improvement Facilitator highlighting the reasons for potential breaches and possible areas for demand and capacity work and possible service redesign.
General Responsibilities
40. Awareness of the Data Protection Act and responsibility regarding confidentiality.
41. Abide by all Statutory, Trust and Care Group policies and procedures.
42. Attend mandatory training courses as identified through supervision and individual performance review.
43. Participate in individual performance review in regular supervision sessions as agreed.
Person specification
Essential criteria
44. NVQ 4 or equivalent
Desirable criteria
45. EDCL
46. Medical Terminology
Skills and Abilities
Essential criteria
47. Working knowledge of patient administrations systems (PiMS, iCare, etc.)
48. Good written and verbal communication skills
49. Good time management and organisational skills
50. Data entry skills - high accuracy/proficiency
Desirable criteria
51. Previous experience of Somerset (SCR) cancer data system
52. Experience of working in the NHS or a healthcare environment
Experience
Essential criteria
53. Experience of patient pathway navigation and escalation
54. Experience of retrieving & interpreting information from databases
55. Experience of working within a health care environment
Desirable criteria
56. Experience of working as an MDT coordinator/navigator or as part of multidisciplinary team.
Knowledge
Essential criteria
57. Understanding of cancer waiting times targets & cancer patient pathways
58. Knowledge of the Cancer Waiting Times (CWT) targets
59. Good understanding of confidentiality issues
Desirable criteria
60. Understanding of patient pathway tracking and escalation
We reserve the right to close the post before the stated closing date, please apply early. We do not contact applicants with the outcome of the shortlisting. If you have been shortlisted, you will receive an invite to an assessment day or interview.
As a local employer and anchor institution we work closely with our community to recruit locally and we welcome applications from the widest variety of people to ensure our workforce are reflective of the local communities which we serve. We encourage all suitable candidates to apply including if you are Black, Asian or other ethnic minorities, live with a disability (visible or not) or are LGBT+. We have a number of active staff networks including Disability, LGBT+, Multicultural Inclusion and Women’s staff networks to bring staff together and celebrate diversity across our whole workforce.
Please note, not all roles will meet the criteria for a skilled worker visa.
Applicant requirements
The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Application numbers
To ensure fairness and manageable shortlisting processes, some vacancies may have an application cap. This means the vacancy will close once a set number of applications have been received even if this happens before the advertised closing date.
We recommend applying as early as possible to avoid missing out. All applications received before the cap is reached will be considered equally and assessed against the person specification.