<div><p>An internal opportunity has arisen for one full-time Band 3 Secretary/Administrator within Community Care Services at Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust.</p><p>This role provides a comprehensive, high-quality administrative and reception support service, acting as a key point of contact for patients, service users, carers, and health professionals. The post holder will support clinical and operational teams to ensure the effective, timely and confidential management of information and access to services.</p><p>The post holder will have responsibility for supervising administrative staff, allocating tasks and supporting the smooth running of the service.</p><p>You will have experience working in an administrative role, ideally within the NHS or a healthcare setting, with strong IT, organisational and communication skills. You will be able to manage competing demands, work accurately with confidential information, and provide a high standard of customer service.</p><p>An NVQ Level 3 in Business Administration or equivalent experience is essential. Experience of patient administration systems and working in a busy office environment is desirable.</p><h3>Main duties of the job</h3><ul><li>Supervisory responsibilities</li><li>Act as first point of contact, providing reception services for patients, carers, staff and visitors</li><li>Manage telephone, email and general enquiries, prioritising and escalating as appropriate</li><li>Arrange clinics, appointments and meetings, including diary management and record keeping</li><li>Create, update and maintain electronic patient records in line with Trust policies</li><li>Input, retrieve and quality‑check sensitive and confidential information accurately</li><li>Support referral pathways and liaise with internal and external agencies as required</li><li>Produce reports, statistics and performance information using Trust IT systems</li></ul><p>Maintain supplies, support administrative systems, and highlight operational issues. Contribute to service improvement activity and provide cover for colleagues when required.</p><p>VALUES - You will role‑model Mersey Cares CARES values and contribute to a Just and Learning Culture, promoting Civility and Respect in all interactions.</p><p>This vacancy is open to internal Mersey Care colleagues only.</p><h3>About us</h3><p>Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.</p><p>We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.</p><p>At the heart of all we do is our commitment to perfect care – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. Were currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.</p><p>Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.</p><h3>Job responsibilities</h3><p>Act as a point of contact, receive and direct patients and visitors on arrival, providing reception services for patients, carers, staff, public, internal, and external customers.</p><p>Sort and prioritise incoming queries in line with the written guidance. Respond to all telephone, e-mail and general enquiries ensuring that appropriate messages are emailed, or action is taken, escalating enquiries as and when required. Provide demographic details of cases when requested. Liaise with colleagues at all levels both within the team and across other agencies and in other organisations to request and compile health information in a timely manner.</p><p>Responsibility for arranging clinics, booking appointments and associated data entry including the retrieval and maintenance of electronic patient records. Responsibility of creating new records and discharging records on the electronic records system.</p><p>Ensuring the maintenance of the referral pathway process following Service procedures including liaison with other agencies and seeking consent as necessary. Input patient sensitive/confidential information onto patient administration system ensuring accuracy, updating information as appropriate. Record accurate and timely contact notes with patients on electronic record in line with Trust record keeping policy.</p><p>The post holder will propose any necessary changes of local protocols to aid service improvement, and to ensure that all standard operating procedures and guidance documents are kept up to date.</p><p>Maintain appropriate supplies for the team, being responsible for all necessary ordering of supplies/equipment.</p><p>Produce statistics, documents and reports using various computerised systems as appropriate, for example data relating to key performance indicators.</p><p>To highlight any operational concerns regarding administrative systems so that they can be reviewed. Work closely with clinical and operational teams to ensure that rotas are up to date and shared with the appropriate person. Participate in all necessary mandatory and targeted training to update skills and knowledge. Maintain comprehensive electronic health records as per standard operating procedures.</p><p>Deal with all communications/correspondence confidentially as per Information Governance Policy and information sharing guidance. Supervision of other administrative support staff. Ensure the creation of new clinical records. Facilitate and contribute to meetings including booking meeting rooms, arranging refreshments, taking, and circulating notes and agendas as necessary. Meetings include but not limited to MDT meetings and service/team meetings.</p><p>Support diary management as required. Work with others to plan ahead and manage diary commitments ensuring equal balance and best use of time for meeting commitments.</p><p>Participate and be engaged in service improvement initiatives/activities to enhance quality of patient care. For example, participation in task and finish groups.</p><p>The post holder shall follow all the policies and procedures of the organisation. Commit to the vision of supporting Mersey Care in becoming a leading organisation in the provision of community services, mental health care, addiction services and learning disability care, and in doing so fully utilise their skills and experience to support the objectives of the Trust.</p><p>Role model the values of the Trust Continuous Improvement, Accountability, Respectfulness, Enthusiasm and Support in all activities and interactions with employees, service users and other stakeholders. Challenge the stigma associated with mental health and learning difficulties.</p><p>Comply with the Duty of Candour, defined by Francis as: The volunteering of all relevant information to persons who have/ may have been harmed by the provision of services, whether or not the information has been requested and whether or not a complaint or report about that provision has been made... (policy provisions). Continue to work across professional and organisational boundaries to improve services for all; maintain knowledge and skills; respect equality and diversity across all areas of working practice and communications with staff, service users and other stakeholders.</p><p>Lead the team in maintaining a positive environment for Just and Learning Culture, including participating in Just and Learning Culture events, and bringing updates to the team. Participate in creating an open culture within your team so concerns can be discussed safely and respectfully; speaking up against incivility and fostering respectful communication.</p><h3>Person Specification</h3><h3>Qualifications</h3><ul><li>NVQ Level 3 in Business Administration or equivalent</li><li>Educated to GCSE standard or equivalent</li><li>OCR or equivalent</li><li>Customer Service Qualification</li></ul><h3>Knowledge/experience</h3><ul><li>IT literate</li><li>Proven experience of Word processing, spreadsheet, and email software</li><li>Experience of using patient administration systems</li><li>Effective communication and interpersonal skills including telephone skills and face to face communication</li><li>Demonstrable knowledge of supervising other secretarial/administrative staff</li><li>Experience of general administration office skills - filing, photocopying, faxing, note taking.</li><li>Experience of working to conflicting demands and working effectively within teams.</li><li>Ability to work in a confidential and sensitive manner.</li><li>Ability to plan, prioritise and schedule own work.</li><li>Ability to work without supervision.</li><li>Able to work flexibly in accordance with service needs.</li><li>Ability to develop databases.</li><li>Computerised information systems</li><li>Demonstrable knowledge of supervising other secretarial/administrative staff</li></ul><h3>Skills</h3><ul><li>Keyboard / Word Processing / Data Input</li><li>Good organisational and interpersonal skills</li><li>Ability and willingness to travel across the Trust</li></ul><h3>Disclosure and Barring Service Check</h3><p>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.</p></div>