Job overview
Monday to Friday - Varied shift patterns from 07:30-18:00
We have a fantastic team of people who are conscientious, caring, reliable, flexible and compassionate, all qualities which are essential to the NHS.
If you want to be part of our team and have the necessary skills, we would like to meet you.
The type of candidate we are looking for is one who has a positive outlook on life, who is open and honest, flexible, reliable, excellent time management skills, hardworking and eager to learn new skills and knowledge.
The successful candidate will be joining the Breast team team who work closely together.
Main duties of the job
The purpose of this role is primarily to ensure that the East Lancashire NHS Trust meets the National Cancer Strategy recommendation to ensure that people living with and beyond cancer are fully supported and their needs are met.
A key element of the role is to provide practical support to multi-disciplinary clinical teams. In particular, you will work closely with the clinical nurse specialist team to support the delivery of the service they provide to their patients diagnosed with Breast cancer. This will include the triage of incoming calls, from patients, relatives, carers, and other health and social care professionals. You must therefore, communicate information with a high degree of empathy, understanding, diplomacy, honesty and integrity.
Working for our organisation
Established in 2003 East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) is a large integrated health care organisation providing high quality acute secondary healthcare for the people of East Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen.
Our vision is to be widely recognised for providing safe, personal and effective care. We currently provide high quality services and treat over 700,000 patients a year from the most serious of emergencies to planned operations and procedures. We employ over 8,000 staff, many of whom are internationally renowned and have won awards for their work and achievements
We’re looking for people who want to make a positive difference. You’ll make it happen by taking responsibility, building trust and respect and working together to deliver excellence to our service users. Where we can, we also like to keep things simple so that we all contribute to making ELHT an effective, positive and rewarding place to work.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The role sits within the Cancer Services directorate which is part of the Surgical and Anaesthetic Division. The post-holder will be required to travel between hospital sites in order to meet the needs of the role but will be primarily based at Burnley General Hospital.
This role requires a good understanding of cancer patient pathways. The Cancer Support worker will also need the appropriate skills to recognise when patients require immediate or rapid referrals to appropriate members of the multi-disciplinary team, and feel confident to deal with challenging situations and hold difficult and sensitive conversations with patients and families.
The role will involve completing holistic needs assessment with patients and acting on their behalf as a patient advocate to ensure their voices are heard and they can access any services they may require.
Person specification
Education and Qualifications
Essential criteria
* Educated to GCSE level 4 or above or equivalent
Desirable criteria
* Educated to A level or equivalent
* Communication skills training
Experience
Essential criteria
* Experience of working with professional teams a across health care settings.
* Communicating with patients and carers using various modes of communication.
* Use of IT systems.
Desirable criteria
* Working in a clinical environment
* Working with gynaecology and or cancer patients
* Working as a team
Skills, knowledge and special aptitudes
Essential criteria
* Ability to communicate verbally in a clear and effective way, both face to face and on the telephone; to make oneself easily understood; polite and friendly telephone manner
* Ability to deal effectively with a wide range of people (e.g. Patients, Carers, Clinicians, Nurses and other professionals from all sectors of health and social care) in a helpful manner
* Ability to prioritise workload and to quickly re-prioritise own work in light of unexpected events; to plan own work for the day/week
* To be able to use own initiative and be aware of where assistance is required.
* Ability to react to a changing situation and use problem solving skills as required
* Understanding of basic medical terminology
Personal Qualities
Essential criteria
* Conscientious, self motivated to produce good quality work
* Ability to maintain effectiveness and remain calm when under pressure, to cope with unexpected demands
* Proactive, able to work on own initiative and deal with wide range of enquiries
* Flexible