Medical Secretary, Cardiology, Band 3
Closing date: 16 February 2026
Contract: Permanent position at 37.5 hours a week
Main duties of the job
The post-holder will provide an efficient, confidential and professional secretarial service to consultants and their supporting team. This will include administration and secretarial support to enable provision of patient care and specialty services. Good communication with patients, relatives, general practitioners and other hospital staff is essential to ensure a proficient, high-quality service for patients and clinicians. The post-holder will be expected to work as part of the Cardiology team and also support the wider secretarial team as needed.
Main duties include:
* Providing a comprehensive secretarial and administrative service to the medical staff and their supporting team.
* Providing cover for colleagues in their absence to maintain service levels.
* Ensuring excellent communication with patients, relatives, general practitioners and other hospital staff to ensure a proficient, high-quality service for patients and clinicians.
* Ensuring all clinics are used to their full capacity and that vacant slots are maximised, including informing the Booking Office.
* Regularly informing the secretarial supervisor about progress and flagging urgent issues (capacity, delays, difficult queries from patients, etc.).
* Carrying out regular review and administrative validation of the clinician\'s return outpatient wait list.
* Supporting the achievement of Trust performance by ensuring administrative standards are met (e.g., typing times, test results passed to clinician) and escalating any potential 52-week breaches to the clinician, secretarial supervisor or AGM/DGM to avoid breach.
* Ensuring all clinic cancellations/alterations are dealt with efficiently and in line with the Trust\'s 8 week annual/study leave policy.
About us
We provide acute hospital services from two large district general hospitals, Cheltenham General Hospital and Gloucestershire Royal Hospital. Maternity Services are provided at Stroud Maternity Hospital. We remain the major provider of secondary care services in the area and analysis shows that for Gloucestershire we are the leading acute healthcare provider by a significant margin.
Our patients are at the heart of everything we do, and our Secretarial and Administration Teams are dedicated to ensuring that patients receive the very best care throughout their pathway through our services.
Job responsibilities
* Typing correspondence to patients, GPs, medical staff and other required addressees following clinical attendance or other patient contacts using digital dictation or Dragon voice recognition.
* Typing detailed medical reports when necessary.
* Take and transcribe minutes as appropriate.
* Highlighting to clinical team members any results, correspondence or patient queries that need response and taking action (e.g., booking investigations, transcription).
* Ensuring incoming post and results are sorted, any appropriate action taken and passed to the clinician daily.
* Ensuring vacant slots are utilised and informed to maximise capacity.
* Deal with enquiries by letter/e-mail/telephone from patients, GPs, other hospitals, police, solicitors (via legal department), other consultants and management.
* Origination of procedures in negotiation with clinical staff and patients as requested by the secretary supervisor, including coordinating dates, staff, equipment and paperwork.
* Carrying out regular review and administrative validation of the clinicians\' return outpatient wait list.
* Regularly informing the secretarial supervisor about progress and urgent issues (capacity, delays, etc.).
* Liaising with external organisations for patient care (e.g., Social Services, other hospitals).
* Support the development of improvements to working practices and processes and contribute to service reviews.
* Assist in resolving complaints or concerns from patients/carers by collating information and working with the supervisor to respond or escalate appropriately.
* Work as part of an Administrative Support Team, flexibly sharing administrative work to high standards.
* Cover colleagues during absences and may undertake job rotation for cross-cover and development.
* Undertake routine office duties and maintain records in the absence of the band 2 clerical assistant.
* Assist in training and induction for new and existing colleagues; take initiative and adapt to departmental needs.
* Undertake any other appropriate duties commensurate with the role, as required by the line manager.
Person Specification
* Qualifications
* Educated to GCSE grade C or above (or equivalent) in literacy and numeracy
* RSA Level three/Speed typing qualification or demonstrable experience (min 60 wpm)
* NVQ level three in administration or equivalent experience in a hospital or office environment
* Experience
* Experience of working as a secretary
* IT experience with Microsoft Office packages
* IT capable to ensure proficient use of hospital computer systems
* Appropriate experience in a hospital or office environment
* Understanding and previous experience in medical terminology
* Knowledge / Skills
* Able to prioritise own workload and that of others as appropriate
* Personally resilient and able to manage complexity and work in changing environments
* Excellent presentational, communication and interpersonal skills
* Good command and understanding of English, punctuation and grammar
* Proven organisational skills
* Able to take accurate and clear minutes of meetings and distribute them promptly
* Knowledge and awareness of health and safety issues, risk management, and data protection act
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
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.
Employer name
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
£24,937 to £26,598 a year (pa, pro rata if part-time)
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