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.
To be part of an administrative support team who provide a high quality and professional administration service for the Emergency Department. (ED) Promoting a polite, empathetic and efficient Emergency Service to members of the public, their relatives, Trust Staff, GPs and other organisations both face to face and via the telephone. To be proactive and work to ensure the Trust meets all targets relating to the ED.
The role is 4-fold and will include all elements of the following duties to be worked on a rotational and ad hoc basis.
Receptionist, Ward clerk, Administrative support worker, Data administrator
Main duties of the job
In all roles the job holder is expected to:
Act as an ‘ambassador’ for the Directorate in terms of telephone and in person contacts and as a friendly and competent point of access to the Trust for outside organisations.
To maintain effective working relationships at all levels, internal and external to the Trust working collaboratively with colleagues to ensure that administrative resources are used flexibly to meet demand, including providing assistance in times of particular pressure in any area.
To manage own workload acting independently maintaining timely and accurate outputs for all requested work.
To exercise initiative in responding to requests for information/action, including referral to appropriate senior staff
To regularly work unsupervised and, on these occasions, make any necessary decisions to ensure the above service needs are maintained
To contribute to the work of ED to ensure the Trust meets all performance targets relating to the ED
To return to work in the event of a major incident and undertake any tasks as required by the ED controller
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
6. To register patient details on ICare ensuring a high level of data accuracy.
7. Utilize the NHS Spine to search for patient's to ensure accuracy upon registration and escalate any alerts attached.
8. Complete injury forms for any patient's attending with an injury to assist with data collection.
9. To collect, prepare and scan all discharge notes whilst following local procedures to ensure all documentation is safely stored correctly
10. To collect and distribute the On-Call rota to all areas of the department ensuring up to date contact details are available for all staff according to date.
11. Investigating and reporting any IT issues within the department and escalating these when urgent attention is required
12. Identifying and reporting any maintenance issues to relevant teams
13. Ordering supplies or services via the Helpdesk (example: catering, linen, cleaning, porters)
14. The post holder will communicate with Patients and other members of the public.
15. To inform the appropriate clinician if someone is visibly unwell or deteriorating.
16. Respond to patients’ needs deal with patients in a supportive manner both during telephone and face to face communication. This will sometimes include supporting distressed patients, and a sensitive and re-assuring manner is necessary in reducing the likelihood of escalating conflict, Empathy, compassion, patience and sensitivity are key qualities for this role. Patients’ confidentiality must be maintained at all times, as must their privacy and dignity
17. To admit and discharge patients on iCare and scan or photocopy the patient notes in a timely manner, to enable prompt transfers to wards.
18. Monitor several shared mailboxes and to download and attach any documentation received to the correct patient record. This will also include responding to any queries when required
19. To regularly check and maintain stationary stock levels at the reception and escalating to management if further stock is required for ordering.
20. To register Ambulance arrivals and monitor London Ambulance Service attendances throughout the day, updating handover times accurately. Escalating to the nurse in charge when necessary, as well as being responsible for logging any patient handover delays on the Trust’s safeguarding system
21. To record data reflective of the department onto the 2-Hourly flow log.
22. To liaise with and support ED flow coordinators.
23. To deal with written and telephone inquiries from the wards or other departments
24. Processing and sending outpatient referrals to relevant departments when required
25. To provide regular quality checks of work completed by both yourself and your colleagues and urgently amend or escalate any concerns.
26. To participate in administration duties, including, but not limited to answering phones, sending cancellation e-mails, processing post, document date stamping, photocopying, scanning patient records and related documents - sending or taking referral letters to the appropriate departments
27. Booking of hospital transport for patients, in accordance with the hospital Transport Policy. Liaising with the Transport team
28. Provide cover for colleagues during annual leave, sickness and busy periods – this can include working on other sites of the Trust
29. Proficient routine use of the Patient Administration System, undergoing update and development training as required
30. Undertake ongoing role and mandatory training as required and assist new staff with accessing and undertaking training
31. On occasion to manage potentially or actually aggressive, verbally abusive visitors to the department, who must be managed appropriately, in accordance with Trust procedures and protocols, and manager’s direction and guidance
32. Be prepared for lone working on occasions, for example when colleagues are undergoing breaks etc
33. To deal with enquiries, either face to face or over the telephone from a variety of internal and external sources such as: relatives or friends, GP’s, Ambulance Service, Police and internal sources such as Wards, X-ray and Pathology using tact and discretion, referring as appropriate to the line supervisor or manager, ensuring patient confidentiality is not compromised, in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act and other relevant legislation and local policies, ensuring prompt and accurate response to all enquiries
34. To direct commercial and other visitors to the right department ensuring that the relevant personnel are notified
35. Maintain tidy and uncluttered immediate work areas
36. Highlight any referrals which require urgent attention, and process them promptly. This can sometimes require direct discussions with the medical team to confirm where the patient should to be booked to
37. Develop positive, collaborative and effective working relationships across the trust with consultants and their teams including medical secretaries, specialty and general managers
38. Assist nursing staff with ensuring correct wrist band is available in EPRS
39. Facilitate Family and Friends Test completion when a patient is discharged, and support efforts to achieve target completion rates
40. Comply with and understand, in relation to the post-holders immediate environment and duties, all health and safety legislation, as communicated in local policy, direction and guidance, and through Trust provided training
Person specification
Essential criteria
41. Experience in an admin role
42. Experience in a busy/fast pace environment
Desirable criteria
43. Experience within a healthcare setting
44. Experience in a patient or customer facing role
Qualifications
Essential criteria
45. GCSE or equivalent, English Language
46. GCSE or equivalent, Mathematics
47. GCSE or equivalent, IT (Information Technology)
48. Good Standard of further education (NVQ Level 2 or equivalent)
Desirable criteria
49. ICare Trained
50. NVQ Level 2 or an equivalent in an IT related field
Skills
Essential criteria
51. Basic computer literacy (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
52. Good organisational and administration skills
Desirable criteria
53. Ability to use initiative
54. Ability to priortise workload
55. Ability to work well in a team
Knowledge
Essential criteria
56. Basic understanding of practical Data Protection issues
57. Knowledge of child and adult protection issues
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.