Apprentice Access Booking Officer

Job description

Job responsibilities

Key Responsibilities to be gained over the period of the apprenticeship:

To provide a comprehensive outpatient service to patients. The post will rotate through each of the areas within the access office to enable cover in all respects of the service.

Responsible for registration of referral letters, ensuring all referral letters and ERS referrals are directed to the appropriate Consultants and Clinics.

Responsible for booking all new and follow up appointments in accordance with departmental procedures

Liaise directly with patients in relation to booking and agreeing outpatient appointments within the appropriate timescales

Identify, attempt to resolve and pre-empt situations which may result in a breach of access targets. Regularly analyze waiting list information to ensure compliance with national waiting time standards and escalate in a timely manner any requirements for additional capacity to ensure patients are treated within waiting time standards.

With knowledge and understanding of the 18-week RTT and compliant/non-compliant pathways add patients to the waiting list ensuring correct linkage.

Responsible for appointing all patients from the PTLs and managing all Outpatient waiting lists to ensure accurate patient management, enabling the Trust to meet all of its performance targets.

Working under the direction of the operational management teams, when dealing with requests for clinic cancellations; will be responsible for managing the cancellation/reduction of the clinics on PAS and ERS, and the patients future appointments effectively and timely.

Responsible for all clinic template changes due to changes to Medical Rotas.

Manage all appointments on the ERS system ensuring all new appointments which are cancelled by the patient, are discussed with the patient and the appointment either remade or discharged within the appropriate timescales.

Management of the ASI, ensuring the booking of appointment or escalating capacity issues to the appropriate operational team.

Responsible for managing partial booking lists and escalating any problems to the operational management teams/team leader.

Manage all ward forms, ensuring patients are booked for their follow-up appointment or escalate as required.

Retrospectively record all attendances outside clinic as per work instruction.

On rotation ensure the general access office email address is managed timely during the shift.

On rotation, allocated duties include answering the access and booking main telephone line for patient queries and booking.

Ensure compliance with the two week wait rule for all suspected cancer referrals.

The post holder will be required to undertake mandatory training and is responsible for keeping this training up to date.

If the post holder feels he/she is not achieving their objective as agreed in the development plan they will bring it to the attention of their supervisor or manager at the earliest opportunity.

Prioritise own workload on a daily basis while recognising when it is appropriate to escalate to manager.

Participate in the cover of work colleagues during their absences or at other times when required.

Required to contribute to service/department meetings giving progress reports on activity for each consultant and reduction of wait times.

The post holder will support the line manager utilising the proper use of the Trusts resources such as stationery, telephone usage, photocopying and other consumables in the course of business, ensuring minimal waste and minimal cost.

Responsible for data quality when maintaining, inputting, extracting and producing information (including information to patients) in the Trusts multiple computer systems.

To use speed and accuracy with clinical and non-clinical information relating to patient care to ensure patient safety at all times.

To work under own initiative within approved policies, procedures, booking guidelines and escalation processes to make decisions to ensure efficient and patient centred service delivery.

To attend weekly meetings with the operational team to provide information for the access meetings and also to discuss any capacity issues/shortfalls and contribute to help identify a solution.

Responsible for the generation and sending of all letters and appropriate information leaflets, for both paper and electronic referrals booked through Careflow and the ERS System and for partial booking invites.

Receive and handle patient telephone enquiries in an empathic, reassuring, timely, appropriate and confident manner.

Person Specification

Personal Attributes

Essential

• Personal Integrity
• Excellent communication skills

Skills/Ability

Essential

• Good keyboard skills
• Good organisational ability
• Able to organise own workload
• Proven ability to communicate well, both written and oral, relating effectively to patients and staff members
• Ability to consider problems and issues from a referring and patient perspective to adapt processes to reflect this

Knowledge & Experience

Essential

• Able to communicate with a range of people, in a way that is clear and understood.
• Demonstrate an ability to work as part of a teamwork to achieve a common goal.
• Can plan, organise, and effectively prioritise tasks to achieve the required objectives.
• Can effectively manage own time and activity to meet deadlines.
• Demonstrates an understanding of the NHS.

Qualifications

Essential

• Educated to GCSE/NVQ level 2/3 or able to demonstrate equivalent level of knowledge
• Level 2 English and Maths

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 details

Employer name

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Address

Ormskirk DGH

Wigan Road

Ormskirk

L39 2AZ

Employer's website

https://www.merseywestlancs.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)