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Job summary

Main area
Central Booking Office
Grade
Band 3
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
318-24-COR-R12640
Employer
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Gloucestershire Royal Hospital
Town
Gloucester
Salary
£22,816 - £24,336 per annum
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
14/07/2024 23:59

Employer heading

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust logo

Specialist Booking Officer, Band 3- Central Booking Office

Band 3

Join us at an exciting time for Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust! We have an ambitious plan for our journey to Outstanding and are looking for aspirational, committed individuals to join us, making a real difference to both staff and patients.

As a former winner of England for excellence award: Tourism destination of the year, the beautiful city of Gloucester and the scenic regency spa town of Cheltenham are fantastic places to work and live.

As a hospital Trust we are currently involved in over 100 clinical trials and studies, whilst also providing acute elective and specialist services to a population of over 620,000.

By joining Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust new colleagues can look forward to a warm welcome and a future full of opportunities and support.

 

Job overview

To provide a county wide out-patient appointment booking service for patients and clinicians ensuring wait time targets are adhered to and all capacity is efficiently used. 

Monitoring referrals, identifying problems and taking appropriate actions to ensure efficient management of referrals.

To action clinic re-scheduling ensuring that clinical priorities are maintained and liaising directly with services/consultants where capacity problems exist.

To manage follow-up appointments via waiting lists to ensure clinical priorities are maintained.

Making judgments and decisions on flexing template capacity to achieve a balance between clinical priorities and wait time targets.

To ensure that patients receive a supportive and responsive service tailored to their specific needs particularly where barriers to understanding exist.

To ensure accurate and timely data collection.  Advising the management team where over or under capacity issues exist and to suggest ways of addressing these.

Main duties of the job

Highly developed fast and accurate keyboard skills equivalent to RSA 3.

Ability to understand and work with the well-established booking office guidelines and procedures.

Skills and knowledge to analyse information where a number of options exist.

Intermediate IT skills and the ability to adapt with the IT systems used by the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Knowledge and experience of management of waiting lists, PTL's, local and national waiting time targets.

Knowledge of medical terminology and specialty associated tests/investigations.

Emotionally robust with the ability to cope with upsetting situations and challenging behaviour.

Able to organise, prioritise and manage own workload without supervision.

Requirement for prolonged periods of concentration in a noisy and distracting environment.

A supportive team member, able to train new team members.

Working for our organisation

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is the largest employer in the county and with over 8,000 staff, we are one of the largest NHS trusts in the UK.  We offer a generous annual leave allowance, excellent bank rates, access to the excellent NHS Pension Scheme, discounts for local shops, restaurants and services, access to our health and well-being hub, access to our two on-site nurseries, flexible working options, discounted public transport, reward and recognition schemes, exercise and activity classes and membership to our popular hospital choir.

The CBO currently has 100+ staff consisting of Management, Lead Supervisors, Supervisors, Booking Specialists, Support Supervisor and Admin & Phone team.  Once training has been completed, there may be an opportunity to be part of the hybrid working rota. 

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Efficiently monitor and maintain waiting lists, ensuring adherence to Trust and clinical targets for all sites on a county wide basis.

Effectively monitor and maintain the e-RS system ensure accuracy of data,  identification and resolution of system errors.  

Provide an efficient, supportive and informative service to patients, relatives and carers.  

Effective use of county wide clinic capacity to ensure optimum use, involving decisions on flexing clinic capacity to meet new and follow-up clinical and wait time constraints.

Effective use of specialty capacity taking account of varying clinical abilities and clinical specialisms within the clinical teams. Involving decisions to achieve capacity versus demand balance and most effective use of available capacity. 

Using knowledge and experience to provide service managers with timely information to enable action on capacity shortfalls and giving opinions/ recommendations on reallocation of capacity as appropriate.

Manage timely and efficient processing of referral letters, progress chasing with GPs and consultants as necessary.

Timely and accurate cancellation of clinics and appropriate re-scheduling of appointments.  

Identifying issues with both internal and external processes that may impact the work of the CBO, escalating to the relevant staff members.

Follow numerous CBO and trust wide processes and policies.

Using tact and persuasion to encourage patients who may be highly anxious or distressed to attend for procedures which they often hold negative misconceptions and unrealistic expectations.

Assess incoming enquiries or unexpected events and decide on appropriate and timely course of action. Decision making on booking appointment appropriately.

Manage own workload to ensure that all tasks are completed within required timescales.

Undertake any other appropriate duties within the role, as required at the request of your Line Manager.         

Be part of cover for the department during periods of absence and annual.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • Evidence of basic schooling/Education (GCSE) with English, Mathematics or Equivalent
Desirable criteria
  • Professional customer care skills equating to NVQ level 3

Experience

Desirable criteria
  • NHS experience
  • Ability to work as a part of a multidisciplinary environment
  • Knowledge of medical terminology
  • Experience of working in customer care/ call centre environment

Knowledge/ Skills

Essential criteria
  • Good communication skills, written and verbal
  • Good IT skills and a high level of proficiency in Microsoft office
  • Excellent organisational skills
  • Keyboard skills equivalent to RSA 3
  • Ability to learn various IT systems and use them alongside each other

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Apprenticeships logoNo smoking policyPositive about disabled peopleAge positiveDisability confident leaderImproving working livesWorkplace Wellbeing Charter LogoArmed Forces Covenant Gold Awardcorporate covenantStep into healthArmed Forces Covenant

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Nicki Rowe
Job title
Booking Services Supervisor
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
0300 422 4590
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