Job vacancy: Apprentice Access Booking Officer, Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Ormskirk

Job summary

Main area: Access
Grade: NHS AfC: Band 3
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref: 409-6599580

Employer: Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Employer type: NHS
Site: Ormskirk DGH
Town: Ormskirk
Salary: £24,071 - £25,674 per annum
Salary period: Yearly
Closing: 16/01/2025 23:59

Apprentice Access Booking Officer

NHS AfC: Band 3

After applying via NHS Jobs, your submitted application will be imported into our preferred Third-party recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs. You will not be able to track the progress of your application or receive messages through the NHS Jobs website, and furthermore, as an employer, we will not be able to respond to any e-mails sent to us via the NHS Jobs website. By applying for this post you are agreeing to "name of trust" transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are appointed to a post information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.

Detailed job description and main 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 patient’s future appointments effectively and timely.

· Responsible for all clinic template changes due to changes to Medical Rota’s.

· 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 Trust’s 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 Trust’s 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 criteria

Personal Integrity
Excellent communication skills

Skills/Ability

Essential criteria

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 criteria

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 criteria

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

Thank you for considering an application to work for Mersey West Lancashire NHS Trust. You are part of an exciting and forward-thinking NHS Trust who are one of the best places to work for in England.

Given sometimes we receive a high volume of applications to work for us, please be aware, that we may close a vacancy earlier than stated should a sufficient number of applications be received from which a shortlist can be confirmed. Therefore, you are advised to apply at your earliest convenience.

The Trust may contact you during the recruitment process for your feedback on your experience. We always aim for continuous improvement in our practice.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

We actively cultivate a professional environment of fairness, equality, dignity, and respect for all individuals. We welcome individuals from all backgrounds and value the unique skills, perspective and experience you bring. We are grounded in the belief that diversity enhances our collective strength, fostering innovation and excellence within our workforce. We welcome all applications irrespective of people’s race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion/belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity and in particular those from under- represented groups.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we commit to offering an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

If you are having difficulty completing an online application, or require any disability reasonable adjustments, to the application process, please contact [email protected]

We also commit to offering an interview to all armed forces veterans who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

The Trust operates anonymous shortlisting where no personal information about you, including your name or personal details are shared with the recruiting manager. No equality information is shared at any time during the recruitment process with the recruiting manager or other people involved in the decision-making process.

The equality monitoring information you provide is used in the following situations: to review our recruitment practices; where a job is limited to a specific person to verify their eligibility to apply; and to offer disability reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

Following the recent update on UK immigration policy for those on a Health and Care Visa or Skilled Worker Visa, please click here to check your eligibility before applying for this post as we may be unable to provide sponsorship.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

If this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 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.

Please note if applicable, applicants will be required to pay for their DBS check. Costs are deducted from salary following appointment.

If you have not already done so, you are therefore encouraged to enrol for the DBS Update Service to which a small annual fee of £13 per year applies.

Flexible Working

We actively support flexible working patterns throughout MWL. Changes made to the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook mean that:

· All employees have the right to request flexible working from day one of employment.

· There is no limit on the number of requests they can make.

· Employees have the right to make requests, have them considered, regardless of the reason.

At Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, we will consider requests for flexible working. We would also encourage you to also discuss flexible working options at interview stage.

Working for Team MWL

Staff recognition is especially important to us; as well as performance reviews and appraisals, we recognise staff through Employee of the month. Along with supporting you to achieve your career goals we offer a generous pension scheme, unsocial hours payments (where applicable), 27 days annual leave on commencement (pro rata) and access to a range of NHS discounts. Our Staff Health and Wellbeing programme offer a variety of services.

The Trust is a non-smoking across all our sites. Failure to follow this rule could lead to disciplinary action. For more information, see the Smoke Free NHS website

You must ensure that your application, including personal statements and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.

The Trust will not accept applications which are found to be AI generated.

Additional Information

Before applying, we encourage you to review the Trusts Values and Behaviours which are We are KIND, We are OPEN, We are INCLUSIVE, which can be found here.

An applicant guide to help and support you with your application and what to expect during your recruitment journey can be accessed in the supporting documents.

Good luck with your application. We hope to welcome you to Team MWL very soon.