Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Communication and working relationships
•    Ensure patients are treated with courtesy, dignity and respect
•    Communicate effectively verbally face to face, over the telephone, via email, electronic patient record and in writing with:
Internal
o    Dietitians and Dietetic Support Workers
o    Other team administrators
o    Other internal teams including ward staff, specialist nurses, medical secretaries, catering staff.
o    Social care teams
External
o    Patients and their families / caregivers
o    Members of the general public
o    GP practices
o    Healthcare professionals from other Trusts
o    Nutrition company co-ordinators and reps

Analytical and judgement
•    Ability to recognise and escalate any concerns about a parent or carer to clinical staff

Planning and organisation
•    To plan, organise and prioritise own workload proficiently and effectively.
•    To co-ordinate dietetic outpatient clinics, ensuring that they are efficiently organised and the number of patients seen is optimised, using PAS ICS system (to be superseded by EPIC). This includes booking of appointments and issue of appointment letters and sending other information required.
•    With the support of the Administration Assistant ensure that all clinical and non-clinical correspondence and reports are typed (using audio typing equipment), within local targets.
•    If required, to organise meetings include the collation and distribution of agendas, taking and transcribing formal minutes, and room bookings.
•    To maintain a comprehensive filing system for patient record cards to be readily available. To oversee management of filing/storage or destruction of old record cards, with the assistance of Medical Records staff.
•    Supported by the team Administration Assistant to undertake a variety of office duties, including filing, typing, dealing with telephone messages and monitoring office message book, opening and distributing post, enveloping letters, photocopying, printing of documents and booklets, arranging collection and delivery of notes for storage, moving and lifting of patient notes to ensure efficient and effective support to the department.
•    Together with the Dietetic Support Workers to maintain and update the department website, and provide colour photocopying and production of department diet sheets and written information for the team.
•    To be responsible for printing and distribution of Friends and Family forms for clinicians to use at all outpatient clinics.

Physical skills
•    Manual dexterity for typing
•    Able to transport medical records
•    Able to move stationery items

Patient and client care
•    To handle routine and non-routine enquiries in an efficient manner and ensure appropriate follow through, using initiative to deal with all enquiries either verbally or in writing, or via secure email.
•    Demonstrate empathy with clients, carers and families, and colleagues, ensuring that effective communication is achieved, particularly where barriers to understanding exist, and form productive relationships with others who may be under stress and/or have challenging communication difficulties.

Policy and service development
•    To identify areas for service improvement and support implementation.
•    To follow and update Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all aspects of the role.

Finance, equipment and other resources
•    To be responsible for ordering and maintaining stock of stationery items through the online procurement system (UNIT4) ensuring timely and economic supplies.

People management and training
•    To support the Administration Assistant in their role and ensure compliance with Standard Operating Procedures.
•    To ensure mandatory training is kept up to date
•    To atted training for any new IT systems as required

Information technology and administrative duties
•    To ensure that arrangements regarding annual leave for staff and cover arrangements are circulated appropriately and that clinical activities are amended accordingly, in liaison with the clinician. To assist in creating annual leave sheets for staff, as well as calculating and checking annual leave entitlements for team members.
•    To input and verify on ESR, Tempre and Allocate (Bank Staff) any departmental staff absence, sickness, annual leave and study leave. To record authorised additional hours worked, on the relevant database, ensuring that procedures are followed and completed. 
•    To manage department diaries and appointments including meetings with outside nutrition company representatives.
•    To use the relevant IT systems to register patients, make appointments, transfer medical records, create clinical letters, as required.

Freedom to act 
•    Ensure patients are put at the heart of the service
•    Provide and receive sensitive information and be able to respond to patients, carers, and other service users (who may at times be distressed) tactfully and empathetically. Escalate unresolved matters appropriately to the Service Lead / Team Leader