Job summary
- Main area
- Mental health
- Grade
- Band 3
- Contract
- Fixed term: 6 months (Or secondment)
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Rostered shift working)
- Job ref
- 364-A-9177
- Employer
- Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Basildon Mental Health Unit
- Town
- Basildon
- Salary
- £24,937 - £26,598 per annum plus HCA
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- Today at 23:59
Employer heading

Administration Assistant/ Receptionist – MH Urgent Care Dept
Band 3
About Us
EPUT provides community health, mental health and learning disability services to support more than 3.2 million people living across Bedfordshire, Essex and Suffolk. Also:
- We are among the largest employers in the in the East of England region, with more than 10,000 staff working across more than 200 sites.
- We run the COVID-19 vaccination programme across mid and south Essex and Suffolk and north east Essex.
EPUT was formed on 1 April 2017 following the merger of North Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (NEP) and South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (SEPT). A new leadership team was established at the Trust in 2020.
Our vision and values
Our Vision
“To be the leading health and wellbeing service in the provision of mental health and community care”.
Our Purpose
“We care for people every day. What we do together, matters”.
Our Values
- We Care
- We Learn
- We Empower
Our strategic objectives
- We will deliver safe, high quality integrated care services.
- We will enable each other to be the best that we can.
- We will work together with our partners to make our services better.
- We will help our communities to thrive.
Our services
- Mental Health Services
- Community Health Services
- Learning Disabilities Services
- Social Care
Find out more about the services we offer in our service directory.
Job overview
Full Time 37.5hrs per week (This is a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week service delivery based on a rostered shift pattern) - MATERNITY COVER (6 MONTHS)
The Mental Health Urgent Care Department, is a facility where adults, aged 18 years and above, who are experiencing a mental health crisis can receive an urgent biopsychosocial assessment with immediate care planning. It is a new, purpose built department based at the Basildon Mental Health Unit on the Basildon university Hospital site.
The department will offer a calm and therapeutic mental health setting to see the majority of urgent/emergency mental health presentations and represent an improvement on the service previously offered in busy emergency departments.
Main duties of the job
The core responsibilities of this role will include:
- Reception duties within the urgent department waiting area, ensuring all patients that present to the urgent care department are greeted and registered to the department.
- Ensure 24/7 presence in the reception area of the departments
- Ensure clear and timely communication to clinical teams of any changes within the patient waiting area which require clinical awareness and intervention
- Carrying out assigned duties from the service Lead or Coordinator
- Handling incoming and outgoing telephone calls in a polite and efficient manner. Receive and deal with telephone enquiries, responding appropriately to callers including high risk and challenging client and carers in line with mental health crisis
- Maintaining strict confidentiality at all times.
- Liaising with other services and collecting information to ensure a joined up approach to patient care.
Working for our organisation
EPUT are looking for motivated staff who shares our Trust values of Care, Learn and Empower. In return, EPUT can offer you a range of benefits and development including;
- Season Ticket Loans
- NHS discounts for staff
- Excellent Training facilities and opportunities
- Buying and Selling annual leave scheme
- The opportunity to work bank shifts and expand knowledge and experience in other areas
- Salary Sacrifice schemes including lease cars and Cycle to Work
- Day One Flexible Employer
The Trust supports and actively encourages flexible working for all employees. We offer many options and you are encouraged to ask the recruiting manager what is possible for this role. If appointed, you will have the opportunity to apply for a flexible working request from the first day of your employment
Join our Staff bank
What is Staff Bank?
Our EPUT NHS staff bank is an entity managed by the trust that hires clinical and non-clinical healthcare professionals to take on shifts at our trust hospitals and community settings. Here at EPUT we maintain our own bank of specialist staff to ensure that we are able offer safe and effective care at all times.
All our permanent staff are automatically enrolled onto the staff bank however this does not mean you have to work any additional shifts, but the option is there for you if you wish.
If you are joining our Trust in a fixed term role, please indicate on your New Starter Paperwork that you wish to join our staff bank.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
- Undertake administrative duties within own level of competence as requested by professionally registered staff
- Record accurate messages and follow them up appropriately in accordance to department guidelines
- Communicate face to face with clients seeking further help/information as required being aware of the needs of the clients and act in an appropriate manner particularly with clients who can be verbally challenging
- Contribute to and support services to provide a high-quality service that takes account of individual needs. To exchange confidential, sensitive information with staff, clients, and carers in person or on the telephone. The unpredictability of clients means that persuasive, reassuring, empathic, skills are required at all times
- Deal with queries raised by patients, carers and other healthcare professionals both internally and externally to the Trust. These are often of a non-routine nature and involving complex issues such as medication and other clinical treatments where there are barriers to understanding due to the nature of the client group.
COMMUNICATION AND WORKING RELATIONSHIPS
- Excellent communication skills with patients, carers and other healthcare colleagues (across a range of disciplines) on day-to-day aspects
- The post holder will have the ability to communicate effectively and sensitively with patients according to their age, understanding, language and ability
- Responsible for ensuring all correspondence is accurately and appropriately presented using Trust and departmental procedures and medical terminology used by the clinical staff
- To be skilled and experienced in the full range of administrative work practices, software programmes and specialised functional terms
- To be proficient with the knowledge of Patient Records management supporting new users and instructing them as necessary. To use the knowledge and experience to meet the needs of the clinical teams by completing non routine tasks on a daily basis
- To operate the Trusts central telephony systems
- To update skills as necessary and attend mandatory training and maintain records as per Trust policy
- Receiving, prioritising and organising appropriate action when dealing with clinical staff requirements
- Prioritising and organising distribution of incoming and outgoing mail (including email)
- Use own initiative to organise, prioritise and coordinate workload ensuring that deadlines are met
- To maintain diaries, both electronic and paper. To arrange appointments and meetings via electronic systems
- Ability to deal with short notice planning and last minute changes
- To manage and organise own time and work efficiently and adhere to deadlines to enable the smooth running of the department
- To report and ensure equipment faults are dealt with by the relevant persons
- The post holder will contribute to accurate written accounts of events / incidents under the guidance of qualified staff on the Trusts adopted electronic record (Paris). Due regard for confidentiality and information of patients should be taken at all times – it is the responsibility of the qualified staff to arrange regular reviews and to countersign all entries that are made in records
- Contribute to risk management and assessment where appropriate, accurately communicating information to qualified staff and other members of the multi-disciplinary tea
- Be able to promote the use and development of self-awareness, interpersonal skills in non-mental health settings
- To ensure full compliance with all Information Governance requirements as set out by the Trust
- Work collaboratively within the multi-disciplinary team providing a team approach to service delivery
ANALYTICAL AND JUDGEMENT
- Receiving, prioritising and organising appropriate action when dealing with clinical staff requirements
- Prioritising and organising distribution of incoming and outgoing mail including emails and tasks operate a letter folding machine
- Use own initiative to organise, prioritise and coordinate workload ensuring that deadlines are met
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
- Computer Literate, including electronically accessing Trust Policies and Procedure
- Understand, access and comprehensively use the Trust’s dedicated electronic records system
- Able to communicate using emails
- Able to access and utilise e-learning/OLM and maintain and update their continued professional development.
To carry out any other duties commensurate with the duties of this post. This is an outline job description and may be subject to change, according to the needs of the service, in consultation with the post holder
Any other duties as delegated by your Director or Chief Executive Officer commensurate within the responsibilities of this post.
Person specification
Education/Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Good standard of general education
- IT skills equivalent to RSA2, NVQ2 or relevant experience of Microsoft Word Packages
Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Knowledge of Trust ITT Systems and Software Packages, including Mobius/Q-Flow/SystmOne
Applicant requirements
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Louise Borton
- Job title
- Matron
- Email address
- [email protected]
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