Job summary
- Main area
- Corporate
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 7
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 391-NMUH-7200361
- Employer
- Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- North Middlesex University Hospital
- Town
- London
- Salary
- £51,883 - £58,544 per annum inclusive of HCAs
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 12/06/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Band 7 Complaints & PALS Manager
NHS AfC: Band 7
The North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust is a medium-sized acute and community trust with over 525 beds and over 600 community staff, serving more than 600,000 people living across Enfield and Haringey and the surrounding areas, including Barnet and Waltham Forest.
The hospital has been on its present site for over 100 years and was established as an NHS trust by statute in December 1990. The Trust’s services are provided on the North Middlesex University Hospital site as well as a range of community sites across the London Borough of Enfield, including at partner hospitals. They provide services in collaboration with a range of partners, including local GPs, acute, mental health and other community health service providers across North Central London.
In the year ending 31 March 2022, the Trust reported a turnover of £419.7m and employed almost 4,000 staff. Following the transfer of Enfield Community Services on 1st April 2023, this has increased as we have welcomed over 600 new staff including District Nurses, Community Matrons, Community Physiotherapists, Psychologists and many more across a wide range of adult and children’s community services in Enfield. It is an exciting time to join North Mid as we continue our journey to become an integrated care organisation to deliver high quality, seamless care in our local communities, with a focus on tackling health inequalities.
Job overview
To provide operational line management, support and leadership of the Complaints and Patient Advise Liaison Service (PALs) team.
To coordinate the activity of the Complaints and Patient Advise Liaison Service (PALs) team delivering service and outcomes as specified in the complaints policy and procedures in accordance with national legislative requirements.
Supervise the Complaints & PALS staff responsible for responding to (formal and informal) complaints and concerns raised by patients, relatives, service users and staff, ensuring that relevant processes and guidelines are followed, and that appropriate standards of accuracy and brevity are maintained. Lead the team in providing a visible and effective PALs service by ensuring patients, service users, carers and the public have access to and receive timely and high quality support, information and advice from the team. Working closely with staff and managers to resolve complaints, comments and concerns in a timely and efficient way in order to achieve the best possible outcome for complainants and the clinical services concerned.
Main duties of the job
To provide operational line management, support and leadership of the Complaints and Patient Advise Liaison Service (PALs) team.
To coordinate the activity of the Complaints and Patient Advise Liaison Service (PALs) team delivering service and outcomes as specified in the complaints policy and procedures in accordance with national legislative requirements.
Supervise the Complaints & PALS staff responsible for responding to (formal and informal) complaints and concerns raised by patients, relatives, service users and staff, ensuring that relevant processes and guidelines are followed, and that appropriate standards of accuracy and brevity are maintained. Lead the team in providing a visible and effective PALs service by ensuring patients, service users, carers and the public have access to and receive timely and high quality support, information and advice from the team. Working closely with staff and managers to resolve complaints, comments and concerns in a timely and efficient way in order to achieve the best possible outcome for complainants and the clinical services concerned.
Working for our organisation
North Mid is part of North Central London integrated care system – consisting of the NHS and Local authority organisations in Camden, Islington, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey. As with other ICS’s, we are working increasingly closely with partners and indeed many of our financial and performance objectives are measured at this system level. Whilst all organisations remain as standalone, statutory bodies we have an ICS infrastructure for making shared decisions and agreeing shared approaches.
We are proud of our staff and want to ensure their training allows them to provide excellent clinical care. We are also a training unit for medical students from UCL and St George’s University Grenada, and for nursing and midwifery students from Middlesex and City Universities.
Take a tour of our hospital here
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
To provide operational line management, support and leadership of the Complaints and Patient Advise Liaison Service (PALs) team.
To coordinate the activity of the Complaints and Patient Advise Liaison Service (PALs) team delivering service and outcomes as specified in the complaints policy and procedures in accordance with national legislative requirements.
Supervise the Complaints & PALS staff responsible for responding to (formal and informal) complaints and concerns raised by patients, relatives, service users and staff, ensuring that relevant processes and guidelines are followed, and that appropriate standards of accuracy and brevity are maintained. Lead the team in providing a visible and effective PALs service by ensuring patients, service users, carers and the public have access to and receive timely and high quality support, information and advice from the team. Working closely with staff and managers to resolve complaints, comments and concerns in a timely and efficient way in order to achieve the best possible outcome for complainants and the clinical services concerned.
Person specification
Education and qualifications
Essential criteria
- Educated to diploma/ degree level or equivalent experience
Skills and abilities
Essential criteria
- Excellent communication skills (written and verbal) and listening skills.
- Excellent interpersonal and networking skills
- Ability to work autonomously with the skills to make independent decisions.
- Good organiser with exceptional attention to detail and the ability to manage own workload to defined deadlines.
- Highly developed IT skills working across a range of Microsoft Office packages and databases (including Outlook and Excel) Empathy, ability to deal with distressed patients/ relatives.
- Good negotiation and conflict resolution skills to manage and deescalate potentially difficult/ contentious situations
- Experience of working in a customer service environment/ role.
- Experience of analysing problems and providing solutions.
- Experience of dealing with distressed angry and unhappy customers/ service users
Desirable criteria
- Counselling skills including active listening and a non-judgmental approach
- Experience of complaints handling and/or Patient Advice & Liaison Service
- Experience of working with patients or service users to design, develop and /
Personal qualities
Essential criteria
- Enthusiastic and motivated
- Good interpersonal skills.
- Professional approach to work. Accountability - Takes responsibility for own actions and promotes good teamwork.
- Openness – Shares information and good practice appropriately. Mutual respect – Treats others with courtesy and respect.
Values
Essential criteria
- Demonstrate Ability to meet Trust Values
Employer certification / accreditation badges
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
- Trudy De Cordova
- Job title
- Head of Patient Experience
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 02088873716
If you have problems applying, contact
- Address
-
WHT
- Telephone
- If you have any queries, please contact NLPSS Recruitment Helpdesk tel. 020 3758 2060
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