Pals Officer

**The requirements of the role in detail are**: Initial point of contact for all enquiries relating to PALS. Provide an impartial, frontline PALS service for NHFT. To develop and provide an effective, accessible and resolution-based service to assist patients and carers with queries and/or concerns, passing investigations to the appropriate service area for action, monitoring progress, keeping enquirers informed, liaising with operational colleagues to expedite responses. Support the team with reviews of the Trust-wide Complaints and Concerns Policy Ensure that there are robust administrative processes in place to ensure all concerns are responded to in a timely manner as per policy.

Arrange and mediate resolution meetings between patients, carers, families and clinical staff in meetings. Support the patient advocating in a speedy resolution, signposting and advising the patients advocate where required. Contribute to the reporting and analysis of complaints/PALS/ MP concerns/GP concerns/General Enquiries to support delivery of Board and national reports, presenting in a range of forums including annual and public meetings through to Board level committees. Produce analytical reports providing PALS/Complaints/GP concerns including key trends and develop effective workstreams and relationships with external stakeholders including commissioners, partner NHS organisation, Health Watch, advocates and regulatory bodies to support service developments in order to improve patient experiences.

Support any PALS Regional Network to link in with other voluntary and public organisations for sharing information and support. To act as a catalyst for change, feeding back patients and carers views and recommending learning to share good practice and promote improvement of services. Work in conjunction with the Complaints and PALS Manager to receive, develop and manage learning relating to concerns/enquiries and develop systems to evidence changes to practice as a result of PALS concerns To have knowledge on the Department of Health, NHS complaints regulations, time frames and NHFT Complaints Procedure in order to advise staff, patients, families, carers on the complaints process providing a choice of resolution options. Review, design and produce publicity materials promoting accessibility of the PALS service.

Supporting, mentoring and training members of the PALS team and advising, supporting other Trust staff on the work of PALS. GP Concerns Manage the GP concerns service for the Trust, ensuring effective resolution and service improvements to support working relationships and quality of care communications with primary care services. Regularly review and monitoring of GP Concerns Policy and ensure the information is shared with service leads for cascading. Reviewing the GP concerns process with commissioners to enable assurance processes to be effective.

Work in partnership with local healthcare and social care organisations to ensure a system wide approach to resolving primary care concerns. Sharing concerns (with the consent) to the appropriate organisations. Produce regular reports and meet with the Commissioners and GP Concerns leads as required to review the key themes and concerns raised. Meeting with GPs as and when required, supported by the Complaints & PALS Manager as required.

Wider Patient Experience Responsibilities Supporting teams on an ad-hoc basis with project work; for example patient experience groups/listening groups. Present information to forums and design and deliver training on patient experience feedback systems. Research/Development To ensure that national initiatives and frameworks are interpreted to enable the Trust to be compliant at all times. Undertake benchmarking against local and national reports, audits and initiatives.

Develop networks at a regional level to take forward patient experience initiatives enabling the Trust to be a service leader in this area. To design and deliver training to all disciplines within the Trust on ethos and effectiveness of PALS/Complaints and local resolutions. Involvement in Patient Experience related projects. Communication and Key Working Relationships Key working relationships and communication will be with the following staff groups, but this list is not exhaustive: hief Executive, Director of Nursing and other members of Executive Team Patient Safety Manager Complaints and PALS Manager Assistant Director for Patient Experience Head of Patient Experience Directorate Management Teams Clinicians, Senior Nurses, Professional AHP leads Other healthcare professionals and non-clinical staff Patients, families and carers Patient representative organisations PHSO, ICAS, national and local complaints network, advocacy services CQC, NHSLA