Business Management Assistant

**Overview**

Somek & Associates Limited (S&A) is a business whose main function is to provide expert witnesses (Experts) and professional reports for medico-legal purposes.

Somek & Associates is one of the biggest and leading providers in our field and this role is the heart of ensuring the quality and standards of the business.

**Position**

**Employment Type**:Permanent, full-time

**Days**:Monday to Friday

**Hours**: 09:00 to 17:30 (including 1 hour break)

**Location**:Somek & Associates, 9 Chess Business Park, Moor Road, Chesham, HP5 1SD

**Accountable to**:Clinical Business Management team leader

**Salary**: Starting from £22,000.00 depending on experience

**Role Overview**

The role overview in this document is intended as a guide to describe the main duties. Additional general administrative tasks will be required to be carried out as and when required.

The CBM Team Assistant role is to support the Clinical Business Management Team in the day-to-day management of cases from the case enquiry stage through to the case instruction stage. This will include managing Expert availability and workload planning.

The CBM Team Assistant will need to:

- be articulate
- have excellent communication and negotiation skills
- be reliable and trustworthy
- be able to use own initiative, whilst also working as part of a small team
- be able to work flexibly
- have demonstrable assertiveness skills
- be able to work under pressure and prioritise their own workload

The CBM Team Assistant is required to assist in providing support for S&A, involving a range of duties related to the medico-legal function of the business. The key task of the role will be to deal with all communications (written and verbal) relating to cases and liaise as appropriate with relevant S&A personnel, in particular S&A Associates who are assigned as Experts to each case.

**Primary Role**

Communication with clients, Experts and internal staff regarding new enquiries, Expert diary and workload management and general assistance.

The role will have a focus on progressing straightforward enquiries autonomously from the enquiry stage through to instruction. Such enquiries will tend to be from regular clients and will follow the format of our standard quantum and liability report types. It is expected that the post holder will develop skills in estimating fees for initial reports and further work requested. The enquiries processed will fall in line with the typical work hours we have identified for each type of report enabling the preparation of fee estimates.

The role will also include following up clients and Experts for their responses to communications along with relaying Experts’ availability to clients and reserving cases in Experts’ diaries.

All aspects of the role carry a high level of responsibility in relation to securing instructions and ensuring Experts have a manageable workload.

Whilst being able to use initiative is important, it is just as important that the post holder is able to recognise the need for assistance. For example if a case appears more complex and/or in the event of any clinical queries, support should be sought from the CBM team leader, deputy team leader or senior assistant at the earliest opportunity.

Responsibilities to include:

- Reporting directly to Clinical Business Management team leader
- Participating in regular team meetings
- Communicating with the team throughout the day regarding workload and any concerns
- Communicating with clients in respect of new enquiries, the identification of appropriate Experts, relaying Expert availability and the preparation of fee estimates in order to secure instructions (quantum and liability)
- Communicating with Experts to ensure we obtain their timeframes for reporting on new cases in a timely way
- Creating and maintaining effective working relationships with clients. On occasion this may involve the use of assertive negotiation skills, in order to ensure that S&A can balance meeting the clients’ need for a report to meet a specified deadline (where it is reasonable to do so) without the Expert’s workload becoming unmanageable
- Creating and maintaining effective working relationships with Experts, which may involve following up responses and negotiation as to Experts’ time allocation and preferred travel methods/reasonable travel costs.
- Documenting all case communications in accordance with company policy.
- You will be supporting and assisting the Clinical Business Management Team in the following ways:

- To maximise the opportunities for further instructions from clients
- To help the team determine areas (based on professional background, clinical specialism, or location) where further Expert capacity is needed
- To ensure that Experts have efficiently managed caseloads that meet their desired expectation (where possible) within the realms of their level of expertise

**Secondary Role**
- updating case details, client details, Expert deta