Theatre Receptionist

We are seeking dedicated, motivated people to help us provide high quality care to our local communities. In return for your hard work, we offer well-established, structured mentoring and staff development packages to support you in your role.

The Division of Surgery are looking for a highly motivated and enthusiastic Receptionist to join our dynamic Theatre team based at our University Hospital Lewisham Site which has 11 Operating Theatres.

This is a key post responsible for the maintenance of effective and efficient clerical and reception support to Theatres, ensuring that administration processes meet the needs of all service users.
- Effective delivery of clerical and reception duties in theatres.
- Input and maintenance of accurate patient information on Trust information systems.
- Provision of excellent customer service to members of the public and staff who visit or contact theatres.
- Contribution to positive patient experiences.

To assist the Matron/ Nursing Staff and Senior Management with general administration/clerical duties to ensure the smooth running of the Theatres as required.

The role will involve meeting and greeting patients coming to hospital for surgery, inputting patient details onto the patient administrative system, requesting and tracking patient notes, taking telephone calls and contacting patients with booking times, inputting data for clinics, admitting and discharging patients on the patient management systems. Experience with patient management systems is therefore essential for this role (I-Care if possible).

The successful post holder will be expected to have good interpersonal skills and communicate with the multi-disciplinary team. You will need to be organised and have an ability to manage time effectively. You will be part of the theatres’ administrative team working closely with the management team to deliver exceptional service.

Working hours required within a shift pattern these timings are as follows:
7am
- 3pm

8am
- 4pm

9am -5pm

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust is a community focused provider of local and acute care, providing high quality services to over one million people living across the London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley. With a turnover of around £700 million, we provide services at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, University Hospital Lewisham and a range of community settings in Lewisham. We also provide some services at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup.

As an organisation, we’ve made significant improvements for patients and staff in the last two and-a-half years. This is reflected in our most recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection (from February 2020), which found improvements across the organisation and gave us an improved rating of “Good” in the Well-Led and Effective domains, in addition to the rating of “Good” that we had already achieved in the Caring domain. Our staff culture change programme has been key to the Trust’s improvement journey, as we’ve stabilised our workforce by reducing vacancy rates and improving staff retention. We’ve also significantly increased the representation of minority ethnic leaders across our clinical and corporate teams.
- First point of contact for patients, their friends and families and ensuring that messages are passed on appropriately and in a timely manner.
- To deal with patients in a mature manner when speaking to them on the phone and face to face. This may sometimes involve dealing with distressed patients and a sensitive and re-assuring manner is required in difficult situations. Patient confidentiality should be maintained at all times.
- To register patient details on Cerner ensuring a high level of data accuracy.
- To admit and discharge on Cerner and on EPRS
- To deal with written and telephone enquiries for the wards as appropriate.
- To book follow up appointments as required
- Booking of hospital transport for patients according to the hospital Transport Policy. Liaise with the Transport team with enquiries.
- Provide cover for colleagues during annual leave, sickness and busy periods - this may mean going to different sites.
- Be fully competent in the features of the hospital computer system and undergo further training when systems are updated and as the job requires.
- Attend additional training as required and assist new staff with training.
- On occasion to manage potentially aggressive, verbally abusive visitors to the Ward which must be dealt with appropriately following agreed procedures and protocol.
- To refer enquiries as appropriate to the line supervisor or manager, ensuring patient confidentiality is not compromised in line with the requirements of the Data Protection Act and ensuring prompt and accurate response to all enquiries.