Job vacancy: Patient Access Officer, Band 3, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Gloucester

Job summary

Main area: Head & Neck
Grade: Band 3
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref: 318-25-T0541

Employer: Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type: NHS
Site: Gloucestershire Royal Hospital
Town: Gloucester
Salary: £24,937 - £26,598 (pro rata if part time)
Salary period: Yearly
Closing: 03/08/2025 23:59

Patient Access Officer, Band 3

Band 3

At Gloucestershire Hospitals, our people are at the heart of everything we do. As the largest employer in the county, we’re proud to provide outstanding acute, elective, and specialist services to over 650,000 people across our county. Whether you’re just beginning your NHS journey or taking the next step in your career, this is an exciting time to join us. We’re investing in innovation, research, and transformation, with over 100 active clinical studies and major developments underway across our two district hospitals.

You can expect a welcoming and supportive culture and you’ll be supported by passionate colleagues who care deeply about teamwork, development, and delivering exceptional care. We offer structured development programmes, mentoring, and leadership opportunities to help you grow in your career. Gloucestershire has the perfect mix of culture, countryside, and community. With excellent schools, transport links, and access to award-winning green spaces, it’s a great place to live and work.

We value the diversity of our workforce and are committed to creating an environment where everyone feels they belong.

Be part of Gloucestershire Hospitals, explore your future with us today.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

- Contact patients for Admission and negotiate appointments with patients wherever possible and any additional co-ordination of staff, equipment, stock, facilities, and paperwork.

- Using the PTL, Book patients within clinical and trust waiting time targets and guidelines

- Process cancellations and re-appoint patients observing trust waiting times.

- Ensure that patients are aware of their appointment dates and all relevant information.

- Fully utilise all clinic & theatre capacity and maintaining a list of patients who are fit, willing and able to come in at short notice.

- Liaison with clinical staff and their secretaries regarding their waiting lists.

- Booking investigations as requested by the clinical team, including negotiation of dates with the patients and creating correspondence if appropriate

- Validate each patient’s pathway by checking and updating RTT codes

- Regularly informing the Unit Coordinator about progress and flagging up as a matter of urgency any issues, for example, capacity or delays due to internal or external factors, difficult queries from patients, etc.

- Support the development of improvements to working practices and processes and contribute to service reviews and the implementation of new arrangements.

- As directed, support the resolution of complaints or concerns from patients/carers by helping to collate information and work with the supervisor to respond or escalate appropriately.

- To work flexibly and pro-actively as part of a team and ensure that the workload is shared out equally and performed to excellent, efficient and safe standards while adapting to the demands of the department/team as required.

- To cover colleagues during absences/annual/sick leave as directed by the Unit Coordinator. You may also be required to undertake job rotation for cross cover as well as for development and training purposes.

- To undertake routine office duties including photocopying, faxing and filing of notes and correspondence and any other appropriate duties commensurate with the role, as required at the request of your line manager.

- To liaise with relevant team members to ensure that any process changes run smoothly and efficiently.

- To work with the Elective Bookings Supervisor and Booking Coordinators as appropriate.

Professional Development, Education and Training

- Fully participate in the Trust’s appraisal system review and personal development planning process on an annual basis.

- Undertake training as necessary in line with the development of the post and as agreed with line manager as part of the personal development planning process

- Achieve and demonstrate agreed standards of personal and professional development within agreed timescales.

- Contribute positively to the effectiveness and efficiency of the teams in which he/she works.

- To adhere to the Trust’s Kindness and Respect Policy.

Management and Leadership

There is no budgetary or supervisory responsibility with this post.

Communications and Working Relationships

- Patients, relatives and / or carers.

- Consultants and their team

- Nursing staff

- Anaesthetists

- Medical Secretaries

- General Practitioners in Primary Care

- Outpatient staff

- Theatre management and administration

- Day Surgery staff

- Health Records staff

- Unit Coordinator

- Elective Bookings Supervisor and Booking Coordinators

- General management team

General Working Conditions

- The applicant will need to be able to deal with a very stressful and challenging environment. At any time, staff could be faced with difficult or sensitive situations, aggressive or threatening behaviour and need to use tact and diplomacy.

- Movement of medical notes may be required This can range from one set of notes to bags weighing up to 10kg

- Use of Visual Display Unit (VDU) on a daily basis (Workstation assessments undertaken), will be sitting at the desk for a major part of the day.

- Dealing with sensitive and confidential information

- The work pattern in unpredictable due to interruptions from telephone enquiries, emails, visits from clinicians and external personnel.

- Priorities can change during the day.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

Educated to GCSE grade C or above (or equivalent) in literacy and numeracy
NVQ level three in administration or equivalent experience

Experience

Essential criteria

Appropriate experience in a hospital or office environment
IT experience of Microsoft Office packages. Computer literate with the ability to input, retrieve, and manipulate IT data.

Desirable criteria

Understanding and previous experience in medical terminology / procedures

Knowledge / Skills

Essential criteria

Personally resilient and able to manage complexity and work in an ambiguous or changing environment.
Excellent presentational, communication and interpersonal skills
Good command and understanding of English, punctuation and grammar
Able to effectively and appropriate escalate concerns to reduce risk and promote patient safety
Proven organisational skills
Ability to concentrate where work pattern is unpredictable and there are frequent interruptions
Self-motivated and able to work under own initiative and prioritise workload

Desirable criteria

Knowledge and awareness of health and safety issues, risk management, and data protection act

Qualities

Essential criteria

Enthusiastic and self-aware
Creative and Flexible
Resilient under pressure
Team focused
Reliable, Adaptable and Dependable

We reserve the right to expire vacancies prior to the advertised closing date once a sufficient number of applications have been received.

You will only be contacted by the Recruitment Team via email if you are shortlisted for this post. Please ensure therefore that you check your e-mail account regularly.

If you require sponsorship for a visa to work in the UK, to avoid disappointment, please check to ensure you are eligible under the UKVI points based system