Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Theatre Scheduling team

- Providing management support for the scheduling team in regards to managing 1:1 performance reviews, sick leave and other relevant HR related aspects with support from the DGM

- Provide training and coaching for new scheduling officers (with supporting instruction manuals) 

- Ongoing improvements to ensure efficient processes and communication with stakeholders

Theatre floorplans

- To undertake the day to day processes associated with the provision of a series of comprehensive theatre floorplan to achieve: 

- A fully-utilised resource which impacts partially on the Trust’s ability to achieve the national activity targets and fully impacts on the Trust’s ability to achieve the surgical waiting times target

- A tool for the use of the theatre and anaesthetic staff to allocate resources,    (human, equipment and stock), to the right theatre at the right time. Without this function, patients would be cancelled, which, again, would impact on the Trust’s surgical targets

- A tool for the use of Medical Secretaries, General Managers and Booking staff to manage the timetables of medical staff, including the re-utilisation of vacant lists

- A tool for the use of Pre-Assessment staff, Booking staff and Medical Secretaries to manager the booking of patients on theatre lists

 -A tool that provides the same information concurrently to all of the stakeholders to aid decision-making on capacity and demand

- A tool to identify any extra capacity in the event of increased demand

- To ensure that the theatre floorplan is maintained, updated and disseminated rapidly and efficiently, on a regular basis, with the purpose of preventing any personnel logistical errors, (for example, the possibility of two surgeons, with two lists of patients, arriving for the use of the same theatre)

- Including updating the Specialty and Centralised Medical Leave Worksheets 

- Providing training to the services on how to update their respective medical leave worksheets to ensure the information is captured accurately at all times

- To ensure that changes on the Medical Leave Worksheets which are driven by outside forces are swiftly reflected on the floorplans, such as:

- Indicating cancelled lists from the floorplans to inform all stakeholders of vacant capacity

- The creation of private patient lists so that the data is included in the utilisation figures

- Creating additional lists as requested by surgeons who want to increase their operating time

- Creating lists for the emergency patients from data submitted by the Emergency Co-ordinator in theatres

- Changes implemented by the outside staff, such as PCT staff working in the community hospitals

Stakeholder engagement

- To ensure that all the stakeholders are informed of every change that is made to the floorplans, especially the key stakeholders – theatre nursing staff, medical secretaries and anaesthetic medical secretaries. (Failure to communicate effectively could mean, for example, that an anaesthetist is committed to a list that has already been cancelled)

- Checking and chasing up any computer data not completed by the nursing staff in theatres regarding the movement of patients through the theatres. This key information ensures the accuracy of the theatre utilisation reports for the Trust Board, which are a measure of surgical activity targets

Patient information, Reporting and Data management

- To ensure that all information, particularly confidential information relating to patients, is filled in an orderly and secure fashion

- To conduct audits to ensure accuracy of information and create, run, amend and produce reports from the Theatre floorplans – e.g. monthly figures around the total number of cancelled sessions and split sessions 

- Support with the processes around the patient cancellation post to ensure accurate capture of information and communication with the respective services

- Support theatre management and BI in the development of automated reports within the scheduling remit

Waiting list Initiative

- To undertake the process for approval of Waiting List Initiatives:-

- Obtain the correct information on date, time and patient case-mix from the relevant Medical Secretary, Pre-assessment, Booking staff or General Manager

- Verify the list with the Deputy Director of Service Delivery to obtain authorisation to proceed

- Set up the list, negotiating with the anaesthetic secretary, theatre staff and other stakeholders to agree dates and times. Should any of the parameters be unachievable in discussion with any of the stakeholders, (such as no theatre staff, no radiographer, and so on), the entire process has to be restarted and a new date renegotiated with the surgeon via the General Manager