Job summary
- Main area
- Discharge planning
- Grade
- Band 4
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 391-NMUH-7449484
- Employer
- Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- North Middlesex University Hospital
- Town
- Edmonton
- Salary
- £32,199 - £34,876 per annum including HCAS
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 23/02/2026 23:59
Employer heading
Ward Liaison Officer
Band 4
Our trust has over 17,000 staff serving 2 million patients every year. It comprises Barnet Hospital, Chase Farm Hospital, the Royal Free Hospital, North Middlesex University Hospital and more than 30 services in the community. This larger scale organisation provides an unprecedented opportunity for us to continue our pioneering work, particularly in finding ways to deliver even better care to our patients.
Our mission is to deliver world class care and expertise in our clinical services, underpinned by world class teaching and research and we will continue to measure our progress against our five governing objectives: excellent outcomes, excellent patient and staff experience, excellent value for taxpayers’ money, being safe and meeting our external duties, and building a strong organisation.
Everyone is welcome at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. We're proud of our diversity and we continue to undertake new initiatives to advance equality for LGBT+, BME, gender equality, staff carers and people with disabilities and lived experiences to promote good relations and understanding between our staff.
Click here to view our video Welcome to the Royal Free
Job overview
The primary focus of the Discharge Ward Liaison Officer role is to enable and support patients' safe and timely Discharge. The post holder will need to consider the options around a patient's Discharge and take appropriate action to resolve delays in Discharge. This will ensure capacity is created in the system to allow the wards always to have empty beds to match the demands of the service. The critical element of the Discharge Ward Liaison Officer's role is communicating with the discharge nurses and ward staff to ensure everyone is working to the same plan of no patient delays.
Main duties of the job
· Work with ward staff to ensure that Patient FLOW and Care Flow is accurate and updated.
· To have a good working relationship with the Wards, this will require daily visit to allocated wards at MDT/ RAG and other times throughout the day. This is to ensure that the service needs are met in line with Trust policies, guidelines, and departmental protocols
· Communicate with a range of healthcare professionals using persuasive skills when needed to facilitate effective discharge from hospital.
· To work as part of a team alongside other WLO within the department and to be part of a wider multidisciplinary team delivering a high-quality service to other staff and patients. This includes working with identified external contacts and stakeholders.
· To gain understand of the trust various IT systems.
Working for our organisation
The North Middlesex University Hospital, Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust is a medium-sized acute and community trust with over 525 beds and over 600 community staff, serving more than 600,000 people living across Enfield and Haringey and the surrounding areas, including Barnet and Waltham Forest.
In the year ending 31 March 2022, the Trust reported a turnover of £419.7m and employed almost 4,000 staff. Following the transfer of Enfield Community Services on 1st April 2023, this has increased as we have welcomed over 600 new staff including District Nurses, Community Matrons, Community Physiotherapists, Psychologists and many more across a wide range of adult and children's community services in Enfield.
In January 2025 we joined the Royal Free group: it is an exciting time to join North Mid as we continue our journey to become an integrated care organisation to deliver high quality, seamless care in our local communities, with a focus on tackling health inequalities.
North Mid is part of North Central London integrated care system - consisting of the NHS and Local authority organisations in Camden, Islington, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey. As with other ICSs, we are working increasingly closely with partners and indeed many of our financial and performance objectives are measured at this system level. Whilst all organisations remain as standalone statutory bodies, we have an ICS infrastructure for making shared decisions and agreeing shared approaches.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
· Accurately input, retrieve information on the medically optimised list to facilitate timely discharges.
· To facilitate ordering of specified equipment once training needs are met.
· Update the discharge Nurse following attendance of the MDT/RAG meetings.
· Actively progress/chase all identified delays to patient, taking appropriate action to resolve through considering the options available and using judgement in making the appropriate decision.
· Provide support in ensuring that referrals such as Single Point Assessment (SPA) forms are, and Duty refer forms are received in the discharge planning inbox in a timely manner.
· Respond promptly and efficiently to routine queries referring queries on to other personnel as appropriate.
Person specification
Education and qualifications
Essential criteria
- Educated to GCSE Level English and Math’s Grade C or equivalent qualification
Desirable criteria
- Other relevant qualification equivalent experience
Skills and abilities
Essential criteria
- Ability to Prioritize and work to deadlines.
- A commitment and understanding of the need to deliver patient-centred care.
- Effective negotiator and influencer with a range of stakeholders within and outside the Trus
Experience
Essential criteria
- Required demonstrable experience of adapting own approach to engage with service users, and a range of external and internal stakeholders and colleagues at various levels of seniority and discipline.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working in a health or social care setting.
- Awareness of community partners and agencies.
- Knowledge and Understanding of the ward routine and processes About discharging a patient
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Jane Akarovwe
- Job title
- Discharge Team Manager
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07088873754
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