Job summary
- Main area
- Radiology
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 3
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week (X1 Late shift will be required a week)
- Job ref
- 409-7857817
- Employer
- Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Southport Hospital
- Town
- Southport
- Salary
- £25,760 - £27,476 per annum, pro rata
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 23/04/2026 23:59
- Interview date
- 12/05/2026
Employer heading
Radiology Clerical Officer
NHS AfC: Band 3
After applying via NHS Jobs, your submitted application will be imported into our preferred Third-party recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs. You will not be able to track the progress of your application or receive messages through the NHS Jobs website, and furthermore, as an employer, we will not be able to respond to any e-mails sent to us via the NHS Jobs website. By applying for this post you are agreeing to "name of trust" transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are appointed to a post information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.
Job overview
The Radiology Department has a vacancy for a full time, keen and friendly individual to join our enthusiastic and dedicated team. We are based at both Southport and Ormskirk & District General Hospitals.
The post holder will work with a team of clerical staff booking on diagnostic imaging appointments, and meeting booking and waiting time targets nationally and locally.
A good level of computer literacy is required along with excellent interpersonal skills.
Shortlisted candidates will be notified via e-mail.
Please expect all future correspondence relating to your application via e-mail; therefore please check your e-mail account on a regular basis.
If you do not hear from us within four weeks of the closing date consider that you have not been shortlisted on this occasion.
We reserve the right to bring forward the closing date should we have an overwhelming response to this advert.
Main duties of the job
To be a member of the Radiology access and booking team that provides comprehensive, high-quality outpatient and waiting list management services for the Radiology Department.
To manage a number of speciality patient lists operating in accordance with the Trusts Access Policy and in line with National Targets ensuring efficient and effective use of outpatient sessions and intervention sessions.
Exercise initiative and use independent judgement, knowledge and analysis to book patients, dependent on their individual clinical needs and their complexity. Work in a demanding and sometimes hostile environment dealing with complex and sensitive information on a daily basis.
Provide an information and communication link between the patient and their Radiology attendance or admission to hospital.
Working for our organisation
Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 9000 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites
We strongly believe that the communities we serve should all have access to 5 Star Patient Care
Our Services
Acute Care
Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.
Primary Care
Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.
Community Services
Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire. Our inpatient unit at Newton Community Hospital is where patients needing acute hospital beds can continue rehabilitation, freeing up space for more unwell patients. We also provide urgent care at our Urgent Treatment Centre located in St Helens town centre.
Specialist Regional ServicesWe provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.
Achievements:
• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
KEY DUTIES
· To provide a comprehensive inpatient and outpatient service to patients. The post will also support through each of the clerical areas (excluding medical secretaries) within the Radiology department to enable cover in all respects of the service.
Waiting List / Inpatient Management
· To be named contact point liaising with patients, relatives and/or carers as well as medical representatives, GP’s, nursing staff, surgical team, and support services to ensure the appointment or admission is appropriately planned and managed. This can be face to face, over the telephone, in writing or electronic.
· Accurate addition of patients to the waiting list ensuring any relevant notes recorded.
· To provide advice to patients with matters relating to their appointment, ward admission (pre and post interventional guidance) and with regard to their position on the waiting list.
· To slot fill multiple interventional procedure lists up to six weeks in advance, using clinical knowledge, medical terminology and information to meet the patients’ 18-week, diagnostic, cancer and/or 28-day rescheduling targets.
· Ensure that with effective planning and organisation the Modality lists are utilised to their maximum potential which requires taking in to account specific patient needs, cancelling/rescheduling patients, replacing short notice cancellations, liaising with the Radiologists and Sonographers.
· Identify, attempt to resolve, and pre-empt situations which may result in a breach of Radiology targets. Regularly analyse waiting list information to ensure compliance with national waiting time standards and escalate in a timely manner any requirements for additional capacity to ensure patients are treated within waiting time standards.
· To work flexibly according to the needs of the service including covering for colleagues during periods of leave.
· To book Rehydration patients Liaising with F Ward and 10B along with Bed Managers in the case of patients being put on ‘stand-by’ or cancelled due to extraneous circumstances (i.e. bed unavailability).
· Ensure that all patients are placed on CRIS (Radiology system) with information and records updated and maintained.
· Efficiently manage CT colon referrals ensuring the correct delivery of preparation instructions for the exam and advise on the patients collecting of Gastrographin with pre appointment preparation instructions.
Outpatient / Partial Booking and Appointments Management
· Responsible for appointing all patients from the PTLs and managing all Outpatient waiting lists to ensure accurate patient management, enabling the Trust to meet all of its performance targets.
· Responsible for registration of referral letters, ensuring all referral letters or emails referrals are pended onto CRIS and directed to the appropriate Consultants and Clinicians.
· Responsible for booking all new and follow up appointments in accordance with departmental procedures.
· Liaise directly with patients in relation to booking and agreeing outpatient appointments within the appropriate timescales.
· Working under the direction of the operational management teams, when dealing with requests for clinic cancellations; will be responsible for managing the cancellation/reduction of the clinics on CRIS and appointing the patient’s future appointments effectively and timely.
· Responsible for all clinic template changes due to changes to Radiology Rota’s.
· Manage all appointments on the CRIS system ensuring all new appointments which are cancelled by the patient, are discussed with the patient and referrer and the appointment either remade or discharged within the appropriate timescales.
· Management of the waiting list, ensuring the booking of appointment or escalating capacity issues to the appropriate operational team.
· Responsible for managing partial booking lists and escalating any problems to the operational management teams/team leader.
· Manage the referral streams via Right Fax and the shared Radiology email addresses during the shift.
· Ensure answering, when possible, all incoming departmental telephone calls.
· Ensure compliance with the two weeks wait rules for all suspected cancer referrals.
Personal Responsibilities
· The post holder will be required to undertake mandatory training and is responsible for keeping this training up to date.
· The post holder will have an appraisal of performance each year and will be responsible for agreeing a development plan in line with the Trust’s PDR system in agreement with their manager or immediate supervisor. The development plan will be reviewed each year.
· The Trust will provide assistance and agreed development to enable the post holder to achieve their objectives and standards in line with the development plan.
· If the post holder feels he/she is not achieving their objective as agreed in the development plan they will bring it to the attention of their supervisor or manager at the earliest opportunity
· Prioritise own workload on a daily basis while recognising when it is appropriate to escalate to manager.
· To understand, contribute, implement, and apply knowledge of a relevant procedures and knowledge of how to resolve non-routine problems.
· Assist in the training and induction of new staff and provide continuous support with regards to the co-ordination of their workload
· Participate in the cover of work colleagues during their absences or at other times when required.
· Required to contribute to service/department meetings giving progress reports on activity for each consultant and reduction of wait times.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- ECDL or equivalent administration experience
- NVQ 2 customer care or equivalent experience
- NVQ 3 business and admin
Desirable criteria
- GCSE qualifications including Maths and English and/or equivalent qualifications and/or experience
Skills
Essential criteria
- Excellent organisational skills
- Able to work under pressure & to strict deadlines
- Able to work effectively across departmental boundaries
- Demonstrate effective written, verbal and telephone communication skills with team/clients/relatives, using tact when required
- Demonstrate knowledge of dealing with public/conflict
- Demonstrate a caring manner with an understanding disposition
- High standard of accuracy
- Flexibility and able to adapt to change
- Excellent communication skills
- Ability to work as a flexible and effective team member
Experience
Essential criteria
- Computer literate – experience of using Microsoft packages
- Working within a multidisciplinary team
- Experience of working in a customer service environment
- Excellent communication skills to overcome barriers of understanding
- Experience of collating data
- Working in a demanding environment
- Ability to organise self, working to deadlines and ensuring quality standards
Desirable criteria
- Use of patient administrative systems
- Experience of scheduling / coordination activities and/or resources
- Waiting list management experience
- Knowledge of NHS standards and targets
- Communication with patients in a healthcare setting
Other
Essential criteria
- To frequently sit and concentrate in a restricted position for a substantial proportion of the working time due to continuous exposure to VDU equipment, inputting information via a keyboard and using a telephone headset. Whilst using multiple computer systems at the same time.
- To multi-task between activities with frequent interruptions and a need to leave one task immediately. Reprioritise your workload to resolve any unexpected issues.
- Ability to concentrate when taking patient details over the phone throughout the day
- Requirement to deal with distressed patients on a daily basis
- Working in an office environment, using a VDU continuously throughout the day
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
- Rachel Ryan
- Job title
- Operational Service Manager
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 01704 704565
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