Senior Administration Assistant

Main area Medicine Grade NHS AfC: Band 3 Contract Permanent: Some evening and weekend work at 2 sites Hours Full time – 37.5 hours per week (Some evening and weekends across 2 sites) Job ref 302-26-8068432L-SM1

Site Royal Albert Edward Infirmary Town Wigan Salary £25,760 – £27,476 per annum, pro rata Salary period Yearly Closing 12/08/2026 23:59

People at the Heart. One Team. Your Career at WWL.

Job overview

We are looking for a enthusiastic, friendly, confident empathetic Senior Administration Assistant to join our very busy and dynamic clerical team within the Cardio Respiratory Department.

You will be required to advise and supervise clerical staff, plan and book appointments and keep accurate written records. There will be some statistical / audit work required.

You will need to possess excellent communication skills, analytical skills and decision making skills and be confident and empathetic when dealing with highly stressful situations.

Main duties of the job

• To advise and supervise clerical staff, plan and book appointments and keep accurate written records. Some statistical / audit work will be required.
• Be Competent on trust IT systems and telecoms.
• Work well within a team as well on their own initiative.
• Work collaboratively with GP and community partners.

Working for our organisation

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is proud to provide high‑quality acute hospital and community services to the people of the Wigan Borough and surrounding areas. At WWL, our staff are central to everything we do — we believe that happy staff make for happy patients, and this ethos underpins our culture and our success.

We have a strong, recognised track record in staff engagement and in living our values:

• People at the Heart
• Listen and Involve
• Kind and Respectful
• ONE Team

We are committed to placing patients at the heart of every decision and delivering safe, effective care that protects dignity and enhances experience. We seek to recruit people who share our values, our passion for high‑quality care, and our belief in working together as One Team.

At WWL, we recognise the strength that comes from a rich and diverse workforce. We welcome applications from all sections of society and are dedicated to creating an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Planning and Organisational Duties

• Planning work of clerical staff including roster of staff over multiple sites, ensuring all daily dutiesare completed
• Decision making such as prioritising work load of the staff to assist with the frequent unscheduledactivity or ensuring that extra activity does not compromise the patient care by cancelling andmoving patients
• Booking and managing all patients for multiple procedures, diagnostics and appointments.
• Managing non routine activity such as re-scheduling patients some of which can be more difficultto communicate but provide the best quality of care, managing emergency bookings as well asstand by patients to come in as extra activity
• Problem solve and communicate complex information such as changing or cancelling one type oftest and replacing it with different types which require different pre assessment needs. Thisinformation will be given to the patients who will not necessarily readily appreciate the changes.
• Use protocols that requires the patients to stop medication prior to specified diagnostic testing
• Use multiple IT systems to plan Cath lab and clinics lists by using the multiple patients bookingsystem to maximize activity and prevent breaches.
• Communicating with patients as well as multiple teams to ensure pre procedure requirements arecompleted such as ensuring bloods tests are completes, pre op appointment and fasting orstopping medical therapy are confirmed in line with policies of the department
• Co-operate with all disciplines staff of WWL NHS Trust and also our neighbouring trusts for thetransfer of patient activity
• Administration of the patient appointment systems such as creation of templates, changes toappointment letter templates
• Assist in the induction process for new users on the Cardio-Respiratory and Cath Lab includingother relevant IT Systems. Also to include sharing knowledge and experience in CardioRespiratory and Cath Lab administration procedures
• Liaising with porters, wards staff and ambulances regarding the transit of patients and arrangingnecessary transport
• Liaison with External sources eg: GPs or Tertiary Centres regarding the post diagnostic ortreatment continuity of the patient care.
• Advise manager of trends in referral/waiting times for appointments in line with targets.
• Monitors attendances and DNAs, reports to line manager and ensure appropriate follow ups arearranged as per protocol.
• Receive and process mail, referral letters and telephone calls. Advice available from MDT’s
• Experience in working in a clerical environment with good inter-personnel and communicationskills
• Working without supervision but with obligation to seek advice for those duties/tasks which go beyond prescribed schemes of works
• Produce reports using Microsoft/Excel applications.
• To identify improvements to the service provision of services to the public and manage theimplementation.
• Oversees running of clinics to ensure they are timely and efficient
• Represent the clerical staff at meetings where policy and service development/changes arediscussed.
• Responsible for ensuring all patients receive appropriate review appointments on leaving the unit.
• Monitor and record patient flow through the unit.
• Participate in the audit of the service by preparing reports of data.
• Data input of service/scanning patient result

Communications and Key Working Relationships

• Have a confident, empathetic approach to investigation and negotiate when dealing withoccasional; highly distressing situations such as cancelling patient’s procedures based onthe demand of the acutely ill patients.
• The necessity to communicate either on the telephone or face to face with various internaland external sources both Clinical and Non-Clinical eg: Patients, Clinicians, Trust Staff,Directorate Staff, and Solicitors
• Good communication and interpersonal skills in order to exchange information with patientswho have a variety of barriers to understanding and language, ie use of various languageservices activated when necessary. On occasion there can be distressing or highlyemotional situations that the post holder will be exposed too particularly when the treatmentor operation is to be cancelled
• To maintain good working relationships with all the disciplines even when there can bebarriers to communication
• To respect the individuality, values, cultural and religious diversity of clients and contributeto the provision of a service sensitive to these needs.

Responsibility for Finance

• To identify deficits in resources required to carry out the job and bring to the attention of themanager
• To be responsible for the monitoring of materials and equipment and maintain stocks.
• To organise booking of transport and interpreter services with financial cost to the Service and the Trust

Responsibility for Human Resources

• To maintain personal and professional development to meet the changing demands of thejob, participating in appropriate training activities when required.
• To participate in clinical supervision sessions highlighting development needs
• To comply with annual PDR and appraisal system and to assist in PDR of junior staff
• To contribute to the induction of new staff

Person specification

Qualifications

• Educated to GCSE level or equivalent or able to demonstrate equivalent level of experience
• IT Qualification

Experience

• Working to deadlines
• Working in an office environment
• Extensive use of hospital/NHS IT systems e.g. SOLUS
• Working as part of a multi-disciplinary team
• Working within a hospital environment particularly in Cardiology Working in a customer service environment

Skills

• Communicate with others effectively using a variety of methods
• Excellent literacy and numeracy skills
• Prioritise and organise own workload
• Work effectively with IT equipment including excellent keyboard skills
• Competent in the use of Microsoft Office packages
• Problem solving
• Use of initiative
• Works effectively when under pressure
• Typing skills Analysis of basic reports

Knowledge

• NHS IT systems and workflow
• Knowledge of NHS waiting time targets Basic medical terminology Knowledge of Cardiology & Respiratory diagnostic tests Knowledge of MRSA swabbing / COVID swabbing procedure Knowledge of Cardiac Cath lab procedures

Additional

• Ability to work effectively both alone and as part of a team, with a commitment to deliver high standards of care
• Reliable, flexible, responsive and proactive.
• Able to travel between sites as required and within appropriate timescales
• Speak English to an appropriate standard relevant to their role i.e. with confidence and accuracy, using correct sentence structures and vocabulary, and without hesitation.

The Trust reserves the right to close adverts earlier than the stated closing date if there is a high volume of applications.

We endeavour to inform all applicants of the outcome of their application by email or SMS text message.

Guidance on Completing Your Application

Applications are assessed against the person specification. We strongly encourage you to use the supporting information section to demonstrate how you meet the essential and desirable criteria, providing clear examples where possible.

On-Call

Please note that some roles may require participation in an on-call rota, particularly those that are operational in nature.

WWL is part of the Greater Manchester Continuous Service Commitment. We recognise continuous or ‘unbroken’ service from any Greater Manchester Local Authority, NHS organisation, Transport for Greater Manchester, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service or the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. This ensures access to our service-related benefits.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

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.

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