Job Purpose

To provide a professional and efficient reception and administrative service for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. To support and aid the administrative team in provision of confidential, secretarial and clerical service.

Principal Accountabilities

Greet visitors, patients and professionals and advise appropriate members of staff of their arrival in a prompt manner.

Deal with incoming correspondence, telephone calls and enquiries. Ensure calls are directed to appropriate members of staff and messages delivered promptly and recorded in client records correctly to guarantee smooth communications within the service referring any problem to Senior Secretary.

Undertake the confidential typing of general correspondence, clinic letters, legal/medical reports and ensure their efficient and correct distribution and the client records are maintained.

Undertake repeat prescription requests from patients ensuring client records are updated and prescriptions are ready for collection.

Arrange appointments for patients ensuring client records are maintained and clinical rooms booked

Dealing with and responding to incoming referrals and questionnaires, recording, filing and scanning key patient information for tracking process, arranging interpreters if necessary and updating spreadsheets. Make and record appointments.

Undertake general clerical tasks including filing, photocopying and postal duties.

Undertake other duties and provide cover as directed from time to time by, or in the absence of, other secretarial, clerical and reception staff.

Knowledge and Experience Required

The Child and Adolescent Mental Health service is a busy department and the post holder will work as part of a team of administrators.

Excellent word processing, keyboard and clerical skills are essential together with ability to deal with sensitive issues in a diplomatic way and should be able to ascertain any immediate risk and direct to appropriate CAMHS staff.

The post holder will be subject to continual interruptions by telephone calls, visitors to the service and queries. It is therefore, imperative that the post holder has a high degree of accuracy and the need for flexibility is essential.

The post holder will be expected to have a high degree of confidentiality.

The post holder must be able to use their initiative and set, and work within, their own deadlines and have the ability to prioritise own workload.

Good inter-personal, communication and organisation skills are essential.

The post can be stressful due to the nature of the work and calls for a mature personality. In the absence of clinical staff the post holder is expected to respond to clients and must therefore have the ability to gauge the urgency of the caller’s problem. Some clients may be distressed or angry. The post holder must be able to communicate on such occasions without causing further distress.

ECDL accreditation / use and knowledge of Microsoft office systems and systems such as Care Partner and Maxims would be an advantage.

Knowledge of medical/psychiatric terminology would be an advantage.