Cardiac Rhythm Services Secretary

Transformationunitgm; Lancashire; On-site; GBP 24,000 - 27,000; Full time

Job summary

A regional NHS Trust in Lancashire is looking for a fulltime Cardiac Rhythm Services Secretary. This role involves providing comprehensive secretarial support to the Cardiac Physiology Team, managing patient data, and ensuring efficient communication between patients and healthcare professionals. Candidates should possess excellent organizational skills and experience in office administration. A key aspect of the role is maintaining confidentiality while offering high-quality customer care in a busy environment.

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements

Support for personal well-being

Qualifications

• Clerical and office administrative experience.
• Experience working with the public.
• Data entry skills.

Responsibilities

• Provide clerical and administrative support for the Pacing Service.
• Manage clinic appointment waiting times.
• Communicate with patients and clinical teams, maintaining confidentiality.

Skills

Excellent communication skills

Organisational skills

Interpersonal skills

Customer care skills

Ability to manage a busy workload

Education

Good level of general education including Mathematics and English at GCSE Grade 4 or above

OCR lII or NVQ Level 3 in Business / Admin

Basic life support

Familiarity with medical terminology

Tools

Hospital appointment systems

MAXIMS

TEAMS

Job description

Employer Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Blackpool Teaching Hospitals Town Blackpool Salary £24,937 - £26,598 Per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 30/01/2026 23:59

NHS AfC: Band 3

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is situated on the west coast of Lancashire, with services covering the local authority areas of Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre. The Trust is part of the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System (ICS) supporting a population of around 1.6 million people.

We have three main hospitals providing acute services to around 330,000 local residents. The organisation also provides specialist tertiary care for cardiac and haematology services, delivers community health services to over 445,000 residents including those in North Lancashire and hosts the National Artificial Eye Service across England. Plus, we provide urgent and emergency care services to an estimated 18 million people who visit the seaside resort each year. We employ over 7000 people from 68 different countries.

We welcome and encourage application from anyone with protected characteristics, as well as supporting reservists and Veterans who are looking for a rewarding and challenging career within the NHS.

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals encourages flexible working in all our roles to support staff in maintaining healthy home-life balance. Working patterns such as: part time working, self-rostering, compressed hours, annualised hours, term time, reverse term time and flexitime working can be explored.

Job overview

A vacancy has arisen for a fulltime Cardiac Rhythm Services Secretary, to support the Cardiac Physiology Team. We are looking to recruit a professional and adaptable member of staff into our pleasant team within the Cardiac Investigations Unit (CIU). We implant and follow-up a wide range of pacemaker and implantable cardiac devices and have established a remote monitoring service for many of our device patients. The successful candidate will work alongside the clinical team to benefit the patients and service users who access our services.

You should be able to work as part of a busy team and on your own initiative. As well as having excellent communication, organisational and interpersonal, and customer care skills, you will need to be flexible, have an appreciation of the confidential nature of the work and be able to manage a busy workload. The use of IT is essential to this role, and experience of the hospital appointment system is desirable. To provide a full range of secretarial and administrative support for the Pacing Service within the CIU Department. To be the first point of contact all patients & carers using the pacemaker clinic service. To act as the co-ordinating point for administration activities within the cardiac rhythm service.

In accordance with trust policy, manage clinic appointment waiting times ensuring an efficient service is provided whilst maintaining confidentiality at all times.

Main duties of the job

1. To provide a comprehensive clerical and administrative service to the Pacing & Device Service within the CIU department.
2. To be responsible for running an efficient office system.
3. Organisational skills are essential to this role.
4. Input relevant patient information to the Cardiac Rhythm Service Systems and retrieve information as required including, remote monitoring service, transfer of patient information to other centres.
5. Update patient details into the national device database and provide patients with European Device Registration card replacements.
6. Being aware of and implementing any changes to procedures on Hospital Patient information System including booking all new pacemaker clinic appointments and updating patient records and tracing notes.
7. Be responsible for inputting patients details and provide the first point of contact for the device home monitoring service provided by the Cardiac Rhythm Service (CRM). This includes maintaining patient data, ensuring appointment scheduling is completed providing individual device reports for the lead cardiac physiologists running the clinics, and troubleshooting monitor issues.

Working for our organisation

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is situated on the west coast of Lancashire, and offers a full range of district hospital services and community health services to a population of 1.6 million in Lancashire and South Cumbria.

The Trust provides services to the 440,000 residents of Blackpool, Fylde & Wyre and North Lancashire, as well as specialist tertiary care for Cardiac and Haematology services across the wider region.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Recognise home monitoring reports that require urgent action and report to clinical team.
• Process post with guidance from the cardiac physiologists where needed.
• Communicate with GPs, hospital staff, patients and relatives on the phone, in writing (MAXIMS) and face to face, using tact and diplomacy and being aware of sensitive information.
• To retrieve patients case notes from medical records when required by the clinical team and to trace them according to Trust protocols.
• 12. To receive enquiries from patients, relatives, & carers demonstrating empathy whilst exercising initiative in dealing with these enquiries as necessary.
• 13. To carry out general office duties including typing letters, and memos. Dealing with incoming and outgoing mail including e‑mail, faxes, filing and photocopying.
• 14. To collate statistical information and maintain accurate records for the department. Display the information in spreadsheet style.
• 15. To participate in the planning, evaluation and protocols within the area of work.
• 16. To be responsible for ordering & maintaining stationary stocks in collaboration with the CIU Administration Manager.
• 17. Ensure confidentiality of information for both patient and staff.
• 18. You may be required to manage waiting lists for all cardiac investigative tests carried out within the unit, identify and monitor potential breaches, discuss with relevant staff ensuring the national /local target dates are met. Issue appointments by letter and telephone where appropriate. Type appointment letters when computer produced letter not appropriate. Ensure appointment cancellations and amendments are allocated new appointments within specified time limits.
• 19. You may be required to communicate with patients concerning their appointments and treatments give clinical advice regarding stopping medication for certain tests. Show a caring attitude allaying fears expressed by patients or relatives give concise information about tests performed verbally or by information leaflet. Deal with hostile situations if they occur.
• 20. You may be required to provide a professional and efficient reception facility. Welcome patients and visitors to the department notify relevant team of their arrival to ensure smooth running of the clinic. Operate a direct booking facility to patients from cardiac outpatients on a daily basis issue appointments with patients face to face giving patient choice.
• 21. Ensure all attendances are correctly recorded onto hospital system also input clinical codes accurately to ensure the trust obtains maximum income.
• 22. Plan and organise workload prioritise work to ensure urgent and fast track cases are dealt with and allocated appointments within hospital targets.
• 23. Communicate with ambulance transport on behalf of patients.
• 24. Recognise and take appropriate action if a patient collapses in the waiting room.
• 25. Report faults to Estates & IT helpdesk via the intranet.

KEY WORKING RELATIONSHIPS:

Person specification

Education and Qualification

• Good level of general education including Mathematics and English at GCSE Grade 4 or above, or equivalent.
• OCR lII or NVQ Level 3 in Business / Admin
• Basic life support
• Medical terminology

Experience and Knowledge

• Clerical/ Office administrative and organisational experience.
• Previous experience working with the public
• Experience of data entry
• Familiar with TEAMS

Skills and Ability

• Able to work as part of a team
• Possession of excellent IT skills & organisational office skills
• Excellent Telephone skills.
• Ability to enter data accurately.
• Highly professional approach to work and in particular dealing with confidential information
• Able to prioritise a multi-task workload and meet deadlines whilst allowing for interruptions.
• Excellent reception and customer care skills showing patience, tact and diplomacy.
• Ability to respond to changes in service.
• Smart and tidy appearance.
• Able to work under pressure using own initiative.

Any invitation to interview will be sent to the email account stated on your application form.

If the role you have applied for requires a Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) check we will administer this as part of your pre-employment checks. Please note, you will be required to repay the cost on appointment. This will be collected via a salary deduction. You can choose whether to pay this over 1-3 months from your salary or as a one-off payment on commencement in post. The level of check required depends on the role that you have been offered. Currently the charges are - Basic DBS check £25.50, Standard DBS check £25.50 and Enhanced DBS check £53.50.

You are encouraged where possible, to register for the DBS update service. This is an annual registration fee of £16. By registering for the update service you will not have the additional cost of repeated disclosures.

Should you withdraw your application, you may be required to reimburse the cost of the DBS check.

DBS checks remain free of charge for volunteer positions.

By submitting an application for this vacancy you are confirming your agreement to the above in the event you are successfully appointed.

The DBS Code of Practice can be accessedhere .

Please ensure that you read the Person Specification attached below as your application will be judged against this.

Please note that every effort will be made to keep the vacancy live until published closing date, though there may be instances where such interest is generated, that for administrative reasons the post may close earlier.

Please note that in line with national NHS guidelines this Trust operates a strict non-smoking policy. Members of staff are not permitted to smoke on Trust premises or grounds at any time nor take breaks during working hours for the purposes of smoking.

The Trust does not offer interview expenses to shortlisted candidates unless indicated in the advert.

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.

CIU Manager also happy to be contacted Angelic Goode