Patient Advice and Complaints Senior Associate | Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The Patient Advice and Complaints Team (PACT) are looking to recruit a Senior Associate to work in our team based at Leighton Hospital.

You will support the PACT in delivering a high-quality integrated service throughout the Trust.

You will provide an identifiable, credible and accessible service to assist patients and carers. This will involve working flexibly to enable the team to deliver a responsive customer focused service, providing patient support and complaints resolution.

You will be responsible for handling your own portfolio of complaints that are received by the Trust by means of telephone, letter or email. We also receive concerns raised via a number of other routes including local MP's and the Integrated Care Board., To facilitate a means of the Trust being able to respond to queries, requests for information, concerns, complaints, comments and compliments raised by service users. To be responsible for negotiating immediate solutions to concerns and requests for information and respond promptly and effectively.

Liaising with divisional heads of nursing, senior management teams and service managers to ensure they can review issues raised, meet required response deadlines, produce well formatted and clear responses and develop action plans as required

To embed systems to support organisational learning from complaints to prevent recurrence and to support the Senior Management Team in developing a system to review themes to provide Divisions with more understanding of areas of concerns to patients and relatives.

The post holder is responsible for the co-ordination of responses in relation to concerns, complaints and comments raised by service users within the agreed timeframe.

Liaising, as required, with external agencies such as the Independent Healthwatch Advocacy Services (ICAS), Members of Parliament (MP's) and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO).

The post holder should be able to critically analyse complex and sensitive information in order to understand the nature and potential seriousness of complaints, identifying potential delays, which may hinder the process and work with clinical managers and reviewing officers to resolve issues.

To independently prioritise and manage a caseload of complaints and informal concerns without direct supervision.

To support the Senior Management Team in production of data and reports using a wide range of IT applications, identifying analysis of key issues and trends to inform divisional agendas.

To prepare, maintain and collate accurate and contemporaneous records of all concerns raised by individuals including outcomes and actions taken. To be responsible for inputting, and extracting accurate data relevant to the provision of the service.

You would be expected to have excellent customer service skills, excellent communication skills across a wide range of people, including patients, carers and medical professionals. It is expected that you will have the personal skills which enable you to remain calm in difficult situation in order to gain a resolution to the concern raised.

Good active listening skills are vital to ensure that you identify each issue/concern you are dealing with.

You should have good organisational and team working skills to help prioritise the workload and competing priorities within the team. In addition you should have A-Level or equivalent in mathematics and English and have experience of report writing.

Good computer skills including Microsoft Office packages is essential. Knowledge of the PCS patient information system, Ulysses (Safeguard) and NHS experience would be an advantage.

This is a very busy office and you should be able to work with people at all levels and be able to work under pressure to tight deadlines.

Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust provides a full range of hospital and community services for people across East Cheshire (population 399K) and West Cheshire and Chester (population 357K).

The Trust provides high quality planned and emergency care, cardiac, critical care, child health, maternity services and intermediate care at Leighton Hospital in Crewe, Victoria Infirmary in Northwich, and Elmhurst Intermediate Care Centre in Winsford.

The Trust provides 500 beds and employs over 5,000 members of staff.

A wide range of community services is provided across 26 medical centres and schools by Central Cheshire Integrated Care Partnership, in collaboration with Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS FT and the South Cheshire and Vale Royal GP Alliance.

With the formation of Integrated Care Systems in July 2022, the Trust became a strategic partner in Cheshire East and Cheshire West and Chester 'places' and is part of the Cheshire and Merseyside partnership, caring for a population of over 2.7million.

During the Coronavirus pandemic, the Trust was recognised nationally for its 'Be Safe Be EquiPPEd' campaign.

Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been included in the Government's 'New Hospital Programme' to replace the current estate and enable the transformation of healthcare for our community.

At Mid Cheshire, our mission is to inspire hope and provide unparalleled care for the people and communities of Cheshire, helping them to enjoy life to the fullest.