Describe your job role
I am trained in care navigation to ensure that patients get to the right place and see the right person in the most appropriate time frame. This based on the information provided by the patient.
We are part of a Care Navigation team.
The job involves:
- Booking patients in when they arrive for appointments
- Booking activities such as booking patients in to see the nursing team, booking blood tests, specialist skin and minor surgery clinics, flu and covid vaccinations, medicals, patient immunisation and new baby checks
- Recalling patients for blood tests that are due
- Liaising with Navigation Doctor to book patients directly into face-to-face appointments at our Hot Hub or green sites,
- Signposting patients to other NHS services such as physiotherapy, counselling or minor injury units
- Speaking to patients, gathering information and booking a telephone call back with a doctor for either the same day or for more routine problems in the future
- Arranging follow up for patients after tests results or admission to hospital if needed
- Looking at eConsults and online queries, and with support from Navigation doctor booking appointments for them
- Dealing with registrations of new patients
- Updating details of a patient if they update contact details or become a carer
- Arranging online access for patients
- Rescheduling clinics when clinicians are unwell
How would you describe a typical day?
- It is very busy on a daily basis!
- From re-arranging clinics first thing in the morning, answering the phones to patients, helping on the front desk answering questions from the Team, monitoring the appointment book to make sure it is being booked as efficiently as possible with the correct Clinician
What do you enjoy about your job?
- Working with the public
- Working with a friendly team who support each other.
What challenges do you face in your role?
- High levels of demand with limited resources
- Still recruiting for additional team members
- Patients or their families being abusive when we can’t give them what they want.
What advice would you give to patients?
- Please be patient if your problem is routine and give us as much information as possible so that we can ensure the right people get seen in the right place in the right time scale
- Be kind, speak to us as you would wish to be spoken to yourself, we are answering calls back to back throughout the day, we don’t just come to work, we embark on an emotional rollercoaster, often being the first ear for someone with mental health issues