Day In The Life: Medical Secretaries team

Our ‘MedSecs’ are the cornerstone of communication and collaboration; the conduit between the hospice, GP surgeries, district nurses (DNs) and hospitals. They give vital administrative support to many hospice teams and Directors, including the Community Nurse Specialists (CNS), Inpatient Unit (IPU), the Support Team, Outpatient Clinics and Lymphoedema.

Not only are they responsible for processing all referrals for clinical services, but they are also the first port of call for patients, relatives, carers and primary health care services via telephone and email, often dealing with sensitive and emotional information.

Here’s an insight into the team’s typically busy day.

8am

From 8am-4pm, all patient-related and clinical calls come through this office.

We start the day by checking assigned tasks, urgent emails and new referrals so we can prioritise work for the day. Every day is different for our close-knit team. Our responsibilities vary depending on the teams and senior leaders we support.

9am

Support the daily IPU admissions meeting. Follow up with referrals, liaising with hospital teams around imminent admissions and medical records.

The IPU secretary also supports admin when somebody dies – death certificates, funeral directors, letters of condolence to the families, registrars – and works closely with the IPU administrator on the ward.

10am

Follow up Lymphoedema clinics with letters to GPs and patients and chase up prescriptions. Register new referrals received by email and post.

We’re really lucky to have one of our amazing Clinical Admin volunteers with us today, a retired GP. It makes a huge difference to the team when we have one of our highly skilled and valued volunteers in.

11am

Reporting to Directors, Senior Leaders, the ICB, and CQC are all part of our roles, and we take pride in the quality of our data, correspondence and records. We regularly cleanse data and support essential departmental meetings. Today it’s the Medicines management meeting as well as the bi-monthly Environment and Sustainability Forum.

12pm

The office has a high call volume, and patients and families can need compassionate listening and support. We often help them by assisting with Blue Badge applications and secure funding to facilitate discharges.

1pm

Our Community Nurse Specialists (CNS) team can have a caseload of around three hundred people at any one time. New community referrals, appointments and follow-up letters (GPs, DNs, community allied health professionals (AHPs) and hospitals) keep the team very busy.

After a visit this morning, we have a CNS authorisation form for a syringe driver. Getting this done urgently can make a huge difference as the patient may be very symptomatic.

2pm

The Support Team has a Remembrance Evening coming up. There are many invitation letters to proofread before sending out.

3pm

It’s time to sort the post. Lots of scanning and patient registration forms to go on to System One as well as IPOS (Integrated Palliative care Outcome Scale) questionnaires. It’s so important to understand what’s important to each person as an individual. We’re thrilled to hear that a woman whose dying wish was to go shopping with her daughter, has been fulfilled with the help of the Support team, CNS team and the ambulance service.

4pm

The phones are switched over to the CNS on duty for the 24-hour Advice Line.

Our final half hour is spent checking that all urgent tasks have been done and there are no red flags left to action.

It’s been another busy and varied day. Working together as a brilliant team and knowing we’ve made a difference to people and their families at such a crucial time, gives us all a great sense of job satisfaction and pride in working for the hospice.

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