About us
We are the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman, an independent national ombudsman service. We are here to make final decisions on complaints that are yet to be resolved by the NHS in England, UK government departments, and some other public organisations.
We do this fairly and transparently without taking sides, and our service is completely free.
About the role
To work within the Legal & Clinical Advice Support Team to support the delivery of legal and clinical advice to PHSO casework teams. To contribute independently, and within the team to the function of legal and clinical advice provision, and to support the Directorate in achieving high levels of efficiency in delivering timely, quality, and comprehensive advice.
Main Duties
• Manage a caseload of clinical advice requests including allocation of work to internal advisers and procurement of external clinical advisors; monitoring clinical advice requests to ensure adherence to SLAs and escalating SLA breaches when necessary.
• Coordinate the administration of Clinical Advice Quality Assurance, to ensure advice is checked by a relevant professional to meet Quality Framework requirements.
• Approve clinical adviser fee claims, engaging with external advisers and pursuing delayed invoices to support efficient budget management in line with policy.
• Proactively research to procure new external advisors according to guidelines; contacting external advisors explaining the terms & conditions of the proposed contract and scope of advice explaining our requirements; and managing the relationships with external advisors to reduce the risk to service delivery.
• Complete ad-hoc reports, as required, to provide insight into the functions that support service delivery.
• Ensures allocated sections of the Process Handbook are checked regularly and updated where necessary.
• Work with internal and external stakeholders to report and address security breaches; adhering to our Information Assurance policies and procedures,
• To process incoming requests for the team from internal and external customers, deciding the most appropriate action to resolve the request, escalating issues where necessary.
• Use the Case Management System to keep full and accurate records, and audit trails in line with guidance.
• Communicate and engage with internal and external stakeholders both orally and in writing.
• Support Clinical Advisers and Lawyers with a variety of administrative tasks, including IT support, diary management, and information gathering.
• Provide administrative support to the clinical and legal management teams with ongoing contributions to regular workstreams and ad-hoc requirements.
Generic Duties
• Contributes to meeting team, Directorate and organisational objectives as well as personal objectives by undertaking cross office activities and assisting with events and projects where possible.
• To participate in learning and development activity and professional development as required in relation to the role.
• To contribute to an environment of continuous improvement and excellence.
• To provide excellent customer service to all internal and external stakeholders.
• To promote and support PHSO's vision and values
• To complete any other duties appropriate to the role.
The Successful Applicant
The successful Legal & Clinical Advice Business Support Officer will demonstrate:
Essential
• Good administrative practice
• Good standard of written and oral English
• IT literate, familiar with Word/Excel or similar office software packages
• Working in an administrative environment or providing a service to internal customers
• Good team-working/interpersonal skills
• Ability to meet targets and deadlines
• Self-motivated and well-organised: able to work with little day-to-day supervision from line manager, organising own work to manage competing priorities
Desirable
• Basic proof-reading
• A awareness of Public Administration
• Experience of working within an administrative setting involving Medical work
What's on Offer
• Civil Service Pension scheme (min 26.6% employer contribution)
• 30-day holiday entitlement, + 2.5 extra statutory holidays on top of the normal public and bank holidays
• Flexible working
• Access to a wide variety of internal & external wellbeing support, 24/7 assistance programmes and health advice
• Premium access to Headspace mindfulness and wellbeing app
PHSO is committed to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), and welcomes applications from individuals from diverse backgrounds. They are also a Disability Confident organisation. Should you wish to access the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) or require any reasonable adjustments through the process please contact the lead recruiter to discuss your needs before the advert closes.
To apply, please submit an up-to-date CV detailing your experience that best fits the essential criteria outlined above.
Successful candidates will be invited to interviews taking place week commencing 5th September 2022.
PLEASE NOTE: We can only consider applications from candidates who have the right to work in the UK.
How to apply
To apply, please submit an up-to-date CV detailing your experience that best fits the essential criteria outlined above by 10am on 8 August 2022.