PALS assistant

Working within a busy Patient Advice and Liaison Service Team, you will support patients/carers and relatives to raise concerns, complaints and enquiries, ensuring that they are offered a satisfactory resolution as a result of the action taken. You will treat all patients, carers and relatives with empathy, compassion and consideration.,

• To provide a high-class customer focused service to patients and visitors. The post holder fulfils the role of Patient Advice and Liaison Assistant, sign posting patients and visitors and ensuring that their immediate needs are addressed.
• Deal with complainants who telephone, write or visit the department.
• To assist/support the Patient Advice and Liaison Officer in taking, resolving and closing concerns.
• Implements the Trust's Complaints process.
• To assist/support the Patient Advice and Liaison Officer in providing weekly, monthly and quarterly reports from Datix.
• Work collaboratively and co-operatively with others to develop and facilitate the complaints process provided for complainants and their representatives.
Working as a Patient Advice and Liaison Assistant, you will be expected to uphold the Trust values and behaviours when dealing with patients and their families.,
• Signpost patients/carers/relatives etc to relevant wards/departments and agencies who can facilitate their enquiry
• Deal with verbal concerns face to face and on the telephone with sensitivity, tact and empathy including customers who have barriers to communication, such as mental health problems, visual or hearing impairments, physical disabilities, or where English as a second language and grieving, bereaved patients and relatives.
• Deal with angry and /or abusive complainants on the telephone and face to face.
• Identify concerns provided by patients/carers/relatives etc establish their details and provide advice and support this process to resolve their concerns locally. Ensure follow-up call to ensure actions have been completed.
• Attend meetings when required.
• Responsible for data entry of all concern/complaints data onto the Datix Complaint System. Attention to detail is essential and ensuring all information is up to date and accurate.
• Assist the Patient Advice and Liaison Officer to provide a number of Datix reports on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis on theming concerns and complaints.
• Maintain the tracking system for the caseload of complaints ensuring that reminders are sent to managers are laid down in the Trust's Complaints Procedure.
• Provide support to the Complaints Coordinator in managing their caseload of formal written complaints, ensuring that they are dealt with in the timescales laid down in the Trust's complaints procedure.
• In conjunction with the Complaints Co-ordinators, analyse the complaints letters as soon as they are received, acknowledge receipt of the letter and identify and list all of the salient points. Forward complaint letters to appropriate managers, with a list of all of the points to be investigated.
• Support the Patient Advice and Liaison Officer and Complaints Coordinators in cooperating and negotiating with the local Independant Advocacy and Citizen Advice Bureau Services, Offices of Local Members of Parliament (MP's), the Health Service Ombudsman and other Health and Social Care providers.
• Provide advice and support to patients, relatives and staff regarding the NHS Complaints Procedure and in relation to the specific questions raised by complainants in their complaint.
• Act in a way which supports and protects patient confidentiality, treat all complainants with dignity and respect and ensure equal access to the NHS complaints procedure for all complaints. Support equality and diversity.
• Contribute to Trust-wide training events regarding complaints and customer care, including the Trust Welcome Event and the customer care course and local induction.
• Participate in development review and maintain a portfolio of learning development., 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.
  
  Educated to NVQ Level 2 Customer Services or equivalent, Demonstrable experience in direct customer service roles, Understanding of the importance of confidentiality and data protection
Desirable criteria
• Knowledge of hospital systems - eg DATIX, Microsoft Office
  
  NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group (UHL Group) was formed on 1 November 2024, born from a shared aim to improve the care we provide our communities.
We are one of the largest employers in region, with over 18,900 colleagues who are dedicated to caring for our communities - from birth and beyond. For the 630,000 people across Merseyside, we are their local NHS. We provide general and emergency hospital care, alongside highly specialised regional services that extend to more than two million people in the North West. We operate from five hospital sites: Aintree University Hospital is the single receiving site for adult major trauma patients in Cheshire and Merseyside, and hosts a number of regional services including an award-winning stroke facility. Broadgreen Hospital is home to several elective surgical, diagnostic and treatment services, together with specialist patient rehabilitation. Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital provide specialist services in cardiothoracic surgery, cardiology and respiratory medicine, both in the hospital and out in the community. Liverpool Women's Hospital specialises in the health of women and babies, delivering over 7,200 babies in the UK's largest single site maternity hospital each year. The Royal Liverpool University Hospital is the largest hospital in the country to provide inpatients with 100% single en-suite bedrooms and mainly focuses on complex planned care and specialist services.

Note: Under current Home Office Immigration Rules we are currently unable to offer right to work visa sponsorship for Band 2 and 3 roles with a salary of less than £25,000 pa as they do not meet the UK Visas & Immigration criteria. Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview. We reserve the right to close any vacancies from further applications when we have received a minimum number of applications from which to make a shortlist. Please ensure you apply without delay if you wish to be considered for this role. Candidates applying for the role of Healthcare Assistant on the staff bank should note that due to the nature of the role, workers must be aged 18 or above when commencing in post. Applicants are therefore welcome from those aged over 18 or within 3 months' of their 18^th birthday. The Trust is committed to promoting a healthy work-life balance and achieve fair, equitable and consistent practice. We welcome flexible working requests and will consider a variety of flexible working arrangements from day one of your employment. Not all roles are suitable for every flexible working opportunity all of the time. Flexible working options may include reduced hours, compressed hours, fixed shifts, time back in lieu and home working. The Trust is committed to promoting equality and diversity; we value the contribution of individual talent, skills, knowledge and experience and aim for a workforce demography representative of the local community. We encourage applicants from the following groups that are currently under-represented in our workforce black, Asian and minority ethnic, lesbian, gay, bisexual and Transgender (LGBTQ+), disabled, male and age 16-24. Trust policy requires that the cost of submitting & processing the successful applicant/s DBS application be recovered via salary deduction following start in post. The amount of £26.50 (standard disclosure) or £54.50 (enhanced disclosure) will be deducted from salary, in manageable monthly instalments for up to 3 months following commencement of employment. Bank posts require upfront payment. From April 2017, Skilled visa applicants and their adult dependant(s) will be required to provide a criminal record certificate from each country they have lived in consecutively for 12 months or more in the past ten years. Applicants requiring sponsorship may wish to determine the likelihood of obtaining sponsorship for this position by assessing themselves against the criteria on the gov.uk website - https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa. This organisation has a zero-tolerance approach to the abuse of children, young people and vulnerable adults. All staff must ensure they adhere to the organisations safeguarding children and adults' policy and comply with the Local Safeguarding Children and Adult Board procedures. Staff should be mindful of their responsibility to safeguard children and adults in any activity performed on behalf of the organisation in line with the requirements of statutory guidance and legislation. All employees (and volunteers)are expected maintain their safeguarding knowledge and skills by completing mandatory safeguarding training which includes understanding and recognising the signs of abuse and neglect and taking appropriate action. As an organisation, we have adopted the Merseyside Domestic abuse workplace scheme which supports our staff who are experiencing Domestic Abuse /any forms of sexual violence. If you have any personal requirements that will enable you to participate in our recruitment process please contact a member of the Recruitment Services by phone on at the earliest opportunity to ensure that measures can be put in place to enable your application for this post. Please note: new entrants to the NHS will commence on the first pay point of the relevant band.