Patient Experience OfficerinHarrogateinHarrogatePUBLISHED TUE 7 JAN 2025

Are you an excellent communicator with a passion for person-centered care?

Would you like to help patients, carers and their families to help to bring about positive changes within the Trust to improve patient and carer experience?

As part of the Quality Team, our Patient Experience Officer role supports the delivery of the Trust's Making Experiences Count Policy, where learning from experience and swift resolution of issues is key.

We are looking for a positive, proactive individual with proven communication skills and previous experience in handling and responding to concerns, complaints and other patient and carer feedback. The position involves seeing a caseload through from initial contact to final resolution. This leads to a role that is incredibly rewarding, as you are able to help bring about resolution of patient concerns and support people through the entirety of our process.

If you can stay calm and focused under pressure, manage sometimes difficult situations, enjoy advising and helping others, and want to add value to collecting, measuring and enhancing patient, service user, carer and public experience of the NHS, then we would really love to hear from you.

The post holder will deal directly with patients and public, independent contractors and other healthcare professionals either through face to face, telephone or written correspondence, ensuring all feedback is handled appropriately, in line with national guidance and the Trust's Complaints policy and procedures.

Working closely with the Patient Experience Coordinator and the Patient Experience Manager, this post supports the delivery of the Trust's Complaints policy and procedures, and contributes to incident administration processes in support of the Trust's Risk Management Strategy.

The post holder will link in with the Clinical Effectiveness Team and the Patient Safety Team, to ensure action plans are followed through and actions have been taken to ensure learning from feedback has taken place.

The post holder will link with the other departments that receive feedback in the Trust to ensure that all feedback is captured and reported.

The post holder will foster constructive relationships within the Trust and externally to ensure that there is sound and effective two way communication arrangements with healthcare professionals, service users and the public in dealing and responding to complaints and incidents. The work is at the highest level of the Trust dealing with sensitive issues and the post holder must ensure that appropriate confidentiality is maintained.

About us

1. Responds to anxious and distressed members of the public and staff and provides impartial advice on the NHS and Trust MEC Policy and Procedure in a professional and competent manner. Provides assistance to all parties to achieve effective, speedy local resolution, wherever possible on the spot.
2. Acts as an effective first point of contact for all types of feedback the 4 Cs (Compliments, Comments, Concerns & Complaints) - handling calls, emails, letters or face to face verbal feedback received from the public and responding appropriately.
3. Links with the Patient Experience Volunteers to provide a seamless service to patients and the public in the resolution of any concerns.
4. Liaises with the Directorate Leads to provide assistance/check progress of investigation.
5. Acts as a point of contact for enquiries relating to complaints, patient feedback, claims and other risk management issues and escalates issues to Patient Experience Co-ordinator or Patient Experience Manager as appropriate.
6. Manages a delegated caseload of cases, liaising with Corporate and Clinical Directorates to ensure that complaints are properly investigated in line with NHS and Trust Complaints Policy and Procedure.
7. Closes all delegated cases on Datix Web system, ensuring that key data is validated, categorisation codes checked, contact information verified and key learning identified.
8. Liaises with other Complaint Departments and/or their equivalent in partner agencies to ensure a seamless service for multi-sector complaints.
9. Liaises with the Health Service Ombudsman in consultation with the Head of Risk Management with regard to complaints that are referred to these bodies, compiling copies of files as requested and informing staff of progress.
10. Where appropriate, arranges conciliation meetings with the public and Directorate Leads and takes accurate records of the meetings to share with all parties. This will include providing support and advice to staff to ensure they are prepared and up to date with the concerns of the complainant.
11. Awareness of being open and the duty of candour requirements for all appropriate cases and liaises with directorate colleagues to ensure that verbal and written communications / investigations are provided within stipulated timescales and are filed in Datix, patient notes and evidence files.
12. Assists staff to draft responses to and develop actions resulting from review of comments and compliments.
13. Ensures that all feedback whether positive or negative is used to inform/influence service change and organisational development and shared across all areas of the Trust.
14. Contributes to the preparation of trend reports and projects as required.
15. Recognises and escalates any concerns regarding information received that may need immediate attention/intervention, to the Patient Experience Co-ordinator and Patient Experience Manager.