NUH proudly celebrates World Admin Professionals Day | Latest news

Admin professionals are a hugely important part of Nottingham University Hospitals Trust to ensure it runs smoothly.

To celebrate World Admin Professionals Day 2020, we have been speaking to some of our staff about what they do, why they enjoy their jobs and how they’ve been dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic.

But first, here are some interesting facts about our admin professionals:

• There are more than 3,200 admin professionals working at NUH
•  2,582 of these are female and 645 are male
• There are a range of ages working in our teams with 18 members of staff who are over the age of 71
• There are 32 members of staff who are under the age of 20.

Kerry Hancock, (left), a Systems Facilitator in Outpatient Services,  Clinical Support Division, was just 17 when she joined Team NUH. It was her first-full time job and she has been with the Trust for 14 years.

Kerry said: “My department’s role is to manage the structure and maintenance of outpatient clinics across the Queens and City campus- creating ad hoc clinics, amendments, cancellations, deleting clinics and setting up new clinics for clinicians that join the Trust.

“I really enjoy my job because it is varied. We use multiple hospital systems and have different tasks to complete each day, so the job never gets repetitive.

“I also get to work alongside two colleges who are very supportive-which I feel is important within the work place.  My working hours are more flexible which is great as working mum of two.”

Kerry said that since the Coronavirus outbreak they have reacted quickly to make changes to procedures and individual clinics to meet the demands of the situation. 

“Since the middle of March we have been cancelling the majority of outpatient clinics across the City and QMC campus and some clinics, where appropriate, have been converted to telephone consultations,” she said.

“During this time we have changed the way we work, our electronic referral service has been temporarily changed so we can only receive urgent referrals which is managed Trust-wide by ourselves.

"All patients that have had appointments cancelled or have been referred routinely during this time, are being placed onto waiting lists and they will then be offered appointments once the hospital is in a position to do so. “

The department has been able to adhere to the social distancing guidelines by enabling some staff to work in other offices, so they are a safe distance from each other.

“We know it’s not always easy when you’re in an office to social distance but I think our department has done well to implement it,” she said.

“We are ensuring we follow the strict hand hygiene guidelines, also cleaning/wiping down work desks and equipment morning and evening.   We have also stopped staff from other departments from entering ours to limit the number of people in the office.”

The Endoscopy team have 17 admin professionals working across two sites. They complete all the administration around booking patients for their procedures and booking them on the right lists. They also cancel and move appointments, telephone patients to remind them of their appointment and send out the relevant information explaining their procedure.

Jennifer Plant, Senior Service Manager, said: “Most  Endoscopy was stopped due to the Coronavirus. Over a period of time we were cancelling patients and writing to them to let them know that they have been put on hold and the reasons why. They rescheduled our most urgent patients to consolidate lists and supported the clinicians in the administrative tasks around the vetting of referrals.  

“For a period of about two weeks our whole department had to react incredibly quickly to action all of the above as it involved hundreds of patients. It was a particularly hectic time for admin. The entire team did it without fuss or grumble and rose to the challenges thrown at them. It was a lot of work.”

“Endo Admin work so hard and genuinely care about patients. They play such an important part in our department and they make me very proud to work alongside them.”

Nana Tamuno, (top right), an Associate Specialty General Manager for Nottingham Children’s Hospital, joined the Trust last year.

She has a day-to-day responsibility for the operational running of all the medical specialities including Paediatric Diabetes and Endocrine, Cardiology and Nephrology and for the East Midlands Children and Young Person’s Sexual Assault Services.

Nana said:  “My responsibility is to ensure that we are delivering high quality patient services that are clinically sound and cost effective.  I work with my service leads to identify their business needs and requirements, in line with service specification to ensure we have the right resources to deliver them and that we are getting the right income for the services being delivered.  

“My favourite thing about working at NUH is that I work with a group of talented colleagues that are supportive and enjoy what they do, making a difference in how the children hospital is run.

“I also like the variety in my role and I find myself doing something different everyday which makes it interesting.  Admin roles in any organisation are the glue that holds everything together.”

Nana said it has been easy for them to observe social distancing due to how their work area is set up and they have created a social distance box for visitors to their office to ensure we all stay safe.

Bob Young, (bottom right), is a switchboard operator. He has worked at the Trust since 1996 and originally worked at Nottingham City Hospital. He then became a switchboard supervisor in 1998 and in 2010 he moved to QMC to his current role.

His job sees him handle a range of calls including ones on: Major incident call outs, internal emergencies, major trauma calls and occasional bomb threat or suspicious packages.

He also assists and advises callers and provides information to NUH staff on all the different on call- services.

Bob said: “To do this we have approximately 180 rotas from all the clinical services that provide an on call- service and collate this information into daily on-call sheets that we use to provide the Trust staff with the relevant information.

“The current pandemic has surprisingly made out job a lot less busier which I think is down to the suspension of the usual outpatient activity and surgical procedures and that I believe most of the wards that are treating Covid-19 patients are quite self-sufficient and therefore not needing our service as much.

“I like working at NUH and being part of a team that are able to help people, I like working with my colleagues – they are really supportive.”