Calling all NHS medical secretaries

[InRoseBlush]

Hello all, I'm hoping to get some advice.

I'm currently working as a band 2 clerical officer as part of the health records department but I'm really eager to progress. I've only been in my current job for around 5 months so not looking to move for a while as I feel like there's still quite a lot I could learn in my job and skills to develop etc.

In my job, I have a fair bit of contact with various medical secretaries and I've become quite interested in that role. So basically, if there are any medical secretaries here I'd love to bend your ear.

Would it be possible to go from clerical officer to medical secretary in time? Are there any skills I should be focusing on developing? Do you enjoy your job? Any information at all would be much appreciated.

My duties ATM are quite broad. I work on reception a lot, so do general reception work like booking in patients, making appointments, answering queries etc. And then I also do more behind the scenes work like scanning and filing patient records, requesting casenotes, collating clinic data etc. I will also be doing some waiting list coordination work but haven't been trained in that fully yet.

Thanks in advance!

Hi there
I'm a band and was a band 2 like you, then a 3, then a 4, now a 5

It's totally do-able

I'd be volunteering to take on some extra duties eg is there a clinic you can manage, cancel if it needs to be, organise cover with whoever does the Rotas, track results/ histology.

Also it's holiday season coming up, I'd speak to your manager about being able to cover someone

All really good experience - good luck 🤞

Sorry first paragraph should say "I'm a band 5"

Yes totally doable and I've seen it done.

A word of warning though - medical secretaries are a dying breed as less skill is needed nowdays and a lot of hospitals and surgeries no longer have them.

Thanks for replying, that's all really good advice! I'll have a chat with my manager. My colleagues have mentioned she's been very helpful to those who have wanted to progress in the past.

Thanks for replying! That's good to know about medical secretaries. Can you think of any other roles that would be possible? I'm new to the admin side of the NHS (I worked as a domestic for a few years after I finished uni) so don't really know what's out there.

A few colleagues of my colleagues have mentioned waiting list coordination/referral management but I don't know if I fancy that. I'd need to have a deeper look into it.

We are going back a fair few years, but I went from being a legal secretary to a medical secretary and hated it - the work was very samey, no face to face contact with the public and consultants you worked for weren't approachable - if you couldn't near something they'd dictated or read their handwriting, you weren't allowed to check with them!!

If you can type, are organised and have a good telephone manner though, I can't see any reason why you wouldn't progress. Also, you'll probably have some of the medical terminology, which is a plus.