Underperforming Colleague

[NHSemployee]

I will be going into a new post in January in NHS. As part of my job I have been asked to manage an admin assistant. A couple of weeks ago I met up with his current line manager who is about to go on mat leave to go through the admin assistant's tasks and responsibilities. Her opinion of this assistant was he'll do the job as long as you keep an eye on him and spot check his work now and again. His last appraisal and 1:1 report raised no obvious concerns.

Later that week I met with a newly qualified Member of their team and her opinion of the admin assistant was much more worrying. She works on a daily basis with him whilst her line manager only sees the admin assistant once a week. According to the NQ team member the admin assistant has problems with almost every single area of his work including stock control and ordering of vital equipment for the wards and makes constant mistakes triaging patient referrals resulting them sent to the wrong departments and in delays in appointments. The NQ team member says the admin assistants manager knows about these problems and they have been taken to double checking most things he does. The NQ team member also says the line manager isn't interested I addressing the issue as she doesn't want the hassle and will be on mat leave soon anyway. The NQ team member said when she has pulled up the admin assistant in the past when the wards had completely run out of equipment he had been very passive aggressive towards her so she backed down as she didn't want to be seen as bullying the admin assistant.

The NQ team member will also leave in January and we will be getting 2 brand new members of staff with no experience of the hospitals systems. I have as a result of these conversations raised all these concerns with the overall team manager and she has arranged for herself, myself, the Admin assistants manager and the NQ team member to meet up tomorrow and discuss what's been happening.

I'm worried I'm walking into a situation where patient care could be seriously compromised as a result of the admin assistants underperformance not been addressed by his current line manager. This will also be my first role where I have to manage someone else. AIBU to say to the team manager I feel out of my depth in this situation and request I don't manage this person.

Some of this sounds very harsh.
I think you need to take the concerns seriously but need to observe the person yourself.
I dont think the person leaving on mat leave should be able to leave a mess.
Ask for their results of spot checks on the person
In my experience - not nhs- most staff make lots of mistakes and the rest of the team will carry the worst ones. The worst ones then get promoted. They them cant manage staff as they cant do the work themselves.
Most managers dont do anything to reduce mistakes as they want an easy life. But also it seems difficult to get rid of people.
It is primarily the admin assistants responsibility for his job.

I think it somewhat comes under getting up to speed with new job.

You need to start the job and see what is happening for yourself. Get the Admin Assistant's view on what is happening. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he tells you more and more work has been piled on him when people have left and he can't keep up. It's fairly standard for most admins and support staff these days.

BTW, what has this manager done to help this 'failing' member of staff? Nothing probably...

I agree with iam you need to consider whether the workload is too much for him .

Don't take anything for granted in this situation. Write down everything you say to them and everything you ask them to do (do this for all your team).

Don't trust anything you haven't observed yourself, you don't know people's motivations and there is likely to be politics in the team.

Don't talk to any of your juniors about any other of your juniors, it will cause trouble. Let them tell you things but remain non-committal/poker faced.

Don't pre-judge. Get some advice from a more experienced manager.

Start with an assumption that everyone wants to be good at their job and do well and no-one deliberately screws up (that might sound naive but if you start with any other viewpoint it will show in your dealings with them).

Regardless of why this team member might be underperforming, your objective is the same right-understand what their job is about, if they have the skills and time to do well and help them to get better. You also need to hold them to account if they don't.

Being objective and fair isn't the same as being walked all over, and prejudging people will only bite you on the arse.

Good luck in your new management role. Read up on performance coaching and use it to have regular 1-1 meetings with the admin person, focused on solving any problems together.
If you start from the basic assumption that what he does is necessary and valuable and he wants to do it well, then work to identify and remove any obstacles (eg training needed) and give proper feedback you will not go far wrong.