NHS employees can you help me? I have an interview tomorrow ...

[copycat]

... for a Band 3 part time clerical post. I have been advised that the interview will incorporate a 10 minute filing test. Please can someone who perhaps works for the NHS advise me about the usual filing anomalies when it comes to surnames beginning with Mc or Mac or St or Saint etc

For example in a phone directory Mc is always assumed to be spelt Mac and St is spelt out as Saint but I don't think that way of filing is so common now.

So in an NHS filing system would all Mc names and Mac names be filied first before ANY other surname beginning with M like this:
MacDonald
MacDougall
MacManus
McCauley
McDermott
McNorris
Mabbs
Mace
Machey
Mellor

or would the Mcs and Macs be infiltrated with other surnames and filed literally as spelt?
Mabbs
MacDonald
MacDougall
Mace
Machey
MacManus
McCauley
McDermott
McNorris
Mellor

Or should the Mc names be 'spelt out' and filed as though they were written Mac like in a phone book?
Mabbs
McCauley
McDermott
MacDonald
MacDougall
Mace
Machey
MacManus
McNoriss
Mellor

Yikes! Confused? Yes I am!
I think I am favouring the middle option but can anyone help please.
Thank you.

... and what about hyphenated surnames? Would Ferguson-Smith be filed under F or S? I would have assumed under 'F' but I just read some HM Revenue and Customs filing guidelines which state "Here you always file under the last name. For example, Stilton-Evans is filed under EVANS. Buckley - Mellor is filed under MELLOR. If there is no hyphen Stilton Evans is filed under STILTON"

I used to work in the nhs and cant remember, sorry but bumping this

I now work in a library and its Mcs and Macs mixed then M names, hyphenated first surname so your example would be under F

I would be tempted to go with the first option so it would appear as if you were wrong that you were knowledgable but out of date rather than be wrong and appear ignorant, ifyswiM

Thanks littleducks

As a matter of interest in the library do you file all the Macs before all the Mcs or do you treat both the same and then file according to the next letter ie

McArthur
MacBride
McCauley
MacDougall

OR

MacBride
MacDougall
McArthur
McCauley

Thanks again.

I'm a band 2 NHS clerical worker. As well as filing by alphabetical order, I sometimes have to retrieve casenotes from the medical records store, which is organised numerically, and file documents into casenotes - which would be done by date and by category - e.g. x-ray results would be filed in a different part of the notes than correspondence. I don't think there is one set way of filing alphabetically for Mac/Mc - I would be inclined to file mcs and macs together before the ms. Oh and file according to next letter, so like the first example you gave in your most recent post

I would expect the macs to be filed before the mcs and all to be filed in with all other names - so Mace would be after Macdonald. Having said that we hardly file anything by name - it's all done on hospital number. There is a push atm to use the NHS number a lot as well. I think your filing test will be more about matching up patient details with records rather than ordering those records iyswim.

At the library it is:

McArthur
MacBride
McCauley
MacDougall

I now remember hospital filing, as another poster said there was no alphabetical filing it was all numerial and the system for the notes in storage at first appeared totally overwhelming but was fairly simple when you understood it basicaly the hospital number was split up to give 'co-ordinates' for place of notes eg

32456798

was in
section 32
subsection 45
shelf 67
notes number 98

I wouldnt expect the task to be too difficult to be honest, i think they will expect you to be able to adapt to their in house system and apply it

Good luck

Our hospital numbers just go in sequence - so this years are 10/101, 10/102, 10/103 etc. Of course we only finished issuing 09 numbers in about April

The key thing is accuracy - you don't want to be filing stuff together if personal details don't match - so the name may be the same but look out for different dob, NHS number, address and GP registration.

Hey Copycat did you find the filing test okay? I have one coming up.