About the employer
28k staff.
OpenDoor ---> A place to give good feedback about team members and congratulate them for their achievements.
What are the AIMs of the trust?
AIMs: Our vision is to improve the health and quality of life of our diverse population by building an organisation that: Excels in quality, safety, patient experience, research, innovation and teaching, Attracts, develops and retains great people, and; Is recognised internationally as leading healthcare provider
To improve patient safety, clinical quality and outcomes To improve the experience of patients, carers and their families To develop our workforce enabling each member of staff to reach their full potential To develop single services that build on the best from across all our hospitals To develop our research portfolio and deliver cutting edge care to patients To complete the creation of a Single Hospital Service for Manchester/ MFT with minimal disruption whilst ensuring that the planned benefits are realised in a timely manner patients hospitals potential (page 5 there is a mistake) To achieve financial sustainability
People Plan
There are five key themes set out in the People Plan which are; • We want to work here; MFT will be a great place to work • We look after each other; we care for you, as you care for others • We are supported to be our best; we care that you can develop your skills • We feel valued and heard; we show you how important you are and hear what you have to say • We can shape the future; our staff are at the forefront of shaping the future of care for our patients.
Green Plan
We’re truly committed to our new Green Plan which sets out how our organisation will continue to play its part in making healthcare more sustainable and tackling climate change.
What are the MFT’s values and why are they so important to the role of a Clerical Officer?
The MFT’s values are:
- everyone matters ,
- working together,
- dignity and care and
- being open and honest
What are the MFT’s values? (done)
The MFT’s values are:
- everyone matters,
- working together,
- dignity and care and
- being open and honest
About Yourself
Tell Me About Yourself
Thank you for giving me the chance to interview with you today. I am ___
I have been working
What I’m Currently doing, what I did in the past and where I would like to go. Why you are valuable to the company.
Why us, why this position.
Tell me about yourself and why you want the job? (done)
Thank you for giving me the chance to interview with you today. I am ___.
For the last 5 and a half years I have been working in customer and client facing roles which involved being attentive to the needs of others. As a booking operator in the NHS I would able to bring remarkable attention to detail with a work style that is able to adapt to the pace of the day and to a high standard.
I have experience working as part of a team in various sizes and can be relied upon to work on my own. I have a polite manner towards the people I speak to. I am computer literate and able to learn how to use new software quickly as well as being able to use standard software such as microsoft 365 and email. I am able to follow instructions and work with people from other departments.
I want to work as a booking operator because I enjoy the responsibility. I am certain that I would be able to help the flow of patients run smoothly including the service we provide to them. I am certain that I can keep patients as calm as possible and informed about the next step in their journey with us. In addition to that I am able to convey important information within the expected time frame and keep a good relationship and line of communication with other teams and clinicians in order to make sure that we can work together to give patients the best care.
Walk Us Through Your CV
Pick 3 main achievements and relate it to your CV.
Learning - CodeNation (during the pandemic) Teamwork - eComplete (feedback process) Working Under pressure - McDonalds (faster turn around —> worked till on the highest grossing day of the store / high accuracy with getting orders done correctly, empathetic to hungry customers and fast)
Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?
What Kind Of Work Environment Do You Like (done)
- I’m not just looking to fill a position, I’m looking for a long standing career.
- I applied to to this position because I believe I will excel in this work environment.
- I am confident in my ability to work in a team or on my own and with other teams who will rely on me to pass on important information.
- As your the trust encourages team efforts and valuing everyone, I believe this is the perfect environment for me.
Do You Work Well Under Pressure
How Do You Break Bad News?
What The question is: How do you break bad news? / Have you had bad news recently, how do you break it?
Which hospital is the NHS’s first hospital? (And what year?)
Trafford general in 1948 (74 years ago)
Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?
Work history questions
Employers usually base questions on jobs you have done in the past. This gives you the chance to talk about your experience. For instance, they might ask:
- when have you faced a challenging situation?
- can you tell us about a personal achievement at work?
- have you ever taken the initiative?
- have you ever failed at a task?
Your answers should reflect the skills the employer wants. Be positive and tailor your examples to the job description.
If you don’t have much work history, you can use examples from outside of work. You can also use examples from volunteering experience.
Use the STAR method / CAR(L - Learnings) to help structure your answers.
Weakness
What is your weakness
Introverted —> fixable (explain the public speaking / teaching classes / company wide explanations and demos)
When I am in a busy room listening to a conversation, for example a meeting, I’m a little bit introverted and less likely to speak up than someone else would. Overtime when I get to know people this improves but I have also been trying to improve upon this by jumping at the chance to do more tasks that involve speaking. In my previous job at eComplete the dev team created a piece of software for other teams to use as a tool for website maintenance and making sure the sites were able to be seen by google’s robots and I taught people from other teams about how to use this tool. Every week I would hold a drop-in session that people could join so that they could learn how to use it.
I was also invited to do some public speaking at an event for pharmacy students at Manchester University. Professor Jo Neil invited me to do a talk for for her students about the patient pathway and experience with Medical Cannabis, from the first consultation, interaction with the specialist pharmacies, about It was well received and
a patient driven advocacy group called PLEA
Strengths
The strengths employers look for will depend on the job role. They may ask you questions like:
- what are your main strengths?
- why should we hire you?
You can use specific examples to highlight your strengths, such as:
- communication - to show you get on with others
- problem solving - to show that you can find solutions
- enthusiasm - to show that you have a positive attitude to work
- flexibility - to show that you can adapt to different ways of working
Plan your answers around 2 or 3 examples that are relevant to the job. You can back these up with qualifications or training you’ve done.
What can you do that no-one else can
I my last position I helped t grow the youtube channel from 100.000 subs to over 1 mill subs in 3 years. this increase was a direct result of my ability to know, what people want, what viewers want on youtube.
and be able to understand analytics and create content that people come back watch again and again and sucscribe too. I am confident that my skills will help your company to grow your YouTube subscriber base as well.
Example 2
I am a digital marketer with a focus on online funnels. Because I also have a degree in psychology, I’m able to combine what I’ve learned from university, understanding human psychology, but combining that with technology and create very effective funnel that converts. I believe I bring a very unique perspective when it comes to digital marketing and funnel building. And I’m very confident with my abilities and skill sets and your brand and your product lines we could generate significant revenue online.
Leaving Job
Why did you leave your last job
Well, I spent a year and 8 months at eComplete and really enjoyed it. We were able to deploy several large projects but in the end the economy was tough. There was a large contract eComplete had with a large company that looked promising. Unfortunately the contract fell through after expansion plans were made within the company so eComplete had to restructure to save on running costs, this included making the junior developers redundant.
Ask Questions at the end of the interview
Tell Me A Time When You Went Above and Beyond At Work
Information management and knowledge storage was important in my last job, I saw that there were some tasks that we would do at the beginning of each new project and we had no structure for storing information guides for clients about how to use the custom features we had included in the builds of their projects so I took it upon myself to set up templates for new projects with guides about how to use them, I standardised the formatting of documentation, I ensured that other developers would write documentation and I reviewed documentation to check for missing information and clarity. We wrote documentation for known bugs within the party software we used. The outcome of this was that we were able to start projects faster because we had all of the files in one place, in addition to this I worked with one of the mid-level developers to create a blank project that had all of the custom features we had created for every project we had created. When there were problems we could come back to a project months later and know where to look for the problem and how to trouble shoot some of these problems.
In my old job, our department relied on shared knowledge and during some downtime between projects I decided to improve how our department created and stored their knowledge base.
I created a repository to store individual custom features requested by clients with documentation on the intended function, how to implement, customise and troubleshoot it in addition to a starter project which contained all of these features so that it could be used as a base for a new project. I also made sure there were guides for our clients. I standardised the formatting of documentation and frequently indexed it.
This meant that we were able to set up new projects faster, if we needed to implement a feature created by someone else we could do it on our own because of the instructions,
8 Calcot principals
- Principle 1: Justify the purpose(s) for using confidential information
- Principle 2: Use confidential information only when it is necessary
- Principle 3: Use the minimum necessary confidential information
- Principle 4: Access to confidential information should be on a strict need-to-know basis
- Principle 5: Everyone with access to confidential information should be aware of their responsibilities
- Principle 6: Comply with the law
- Principle 7: The duty to share information for individual care is as important as the duty to protect patient confidentiality
- Principle 8: Inform patients and service users about how their confidential information is used
What are the personal characteristics and skills needed to be an effective booking operator?
To be effective as a booking operator you need to have exceptional time keeping skills, organisation and planning skills. The reason being that the service being provided relies on you to not make mistakes because this will have an impact on the waiting time and care of patients.
You need to be an effective communicator to ensure that information is conveyed accurately. You need to be computer literate and be able to use various Microsoft software. It’s also important to have good customer service skills empathy for patients and staff who may feel stressed and to treat patients fairly and in line with the trust’s values.
You must take ownership of your work and be confident in tough moments and you need to be flexible in your working style as part of a team or alone when required.
An angry and irate patient calls you and they want to make a complaint. How would you deal with this situation?
I would first listen to their complaint and give them time to speak their thoughts aloud. I would not tolerate abuse but I understand that sometimes dealing with matters of health and arranging appointments can be a stressful situation. If I allow the patient to speak it will help them to let go of their initial burst of energy which will help to defuse the situation.
I would listen intently, acknowledge that they are being listened to with empathetic reassurance where appropriate and take notes. With careful consideration for timing I would ask the patient clarifying questions based on the notes I had taken and the information that I may be missing. At the end of this step, I would apologise as I feel it would be the right thing to do and I would acknowledge the mistake by explaining what I know so far and what I will do to try and find out more. The sorry would be meaningful and convey empathy.
I would then try to resolve the problem if I was able to or put the patient in contact with someone who would be able to help. I would make sure the patient has a point of contact if they have any more concerns and in addition to this I would make a note of following up on the complaint in order to help provide the exceptional care that MFT strives to be recognised for on an international scale. During this time I will only share the patient’s information with relevant parties, remain calm and follow the training and guidelines I have been given to help a patient with a complaint.
Give an example of a time you worked well and how you prioritised?
In my previous job we did administration duties on top of our regular workload on a rotating basis but when things were busy I would give the person on administration duty a hand. One of my colleagues fell ill and had to take some time off so I filled in for them, when the next week rolled around another colleague was on holiday and a cover had not been arranged for them so I filled in for them as well.
We had a system that allowed other team members to see who was currently running the administration tasks so I took on this role and communicated this to the team through the system. It was a pressing time because the team was coming towards the end of some projects and getting ready to launch them internationally so taking on this role ensured that the department was able to continue to run smoothly and that people in other departments still had a point of contact to ask for help, report bugs, arrange meetings or check on updates to their support tickets.
What have you done to prepare for this role? (done)
I read the job description and the person specification to make sure I had transferrable skills that would enable me to work to a high standard. I also saw that it was required to speak with patients who may be upset so I did some research on how the NHS handles complaints as I could expect to hear this as part of the job.
I read through the candidate booklet about the 9 different hospitals across the trust and enjoyed reading about the four values the trust has and what the expectations are for employees of the trust. What stood out to me was the aim to become known internationally as a leading health care provider. I have listened to and read about the experiences of other people in clerical roles including ward clerks and health record clerks to understand what a person needs to bring to the role. I also researched the Hive system and myMFT, including the purpose and what it hopes to achieve so that I would understand what the digital journey of a patient might be like enabling me to help patients who are unsure about using a new technology.