Job summary
Employer heading
Senior Clinical Coder
NHS AfC: Band 5
Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust is a provider of specialist health care and has a presence in community outreach sites and, in collaboration with other providers, our clinicians help deliver care closer to patients’ homes by holding local clinics at locations from Cumbria to Shropshire, in Wales and the Isle of Man. The Trust also provides inpatient care for children with complex mental health needs at our Sunflower House building newly relocated, and opened on the hospital site.
We currently have more than 4,000 staff working across our community and hospital sites. We’re also a teaching and training hospital providing education and training to around 540 medical and over 500 nursing and allied health professional students each year.
As black and minority ethnic (BME) employees are currently under-represented in this area, we particularly welcome applications from members of our BME communities. All appointments will be made on merit.
You can expect a warm welcome at Alder Hey Childrens NHS Foundation Trust, our staff are friendly and welcoming. We listen to each other and work together to embed our Trusts values and behaviours. At Alder Hey we appreciate our staff and reward them with an outstanding benefits package including:
- Great flexible working opportunities
- Lease car scheme and Home Electronics Scheme
- Generous annual leave and pension scheme
- Extensive staff health and well-being programmes
Job overview
An exciting opportunity has become available within the integrated Alder Hey and Liverpool Heart and Chest Digital Service for a Senior Clinical Coder. This role will be based at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital.
We are looking for an enthusiastic, reliable, motivated individual who is keen to develop and further enhance their coding experience and knowledge.
The successful applicant must have excellent interpersonal and organizational skills and be able to demonstrate the drive and focus to deliver a high quality service whilst meeting deadlines.
You will be required to manage your time effectively and support the department in all aspects of day-to-day clinical coding practice, including accurate data extraction using the Trusts Electronic Patient Record system, to provide consistent and timely clinical code assignment in accordance with national standards of the ICD 10 & OPCS 4 Coding Classifications.
Applications must have the required National Clinical Coding Qualification.
An attractive recruitment and retention payment scheme is in place. The successful candidate will be entitled to an additional R&R payment of £4000, which will be paid in instalments across 12 months.
We reserve right to close the post early if we receive a high number of applications.
Main duties of the job
To abstract, analyse, translate data from complex medical patient care records into diagnostic and procedural coding using the national coding classifications to ensure accurate and timely coded data.
Ensure deadlines are achieved for internal and external reporting.
Working for our organisation
Alder Hey has been officially accredited as a HIMSS Stage 7 Hospital .
Liverpool Heart and Chest have recently become part of the Digital Aspirant scheme, which helps NHS Trusts raise their Digital Maturity. The Trust has also recently commissioned the Digital Excellence Strategy, a 5-year programme to deliver digital initiatives enabling a wide range of benefits. The 3 core themes that underpin the strategy are ‘Connecting Digitally with our Patients and Families’, ‘Digital Safety and Outstanding Care’ and ‘Insight Led Care’, all underpinned by a ‘back to basics’ service improvement plan.
We pledge to use digital to ensure that we are safer and deliver the best possible care at every step, for our staff we pledge their working day will be made better by delivery of a digital infrastructure that is based around their day to day needs.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
- Possess motivation and persuasion skills and uses these with junior clinical coders, management and clinicians to achieve high quality information and clinical coding
- Assists in the maintenance of a team based working environment
- Provide mentorship to more junior members of staff, when required
- Supports coding manager in the recruitment process
- Communicate complex clinical coding rules to senior medical, clinical, managerial and administrative staff, including external agencies
- Attends meetings with the clinicians and multi-disciplinary teams reporting on the status of clinical coding to the department in the absence of Clinical Coding Manager
- Supports Clinical Coding Manager with Clinical Coding reviews and audits
- Assists in the daily allocation of work within the team ensuring that mandatory deadlines are achieved
- Implements locally agreed changes to coding rules and ensures team members follow suit
- Assists in developing & implementation changes to local coding policy and procedures
- Raises clinical coding issues with the Clinical Coding Manager
- Applies the Clinical Coding Process to abstract, analyse and translate complex clinical diagnosis and procedures into alphanumerical code
- Assign codes from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD10), Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS4), applying National and International rules to agreed standards. Inputting of coded data onto the Patient Administration System (PAS) for all Inpatient episodes
- Uses a variety of knowledge resources to translate procedures where the coding process does not fully apply
- Processes coding from the Trust’s Electronic Patient Record (EPR) including pathology/histology/radiology results to enhance the accuracy of coded data.
- Determines the results of investigations when they are not readily available
- Uses established flagging procedures to consultants when information is missing from patient records
- Act as Key Link Person in the absence of Clinical Coding Manager
- Participate in complex audits of their own work and supports the audits of junior Clinical Coders
- Provide timely and accurate coded in accordance with Trust and national deadlines
- Responsible for uncoded finished consultant episodes for all specialties and delegate workload to ensure coding targets are met
- Work autonomously without direct instruction or supervision when self- allocating work and achievement of daily coding targets
- Support the Clinical Coding Manager in achieving month end coding completion targets
- Assist in the development of new error reports and other clinical coding quality checks
- Demonstrate effective organisational and time management skills with the ability to work independently and as part of a team. Work flexibly across specialties
- Be highly motivated and lead by example with the ability to motivate other team members
- Assist in the development of new error reports and other clinical coding quality checks
Data Quality:
Provide timely and accurate coded in accordance with Trust and national deadlines
Maintain an up-to-date knowledge of national and local clinical coding guidance and requirements
Assist the Clinical Coding Manager to identify any complex issues within clinical information contained in the electronic patient record system
Identify any incorrect recording of data on Trust’s PAS and ensure consistency of data for clinician and dates are the same on both the EPR and PAS Systems
Request any data changes to the PAS team for correction, prior to the coding.
Please note: Previous applicants need not apply. Your application has been considered for the role.
Person specification
Education & Qualification
Essential criteria
- 3 or more GCSEs (A-C) or equivalent or work based experience
- Accredited Clinical Coding Qualification (NCCQ)
Experience
Essential criteria
- NHS Clinical Coding Experience
- Experience in complex coding to approved standards
- Excellent knowledge of medical terminology
- Excellent understanding of anatomy & physiology
- Planning and prioritisation workload to meet deadlines
Desirable criteria
- Experience of mentoring junior members of the coding team
- Experience in adult cardiothoracic coding
Skills, Ability & Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Excellent communication skills
- Ability to work on own initiative and as part of a team
- Comprehensive knowledge and understanding of clinical coding rules and conventions
- Good analytical skills – ability to analyse complex clinical records
- Ability to provide support and advise colleagues on coding matters
- Ability to withstand pressure of working in a busy department
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of SNOMED CT
Applicant requirements
The postholder will have regular contact with vulnerable people and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Beverley Gerrard
- Job title
- Head of Data
- Email address
- [email protected]
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