Secretary and Typist staff work in many areas of the NHS and Social Care and are responsible for providing documents and records in a clear and concise way to support the work of the wider healthcare teams who are working directly with service users.
Working life
Working as a Secretary or Typist in an NHS or Social Care setting means that you will support patients and other members of the healthcare team by producing letters, documents and case notes in a typed format.
Secretaries and Typists usually work for a particular member of the senior team or staff group and areas such as:
- Acute hospital departments
- Specialist departments or clinics
- GP surgeries
- Health centres
- For NHS England
- At the head office of an NHS Trust
A Secretary or Typists job role focuses on tasks such as:
- Arranging meetings with other members of the healthcare team
- Managing the diary of your member of the senior team
- Taking minutes in meetings
- Ordering stationary
- Keeping records up to date
- Creating and updating spreadsheet documents
Your role as a Secretary or Typist may mean that you are patient facing and have a lot of interaction with service users but there are also Secretary or Typist roles based away from patients and service users where there is much less contact and you work within a team away from visible areas.
Requirements
Becoming a Secretary or Typist has no set entry requirements but NHS and Social Care employers will expect good literacy, numeracy and IT skills as these are an important part of working as a Secretary or Typist. Depending on the role, some employers may ask for GCSEs or equivalent qualifications. When applying for a role as a Secretary or Typist, there may be other skills or qualifications required but this will depend on the role and the team in which the role sits.
Employers may require you to have some relevant work experience or knowledge of having worked in a similar role previously. If you are considering a role as a Secretary or Typist, it is a good idea if you can demonstrate where you have previously worked or volunteered in an administration or customer service role.
Working as a Secretary or Typist will provide further opportunities to develop your career through apprenticeships and internal training and there are sometimes other ways to access employment as a Secretary or Typist such as traineeships or internships depending on the Trust you work for.
Personal characteristics
To work successfully as a Secretary or Typist, you need to consider your own personal characteristics. You would need to have the following attributes or similar:
- Be accurate and methodical and have good attention to detail
- Be able to work as part of a team but also be able to use your own initiative
- Be willing to follow procedures and take instruction from senior team members
- Be able to work with all people from various backgrounds with different experiences
- Be confident taking phone calls and speaking to people you don’t know
- Be supportive and helpful if dealing with service users or their families
Skills required
To work successfully as a Secretary or Typist, you need to consider the skills that you have. You would need to demonstrate the following:
- Be well organised and able to plan your time
- Be able to communicate with a variety of people using different methods
- Be able to successfully demonstrate a good level of IT knowledge
- Have positive customer service skills
- Have good grammar and punctuation skills
Training and development opportunities
When you begin to work as a Secretary or Typist, you will receive training you require to be able to undertake the role successfully. You will receive an induction which will introduce you to the department you will be working in, will support you to access the IT systems and will ensure you are away of the policies and procedures you will be required to following in the undertaking of your role. You will also have to complete any statutory and mandatory training that your employer requires such as fire training, data security training and customer service.
Depending on the healthcare setting you work for, you may be able to take additional vocational qualifications to support you to develop your knowledge and skills. These could include:
- Association of Medical Secretaries, Practice Managers, Administrators and Receptionists (AMSPAR)
- British Society of Medical Secretaries and Administrators (BSMSA)
Once achieved, you could become a full member of either AMSPAR or BSMSA who offer further development opportunities, email updates and networking opportunities so that you are able to continue to learn from others who work in the same role as you.
Career development opportunities
Once you have experience of working as a Secretary or Typist, there are many other roles you could progress into. You could lead a team, become a supervisor or develop your career into management. You could also transfer into other specialist healthcare roles such as becoming a medical secretary, working in human resources or as part of the finance team. There are also other opportunities to diversify into clinical coding or informatics, joining the digital team or working within an education or training team.
Pay and benefits
Staff working in a Secretary or Typist role usually work around 37.5 hours per week. Depending on the role and the setting you work in, you may be required to work shifts, nights, evenings or weekends.
Secretaries or Typists in the NHS are paid using the Agenda for Change (AfC) system and Clerks will typically start their career on AfC band 2 but with experience, further training and additional qualifications, can progress further up the pay scale.
Secretaries or Typists working for Social Care settings will be paid according to the employer they work for and the renumeration for the role should always be shown on their job advert. Other benefits of working as a Secretary or Typist include access to a pension scheme, health service discounts such as a Blue Light Card and 27 days of annual leave in addition to bank holidays.