Breast Care has a team of Medical Secretaries based at the Glenfield Hospital who are the direct point of contact for Breast Care for you as well as your GP. They are involved at all stages in your care from initial referral onwards. All referrals, both external (from your GP) and internal (from other teams within UHL) to Breast Care come to the secretaries who pass them on to the “two week wait” team or to the clinic co-ordinators.
The medical secretaries act as link between you and the doctors and nurses who are looking after you – for example if your consultant is in clinic or operating and unable to deal with your query immediately. As a result, they deal with a wide range of queries, complaints and requests for information – not only from patients but also from staff and other healthcare providers.
Although typing itself is outsourced, the medical secretaries ensure that your letters are checked by your doctor or nurse before being sent out and then correctly distributed (for example copies to you, your GP and your oncologist). The medical secretaries take minutes at internal meetings, and provide support to the clinical teams in the audit, clinical governance and morbidity and mortality reporting processes.
As part of the wider Breast Care team, the medical secretaries help to ensure efficient use of operating theatre time and clinic appointments by optimising bookings, where appropriate moving patients to ensure maximum utilisation of resources and minimise waiting times and delays for you and your treatment.
The medical secretaries are Carolyn Weston, Dawn Alam, Charlotte Willimott and Zoe Cornelia.
