Senior Clinical Coder

Job summary

We have a vacancy for an experienced Clinical Coder to join our highly professional team.

You will benefit from a detailed personalised training plan to ensure that you attain and maintain high standards of clinical coding quality. You will benefit from gaining skills and experience across a wide range of specialties.

We are a forward-thinking Clinical Coding Department who are dedicated to personal staff development, we can offer working from home (to be discussed at interview) and also offer family friendly, flexible working hours. As an experienced Clinical Coder, you must have clinical coding experience in a number of specialties.

You are required to demonstrate the current correct application of the rules and conventions of clinical coding, supplemented with a good understanding of medical terminology, clinical terms and anatomy and physiology.

Please note, interview will include an assessment. Interviews will be held to be confirmed.

Interview Date - To Be Confirmed

Main duties of the job

You should be enthusiastic about the challenges of a busy working and a constantly changing environment. You must possess the ability to remain calm under pressure and be able to work as part of a dynamic team. You should have a proven ability to prioritise, plan and organise work on a daily basis. The post holder will ensure patient activity data is fully and accurately coded within prescribed timescales, whilst adhering to national and local standards and to realistic productivity targets.

In return, the successful applicant can expect full support to enhance and develop their clinical coding skills. On-going training will be delivered by our training team. You can also expect to benefit from a supportive team structure and will be given opportunities to develop your career with support from a friendly team of experienced, qualified and dedicated senior staff.

About us

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 9000 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.

We strongly believe that the communities we serve should all have access to Five Star Patient Care.

Our Services:

Acute Care

Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.

Primary Care

Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.

Community Services

Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire. Our inpatient unit at Newton Community Hospital is where patients needing acute hospital beds can continue rehabilitation, freeing up space for more unwell patients. We also provide urgent care at our Urgent Treatment Centre located in St Helens town centre.

Specialist Regional Services

We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

Achievements

o Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018

o Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)

o National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme

Job responsibilities

KEY DUTIES

• Ensure accuracy and completeness of clinical coding which underpins the Payment by Resultsframework and national clinical coding requirements.
• Abstraction of clinical information from the health record and translation of that medical terminology using ICD-10 (diagnostic codes) and OPCS 4 (procedure codes) into a form that canbe tabulated, aggregated and sorted for statistical analysis and to support the Payment by Resultsagenda applying national rules and conventions to agreed standards.
• Demonstrate effective organisational and time management skills with the ability to work independently and as part of a team. Be highly motivated and lead by example to motivate otherteam members.
• Carry out clinical coding to the highest level of specificity using the three dimensions to coding accuracy thus giving complete and accurate data of a high quality that is consistently recorded.
• Routinely extract pathology/histology/radiology information and use for more accurate clinical coding in a timely fashion in accordance with the clinical coding deadlines.
• Work on own initiative in collecting information by whatever means required. This could include entering very specific areas of the Trust. Exercise diplomacy and confidentiality in pursuit of collecting this data.
• To work towards gaining experience in other clinical coding areas that fall outside the standard clinical coding processes such as Burns & Plastics, Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Oncology.
• To act as first line enquiry for requests for information either in person, by email or via the telephone.
• Promote and implement clinical coding policies and procedures and national guidelines.
• Assist Clinical Coding Delivery Team Manager to identify any complex issues in clinical information contained in the medical record and electronic systems that contradicts clinical codingguidelines.
• Assist Clinical Coding Manager to identify discrepancies in computer/hard copy informationensuring accurate data quality.
• Monitor data quality and clinical coding standards in line with local and national guidelines. Reportany complex coding issues as directed for verification and/or send to the Clinical Coding Classification Service help desk. Share all responses with relevant staff.
• Remove or amend clinical codes to Finished Consultant Episodes (FCEs) as directed by the Clinical Coding Delivery Team Manager or Information Department. Re-input clinical codes asnecessary.
• Communicate effectively with clinicians, managers, information, finance and other staff members to ensure high quality of coded data. Possess the ability to provide complex clinical coding adviceand information to colleagues within the NHS.
• Liaise with clinicians, researchers and healthcare professionals on a regular basis to provide and help with information as required. Be able to explain the requirements of the classifications andhow to implement them.
• Be prepared to attend meetings when required to promote clinical coding, the rules and conventions that surround them and raise awareness of the importance of accurate data.
• Promote a thorough knowledge and understanding of the rules and conventions that surround the Classifications of Diseases and Healthcare Related problems, tenth revision (ICD-10) and Officeof Population Census and Surveys fourth revision (OPCS-4) to all levels of staff within the Trust.
• Further develop a team approach within the service leading by example in all areas of clinical coding.
• The post holder must be flexible in the duties performed and it is expected that similar duties, not specifically listed above, will be carried out as required and may be cross-site.

CLINICAL & PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

• To take every responsible opportunity to maintain and improve your professional knowledge andcompetence.
• Maintain an excellent knowledge of medical terminology and anatomy and Physiology.
• To attend regular relevant training/workshop sessions
• Maintain a high level of competency in the recording of clinical codes and completion of assessments as and when required to measure accuracy and quality of the coded data.
• Keep up to date with the regular updates and amendments to ICD-10 and OPCS.

ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES

• To validate the hospital activity details on the PAS system against the information in the casenotes. To report any details found to be incorrect to the Data Quality Team and to highlight anyareas of concern with information documented in the case notes.

TEACHING & TRAINING RESPONSIBILITIES

• To continue to update clinical coding skills attending mandatory clinical coding specialtyworkshops and refresher courses.
• Attend local mandatory training in line with Trust policies.

Person specification

Skills

Essential

• Ability to work on own initiative and as part of a team
• Effective interpersonal skills
• Excellent concentration skills with attention to detail
• Flexible approach to work

Knowledge

Essential

• Experience of working in an office environment
• Planning, organising workload to meet deadlines
• Transferring coding skills and knowledge to others
• Experience in coding a number of specialties gained using ICD-10 Diagnostic and OPCS Procedure classifications
• Firm grounding in medical terminology and anatomy and physiology
• Excellent knowledge and understanding of clinical coding rules and conventions

Desirable

• Experience of working with clinicians and/or senior clinical staff
• Experience of mentoring junior members of the clinical coding team
• Knowledge of Information Governance, Data Protection, Legislation, Caldicott and other relevant guidance
• Knowledge of Payment by Results Framework
• Knowledge of SNOMED CT

Qualifications

Essential

• GCSEs (A-C) or equivalent qualification and/ or equivalent experience
• Clinical Coding Standards Course (UK) or equivalent qualification

Other

Desirable

• Ability to travel across the various sites of the Trust