Patient Support Officer

Remote based, part-time role - an exciting opportunity - at a busy, dynamic and growing cancer charity – as part of ABC UK's Patient Support Programme.

Part-time flexible (likely minimum 18.5 Hrs p/w), salary £27,000 pro-rata, 20 days annual leave pro-rata, 3-month probationary period.

Bladder cancer is not a rare cancer – but it does have a low profile, lack of awareness, low research investment and desperately needs new treatments. Over 22,000 people are diagnosed each year in the UK – there is a high level of recurrence. There is a lack of information and support for patients.  With your help, Action Bladder Cancer UK can radically improve this. 

The role

ABC UK is an established charity, with exciting new projects. We have an active network of volunteers, a full time Chief Executive and core staff and a range of project staff.  You will report to Chief Executive ABC UK and will work closely with our ABC UK Patient Support team, ABC UK trustees and patient volunteers.

The role supports ABC UK’s core Patient Support Programme.  We provide information and support for those with bladder cancer, a direct patient support service, help establish and sustain support groups for bladder cancer patients, provide patient information about bladder cancer to patients and major centres of bladder cancer treatment, and run bladder cancer information events (both online and face to face).  We also work to increase our networks with health professionals, to help them support their patients.  We run the ABC UK Education Programme for health professionals and you will be involved in planning and delivering nurse education events.  We want to build our networks both regionally and nationally and to be responsive to the need for information, awareness and support for those with bladder cancer, and the health professionals treating them. We now want to add to the team to increase our impact even further.

You will work remotely, however very much working as part of the Patient Support team, and working closely with other colleagues and volunteers, with regular catch-up meetings (online) and occasional face to face team meetings.  You will also be required to travel as necessary for meetings and patient or health professional events and to help create and sustain our networks with health professionals and cancer support services.  You will be based in the North of England and within easy travelling distance of centres such as Sheffield, Leeds, Hull and further North and adjacent counties.  We may consider candidates outside of these regions, if they have directly appropriate experience and skills.

 Who we are looking for…

You will be in contact with a range of different people including volunteers, patients, health professionals and other organisations.  The successful candidate will:

• be friendly and approachable, able to work flexibly, with resilience and efficiency and to be professional at all times and be able to work to our very high standards;
• be empathetic and understanding of the needs of cancer patients and how best to deliver this in practical terms;
• ideally have some health service or charity experience - not essential but preferable;
• be required to understand the structure of the NHS;
• have experience of working from home – a self-starter and organised – you will be a worker and willing to get stuck in and show results;
• be able to work remotely with line manager, other team colleagues, volunteers, patients and ABC UK administration office;
• be able to attend meetings as required and also travel as necessary for engagement with hospitals/patient support groups, events etc;
• be good at building networks and maintaining useful relationships;
• promote the work of ABC UK and work to raise awareness of bladder cancer;
• be confident at presenting and talking to groups of people – whether general public, patients or health professionals;

have experience and understanding of working for a small organisation.

A varied role, you will have the opportunity to work to develop and shape your role as part of our team.  There is potential for the role to grow, or hours worked to increase over time.

Skills

You will need to:

• be able to communicate effectively with health professionals, other charity professionals and bladder cancer patients both face to face and via phone or email;
• have good organisational skills and be disciplined about working from home (it is likely you will already have experience of remote working);
• be comfortable communicating and carrying out a lot of your work by phone and email and online platforms (eg Zoom), you will have excellent verbal and written skills;
• be an excellent team member – we all work closely together as well as on own work;
• have good computer skills: Outlook, Word, basic Excel, maintaining a database, Zoom etc;
• have experience of organising and attending events (preferably for patients or within a health environment); be happy to speak at events. Have experience of online events;
• be able to work with and organise volunteers;
• be able to travel for meetings and events as required (occasionally out of office hours);
• possess a clean driving licence and have easy access to a car (mileage will be paid).

Key Responsibilities

 Networking

• Contact point for Hospitals/Urology Depts/Cancer Centres. Making pro-active contact and arranging supply of bladder cancer patient information and building relationships on a regional basis;
• Building contacts with specialist urology/cancer nurses, making them aware of ABC UK and our resources;
• Maintaining up-to-date contact database: including major urology departments, cancer centres, regional cancer networks etc;
• Regional contacts (working with volunteer patient advisors) – including regional cancer networks/charities etc – to build local networks;
• Co-ordinating periodic mailings of ABC UK patient information materials to hospitals/urology services (mailing handled by central admin).

Events

• ABC UK runs both face to face and online events.  Organising and attending ABC UK patient and health professional events, working as part of a team with other ABC UK Patient Support Officers and volunteers;
• Occasional attendance at/involvement with regional cancer events, health professional and/or patient or well-being events (including taking the ABC UK stand to such events);
• You will also be required to present at events on occasion – both online and face to face;
• Organising, development of (with colleagues) and participation in ABC UK online patient events and face to face events, and ABC UK health professional events both online and face to face.

Patient Support Groups

ABC UK works to help set up and maintain support groups for bladder cancer patients – these groups are self-running, often linked to a major hospital. 

• Help maintain database of Groups: contact details, details of meeting etc – including information for updating ABC UK website and ABC UK social media;
• Acting as ABC UK contact point for bladder cancer patient support groups, including making presentations;
• Pro-actively maintaining regular contact with PSG’s – re supply of ABC UK materials, updating info, ascertaining needs re other materials or support required and developing best practice case studies;
• Working with health professionals wanting to set up new groups, periodically attending group meetings and meeting volunteers.

Patient Materials

Working with ABC UK Executive, ABC UK Patient Support team and patient volunteers on the development of patient information materials both on-line and in print.

Communications

• News Updates: contributing as part of a team on regular news updates for health professionals, support groups and patients;
• Social media: working as part of a team on increasing ABC UK social media presence.

This job description defines the main areas of work, although as we are a small organisation and are also developing new activities, you may be asked to help with other areas of ABC UK's work from time to time.