NHS Band 4 Medical Secretary Mock Interview
Excel in your NHS interview with 30 Band 4 Medical Secretary questions covering patient confidentiality, clinic coordination, and NHS procedures.
Question 17 of 30
Tell me about a time you had to work with a difficult colleague or patient.
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Jaymie Payne is passionate about talent acquistion and has nine years of experience in corporate and healthcare recruitment.
Working in healthcare and within an organisation as large as the NHS, you will likely interact with a high volume of people daily, including colleagues, senior leaders, patients, their families, and public vendors. Possessing the skills to handle difficult situations and people in the workplace is essential. Think about a time you had a challenging coworker or patient and what made it difficult. Describe the situation and how you handled it, and include aspects of communication, interpersonal, and conflict-resolution skills. Avoid speaking negatively about a former colleague or patient when answering.
Jaymie Payne is passionate about talent acquistion and has nine years of experience in corporate and healthcare recruitment.
"In my last job, I had a patient that would often come in over an hour late for her appointment, or worse, miss her appointment entirely and then come in on another day and demand to be seen. She would get upset and tell me that I gave her the wrong date or time and would cause a scene, and our consultant would work her in. To avoid this, I would write her appointment dates and times down for her on a card, and if she had regular follow-ups, I would write them all down to help her plan ahead. I would also make sure I called her the day before and even the day of sometimes to confirm her appointment. I would also try to get to the root cause to see if I could help her line up transportation, for example. Despite these efforts, she would still be late or a no-show. Eventually, I helped create a patient policy that explained the importance of being on time and keeping appointments and notified patients that they could not walk in or be seen the same day if they were late or missed their appointment earlier in the day. This did reduce the number of times she would be late or no-show and helped things run more smoothly at the office."
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