Medical Secretary

Medical Secretaries make sure that frontline staff are able to dedicate their time to people accessing services, while personal assistants support our senior leaders.

As a Medical Secretary, you will usually work for a senior member of staff or group of staff. You will support the work of a department by taking on administrative and secretarial tasks. In certain roles, you may have contact with people accessing services and their families, as well as with healthcare and other administration staff.

Medical Secretary is also known as Personal Assistant, Secretary, Administration Assistant,.

Role Characteristics

Handle questions from people accessing services, staff and Consultants
Organise a Doctor's diary, book consulting rooms and meetings
Update patient records and deal with confidential information
Type letters, clinical reports, minutes of meetings and filing
Monitor an office budget and deal with invoices
Send samples for medical testing and record the results

Skills

Written communication
Using technology
Attention to detail
Organisation
Customer service
Communication

Day in the life

Watch this video to find out more about the day in the life of a Medical Secretary.

Routes into this role

Here are some example routes that can lead into this role.

GCSEs

T-Level

An apprenticeship

How to become

There are no set entry requirements for this role, but good literacy, numeracy and IT skills are expected. You will usually need at least 3 GCSEs including English and maths.

Some experience of healthcare or care work may be beneficial, this could be from paid or voluntary work, or through experience you have from previous roles.

Where can this role lead

No matter what role you start in or where you are in your career path, there are always opportunities to develop and progress in health and care.

With experience, you could become a Manager, or specialise in a certain area or take on more responsibility. You could move to a larger organisation or work for a more Senior Manager. You could also move into an Executive Assistant role with more responsibility. You could supervise and train junior administrative professionals.

If you have specific industry knowledge like legal, medical or financial, you could take on specialist Personal Assistant roles.