John Parker

Practice Plus Group is one of England’s largest independent healthcare providers, and in Gloucestershire operated the Out of Hours (OOH) GP service between 2015-2024 in partnership with the NHS. Here, my duties included:

• Assisting with operational management of the OOH service
• Direct line management of the Rota Team, Locality Manager, OOH Co-ordinators and Co-ordinator Assistants (in total approx. 25 reports) including undertaking regular performance reviews
• Regular engagement with external stakeholders
• Incident resolution, including investigating and responding to complaints (Datix)
• Working closely with the Service Delivery Manager to monitor service performance against KPI targets + National Quality Requirements
• Taking my turn in the Bronze 'on call' rota for PPG's Midlands region (Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire) responding to any crises which might arise when the OOH GP service was operational – ie. overnight and at weekends

ISO 9001 accredited ‘UHC Global’ provides healthcare professionals and medical equipment to some of the most remote and hostile areas of the world. My job was to support HCPs who performed on a diverse spectrum of projects: land based, offshore and marine. Principal duties included:

• Daily liaison with clients and HCPs all over the world by telephone, email and whatsapp. Conducting project briefings for new medics via Microsoft Teams
• Planning and maintaining complex, multi-site work rotas
• Making international travel and accommodation arrangements
• Approving suppliers’ invoices for payment, and disputing where necessary
• Processing HCPs’ monthly time sheets and multi-currency expenses claims
• Preparing monthly client invoices
• Maintaining Norwegian tax records for HCPs working on certain North Sea projects
• Logging concise, accurate notes of all events and communications to the operations database
• Being ‘on call’ (out of hours POC for all UHC Global projects) one week in six

One of a team of six technicians, though usually working alone, I installed and maintained council-loaned reablement equipment in service users’ homes across Herefordshire - typically hospital-style beds, lifting hoists, bath lifts, etc. Originally an agency placement before becoming directly employed.

Working in a busy inbound telephone call centre, my job was to arbitrate claims submitted against the AA Used Car Warranty Scheme. My previous background in the vehicle fleet / motor industry stood me in good stead for this role, where I regularly had to challenge / contest claims as well as approve them.

Duties included:

• Manning the service desk, greeting customers and answering all telephone enquiries which came into the business
• Making servicing / repair bookings for customers and creating job cards
• Deputising as proxy chargehand in the workshop
• Preparing customers' invoices and taking payments
• Frequently also covering the parts counter (trade and retail sales)
• Preparing and submitting warranty claims

My first term of employment with UHC Global, again working as a Project Co-ordinator, and at that time supporting an international team of 40+ clinicians working on the BP Rumaila oil field in southern Iraq.

Transporting discharged patients home from hospital, between healthcare settings, or to outpatient appointments. In addition to my operational duties, I volunteered for training to run the PTS Ambulance Control Desk in Hereford County Hospital. I was the only PTS driver to dual role on the control desk, which I had hoped might led to future opportunities within the service.