People Story | Adrienne Christie | Dermatology Team Leader for Service Coordinators and Call Administrators
View Adrienne's story here
“I love my job, my team is very supportive and we work well together”
“I started off my career running a café at 18 years old”
Throughout school and sixth form I worked at a café. When I finished sixth form, I ended up running the café single handed for the next two years. It was in the park on the Isle of Sheppey and in the summer, it was very busy and a big responsibility, for instance making sure we had enough stock and staff, dealing with the payroll etc.
I then moved on to do a one-year Apprenticeship in Business Administration for a mental health IAPT service with an independent healthcare provider. They were very supportive, and I had coursework to do. I was their first apprentice in that service and a tutor came in once a month. It was great to be able to use my hands-on experience in my job role and use it as examples and evidence of my work.
“After completing my apprenticeship I went on to manage the admin team”
After two years, I was sadly made redundant as Covid meant that the admin team moved up north.
“I joined DMC in Dec 2020”
I saw an advert for Team Leader for the service coordinators and call administrators and thought it sounded similar to my current role. I was reasonably new to managing a team and was enjoying this and wanted to continue to progress my career. The job was local to me and I thought I’d give it a go.
I was successful in the interview and I soon realised that it may be a little harder to motivate the team. I’m a positive person and whilst it was difficult at the beginning, everyone is lovely and a pleasure to work with and all the service and call administrators work to the best of their ability and as a team.
“My role is diverse”
I support our service admin and call administrators, run appraisals, one to ones, probations and hire new staff. There are currently 18 members of my team and I make sure rotas are finished, carry out call audits, ensuring tasks are completed. I support with the complaints process and help my team when we are short staffed.
We are still happy working from home, everyone seems to be working well and productivity is high.
“We support each other”
For example, the other week we had a last-minute dermatology clinic put on and we struggled to support it with some people being on leave. We made sure the documents were uploaded and patient clinics were full and pulled out all the stops to support each other to run a successful last-minute clinic.
“I’m driven by having a happy team”
I’m self-motivated with how I plan my day. I get up, go to the gym at 7.30am, I get home at 8.30am and I’m ready to start work at 9am. I enjoy what I do.
“The main benefit of working at DMC”
It’s great to have flexible working, for example if I need to go to an appointment I can start early or finish later.
“There are career opportunities at DMC”
I would like to progress but it’s knowing what I want to go into. I’ve only been managing admin teams for a couple of years, and I know there are opportunities to further my career with DMC.
“I like my team and everyone else that I work with”
My team within DMC Healthcare is great because we support each other. My manager and the operations team are all there to support and will help each other out when needed.
