NHS admin supporting information: cover each criterion

The three NHS admin and clerical documents read for this guide each ask, in their own words, for a qualification, IT skills and office or customer care experience, and all three mention confidentiality. Your supporting information answers each line with one example. The documents come from two NHS trusts, as they stood on 3 November 2026.

Where the statement goes

The NHS Jobs supporting information guide shows how the boxes are laid out on NHS Jobs. The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) guide for employers tells the shortlister to "select all the boxes they have evidenced" in the essential criteria section, and gives the same instruction for the desirable section. A line with no example in your answer has nothing to select. If your trust uses Trac, the Trac guide covers that form, and the Band 3 guide covers the clinical support and clerical roles at that band.

What admin person specifications ask for

The documents are a Band 2 ward clerk and receptionist candidate pack and a Band 3 support medical secretary job description, both PDFs on the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust's jobs site, and a Band 3 outpatients clerk advert from East and North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust. The advert had closed but still showed its person specification. Adverts are taken down, so that link may stop working, and the lines are quoted as read on 3 November 2026. The group names shorten or merge the documents' own headings.

Group	The line, in the document's words	Document and status
Qualifications	"Educated to GCSE level or equivalent, including English and Maths (A-C / 9-4)"	Outpatients clerk, essential
Qualifications	"4 GCSE's (or equivalent)", "RSA Level 3 Word Processing" and "Audio Typing"	Support medical secretary, essential
Qualifications	"Possess or be willing to undertake NVQ Level 2 & 3 in Business Administration"	Ward clerk, essential
Experience	"Previous clerical/administrative experience in a busy office environment"	Outpatients clerk, essential
Experience	"Experience in customer service roles, especially handling telephone queries"	Outpatients clerk, essential
Experience	"Previous NHS or healthcare administrative experience"	Outpatients clerk, desirable
Experience	"Knowledge of hospital administration system"	Ward clerk, desirable
Skills and knowledge	"Competent in the use of Microsoft Office, particularly Excel and Outlook"	Outpatients clerk, essential
Skills and knowledge	"Basic Computer skills"	Ward clerk, essential
Skills and knowledge	"Understanding of the importance of patient confidentiality and data protection"	Outpatients clerk, essential
Other	"Ability to work under pressure and meet work load demands"	Ward clerk, essential

All three documents put NHS experience or hospital systems under desirable: "NHS Experience" in the support medical secretary job description, "Knowledge of hospital administration system" in the ward clerk pack and "Previous NHS or healthcare administrative experience" in the outpatients clerk advert. The essential and desirable criteria guide covers how to treat each kind.

What NHS admin roles involve

The National Careers Service medical secretary profile says medical secretaries "provide office support in hospitals, GP surgeries, private clinics and universities". If you apply directly for jobs, it says, employers "will expect you to have some GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C), including English". The profile adds that a qualification or experience in audio typing, with excellent IT skills, is useful, and that you need "experience of working in an office, ideally in a secretarial role". It says temporary work can be a good way to get that experience.

The admin assistant profile says admin assistants "write letters, emails and reports, maintain data records and filing systems and provide support for meetings". Qualifications or experience in office work help, and "Employers will give you training on the job, covering their data entry systems." For school office posts, see the school admin guide.

Your evidence can come from:

• office work, ideally secretarial, including temporary work;
• a customer service job: the outpatients clerk advert asks for experience in customer service roles, and the admin assistant profile says good customer service skills will be useful;
• volunteering in an office-based role for a charity, which the admin assistant profile suggests;
• a temporary contract through a recruitment agency, which the same profile says can lead to a permanent job.

Confidentiality and data

The outpatients clerk advert lists an "Understanding of the importance of patient confidentiality and data protection" as essential and experience of working with "confidential and sensitive information" as desirable. The support medical secretary job description and the ward clerk pack both tell the post-holder they are bound to respect the confidentiality of information that identifies patients, employees or other trust staff. The medical secretary profile lists updating patient records and dealing with confidential information among its day-to-day tasks.

The shape of one answer

The two criteria below come from the outpatients clerk advert. The short lines after "Made up" are invented, from office and reception work, to show how much one line holds. Use things that really happened to you.

Criterion: "Previous clerical/administrative experience in a busy office environment"

• When and where: the office and the dates. Made up: reception and post room at a small solicitors' firm, 2022 to 2025.
• What you did: one task you handled yourself. Made up: logged the morning post on the case system and passed each item to the right person by 10am.
• What happened: what changed for the team. Made up: a letter with a court deadline was passed on the day it arrived, and the reply went out on time.

Criterion: "Understanding of the importance of patient confidentiality and data protection"

• When and where: the desk and the dates. Made up: front desk at a dental practice, 2023 to 2025.
• What you did: the rule and the step. Made up: checked a caller's name and date of birth before giving any appointment detail, and kept the screen turned away from the waiting room.
• What happened: what it prevented. Made up: a caller asking about a relative's appointment was asked to have the patient ring, and nothing was disclosed.

Before you submit

• Each qualification line says what you hold, at what level, and the year, or when you start it.
• Each typing or IT line names the package, the system or the qualification.
• Each customer service line says who you dealt with and how: face to face or on the telephone.
• No example names a patient, a customer or a colleague.

You can also check your draft against the person specification to see which criteria still have no example.