Switchboard Operator
Accepting applications until: 11-May-2025 23:59
Vacancy status: Open
Accepting applications until: 11-May-2025 23:59
Key details
Location
- Site
- Harefield Hospital
- Address
- Hill End Road
- Town
- Harefield
- Postcode
- UB9 6JH
- Major / Minor Region
- London
Contract type & working pattern
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- 37.5 hours per week (3 Full time and 1 Part time)
Salary
- Salary
- £29,176 - £30,225 per annum inclusive of Outer London HCA
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Grade
- (NHS AfC: Band 3)
Specialty
- Main area
- IT Communications
Guy’s and St Thomas’ is among the UK’s busiest and most successful NHS foundation trusts. We provide a full range of hospital and community services for people in south London and as well as specialist care for patients from further afield including cancer, renal, orthopaedic, respiratory and cardiovascular services.
Guy’s is home to the largest dental school in Europe and a £160 million Cancer Centre opened in 2016. As part of our commitment to provide care closer to home, in 2017 we also opened a cancer centre and a kidney treatment centre at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup. St Thomas’ has one of the largest critical care units in the UK and one of the busiest emergency departments in London. It is also home to Evelina London Children’s Hospital.
Evelina London cares for local children in Lambeth and Southwark and provides specialist services across south east England including cardiac, renal and critical care services. We lead a number of specialist service networks aiming to ensure children are treated locally where possible, but have access to specialist expertise when they need it. Our community services include health visiting, school nursing and support for families of children with long-term conditions.
Our adult community services teams deliver care at the heart of the local communities we serve, working in partnership with GPs, local authorities and other healthcare and voluntary sector organisations. Working with our partners in Lambeth and Southwark, we are focusing on new ways of working to improve care for local patients.
In February 2021 the Royal Brompton and Harefield joined Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, bringing together world-leading expertise in the care and research of heart and lung disease. Our merger provides a once in a generation opportunity to build a lasting, world-renowned heart and lung centre, providing the highest quality care for patients and conducting world-leading research.
We have a reputation for clinical excellence and high quality teaching and research. We are part of King’s Health Partners, one of eight accredited UK academic health sciences centres. In partnership with King’s College London we have dedicated clinical research facilities including an MHRA accredited Phase I clinical trials unit.
Patients are at the heart of everything we do and we pride ourselves on ensuring the best possible patient experience as well as safe, high quality care. We are proud to have one of the lowest mortality rates in the NHS. Following a comprehensive Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection in 2019 we maintained our overall rating of ‘good’. Our adult community services achieved a rating of ‘outstanding’.
The commitment of our 23,500 staff is key to our success. We are one of the largest local employers and we aim to develop and support all our staff so they are able to deliver high quality, safe and efficient care. The 2019 NHS staff survey results show that we have one of the most engaged and motivated workforces in the NHS. We know this has a positive impact on the care provided to our patients.
We have one of the most ambitious capital investment programmes anywhere in the NHS.
Job overview
We are looking for an enthusiastic and motivated person to work in our busy Switchboard department based at Harefield Hospital.
You will be dealing with patients, relatives and clinical staff, directing their calls to the relevant departments and also alerting the hospital emergency teams and following processes for alerting Cardiac Arrests, Trauma Calls and Major Incidents. As you will be dealing with emergency calls, you should have the ability to deal with situations in a calm and professional manner.
You must demonstrate the ability to work as part of a close-knit team, show a commitment to providing the highest standard of service and possess excellent communication skills.
Advert
- make and receive calls as required following procedures and policies previously agreed with the Switchboard Manager.
- make and respond to emergency calls, alarms and incident procedures/gas and plant alarms and follow Telecom failure procedure.
- deal with cardiac arrests and testing of them, fire alarms, security and intrusion alarms, which require rapid critical help.
- deal with bleep and air call requests and keep accurate call log records.
- order stationery as required.
- keep a calm and professional demeanour under pressure.
Working for our organisation
On 1st February 2021 the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals became part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust – a truly once-in a generation development. Together, we are taking our first steps towards our vision of creating a brand-new centre of excellence, which will be the global leader in the research into and treatment of heart and lung disease in patients from pre-birth to old age. We are developing some exciting plans and we want you to join us – so come and help to change the shape of healthcare for our heart and lung patients world-wide.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
- Answer all calls in a timely polite and helpful manner, ensuring a quality service to all clients.
- Use appropriate questioning techniques requiring effective relevant information from the caller, where necessary crossing barriers of understanding.
- Receiving and interpreting information, reassuring and negotiating correct pathway for the client to take them to the appropriate department.
- Based on the relevant information supplied by the caller, the information is acted upon, analysing a range of facts to ensure correct department/person is informed according to procedure.
- Be able to operate the switchboard with speed and accuracy to ensure all calls are efficiently directed.
- To provide high standards of personal care to internal and external agencies.
- To provide support to new members of staff to ensure guidelines from callers are regulated and uniformed.
- To be able to concentrate for long periods of time and respond with speed and accuracy to a range of situations.
- To be able to remain calm and persuasive in all situations, where appropriate use empathetic and negotiating skills to support clients.
- To be familiar with procedures and carry them out effectively in the event of an emergency ie: cardiac arrest/fire alarm and bomb threats.
- To cover for colleagues on annual leave/sickness. This may require changes to shift at short notice and variation to a regular shift pattern. This may involve some overtime to be worked.
- To offer advice to all users referring all calls where senior input is required to the Switchboard Manager.
- To advise the Switchboard Manager of any omissions in delay in staff information or number changes being received from Human Resources. Inform them of name changes and relevant information to be updated. Keep rotas updated.
- Programme and send off internal pagers and air calls for repair and also to fill in the
- Major Incident record sheet and photocopying.
- To make sure all shifts are covered within switchboard for annual leave and sickness.
- To come forward with ideas in improving existing ideas within switchboard.
- Change the rota board on a daily basis and keep it updated with any changes or alterations in conjunction with the on call rota book and Rota watch.
- Log all faults within switchboard with suppliers.
- Take LAS calls for primary admissions, following procedures to alert relevant staff
- Work effectively as a team member in a professional manner.
- To undertake any other duties as requested by Switchboard Manager commensurate with the grade.
- To contribute ideas for continued improvement within the department
- Communication
- Patient/customer care (both direct and indirect)
Policies, codes and practices including standing financial instructions, research governance, clinical governance, patient and public involvement, codes and practices, and health and safety.
Other duties
To undertake any other duties commensurate with the grade as requested.
Person specification
Education & Experience
Essential criteria
- GCSE's or equivalent
Desirable criteria
- NVQ Customer Care
- Customer service experience
IT skills
Essential criteria
- Proficient in MS Office
Working enviroment
Essential criteria
- Ability to work unsupervised
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Sonia Joseph
- Job title
- Switchboard Manager
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 03301288121
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