111 Call Handler- Bedford

Post:

NHS 111 Call Handler Responsible to: Contact Centre Manager Location/Base: Enhanced Services Centre, Kimbolton Road, Bedford, MK40 2NT Hours per Week: hours per week.

Varied rota patterns over 24/7.

Overall Purpose of the Job:

As an NHS 111 Call Handler you will be the first point of contact for patients, their relatives and health care professionals managing urgent and non-urgent cases when they call for medical advice.

Using the NHS Pathway software, you will be charged with assessing the patients condition and ensuring they are directed to the most appropriate healthcare professional or service including advice on how to manage their symptoms at home.

As part of an integrated urgent care team, and will work with non-clinical and clinical colleagues, including healthcare professionals such as nurses, doctors, allied health professionals, pharmacists and dentists.

In this role you will be trained to use advanced listening and probing skills, to ensure that every patient is provided with clear advice and signposted correctly.

Principle responsibilities will include:

To deliver an effective, safe and competent call handling service for callers to NHS111 which includes patients, their representatives and Healthcare professionals To represent the organisation in a professional and courteous manner in accordance with agreed protocols.

Be responsible for the prioritisation of presenting clinical symptoms, supported by decision support software throughout a 24-hour period.

Using the NHS Pathways software, you will provide the appropriate response based on the patients symptoms/needs To ensure that patients are prioritised appropriately and directed to the most appropriate service.

This could be to transfer the call to a clinician in the contact centre, despatch an ambulance in the case of an emergency or refer onto or provide information about other available services.

Liaising with other agencies and healthcare providers to ensure patients are appropriately directed Principle responsibilities continued:

Identify issues which may negatively impact upon service delivery and reporting these on to the Manager on duty in a timely fashion To work co-operatively within the organisation, sharing and utilising areas of knowledge and skills to enhance patient care Reflect the diversity of needs in healthcare communities by utilising all available resources to facilitate access to the service where there are barriers to communication and understanding, e.g.

interpretation services To work within the integrated governance process at HUC and comply with its requirements To identify and highlight appropriately any issues regarding a vulnerable child or adult To ensure appropriate and effective communication links with other providers and services e.g.

the ambulance service To undertake and engage with personal development, education, training and meetings To participate in own development, self-review and appraisal, identifying areas of need for personal development in order to meet with service requirements

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