Call Handler

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust provides child and adult mental health services, learning disability, wellbeing, older people's and eating disorder services across Norfolk and Suffolk.

At any one time, around 23,000 people in Norfolk and Suffolk are receiving care and attention from the Trust. We believe in whole life care - seeing people in the context of their whole lives, understanding the importance of good physical health, friends, family, spirituality, culture, home, work, education and a sense of purpose and achievement to experience good mental health.

Nearly 3,800 full and part-time practitioners care for our service users in hospitals, in the community and in their own homes, whilst an additional 1,400+ staff provide non-clinical support, including cleaning, catering, delivering supplies, ward administration, information technology, human resources and financial services.

We are committed to delivering quality driven mental health services. Every individual makes a valuable contribution. We are proud of our staff who have been commended for the care they provide. Do you value working positively, respectfully and together? If so, we’d love you to join us

JOB DESCRIPTION/PERSON SPECIFICATION

YOUR APPLICATION

**Job overview**:
**Are you looking for a challenging, rewarding opportunity? The Norfolk 111 Mental Health Option Team (formerly known as First Response Service) is developing and growing. We are recruiting call handlers to support our helpline from our Norwich base.**

The Norfolk 111 Mental Health Option Team is a helpline for people of all ages in Norfolk who need urgent mental health support. Our dedicated helpline is available 24 hours a day, every day and we are looking for dedicated caring, compassionate individuals to join the team as Call Handlers.

We are committed to ensuring all of our team is supported, with senior clinical leadership on hand during each shift.

Our shifts are typically 8am - 8pm and 8pm - 8am.

**Main duties of the job**:
This is an integral role within our crisis pathway, you will be providing a frontline service in answering mental health related calls.

You will be the first point of contact, so it is vital you are able to communicate effectively with a wide range of people. Some of the people you’ll be talking to will be in a distressed state, so you will need to use your core skills to de-escalate and manage the situation.

After a brief clinical risk and mental state assessment, calls are transferred for formulation and brief psychological interventions. You will use different computerised systems to enter details accurately, to ensure calls are prioritised and transferred effectively.

**If you’re looking for a role where you will truly be making a difference to people’s lives, we would love to hear from you**

**Working for our organisation**:
We are proud of our culture of honesty, team involvement and ownership of quality patient care with job satisfaction. There will be opportunities to be involved with training, strategy and service development.

Here at 111 Mental Health Option Norfolk we pride ourselves on being a welcoming, talented, friendly and supportive team who like nothing better than sharing experiences and learning from each other. In addition to ongoing training and development opportunities, we are committed to providing an environment in which you can thrive.

**Why work for us?** We at NSFT are an improving Trust, with ambitious aspirations and are pushing ahead with exciting transformation work. We have strong, established nursing networks coupled with an exceptional leadership team who will ensure you are truly cared for and cared about.

**Why Norfolk and Suffolk?** The people here are warm and welcoming, you’ll never be far from the beautiful coastline or Broads National Park. We’re an hour and a half away from London and have an international airport in Norwich too. Our villages, towns and cities are packed full of history, independent cafes, shops and theatres. We have excellent shopping, eating out, top ranking schooling and affordable house prices too.

**Detailed job description and main responsibilities**:

- Answering calls from Service Users and on occasion professionals
- Triaging and assessing over the phone
- Safety Planning
- Documentation of above including referrals, Notes, referrals to other teams
- Liaison with other professionals and teams
- On occasion, creating formulations and plans for our regular callers
- Shadowing other teams where appropriate/possible
- Brief intervention over the phone where appropriate
- Quality Improvement

**Person specification**:
**Qualifications**:
**Essential criteria**:

- GCSE level education or equivalent

**Desirable criteria**:

- Administrative Experience

**Experience**:
**Essential criteria**:

- Working knowledge of Microsoft Office packages, e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher and Outlook

**Desirable criteria**:

- Experience of working in a