999 Call Handler - Crawley

South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SECAmb) has a vision to ‘support our staff to provide a caring, high quality and efficient urgent and emergency care service to our communities’. We are rated ‘Good’ overall by the Care Quality Commission, ‘Outstanding’ for Caring and ‘Outstanding’ for our Urgent and Emergency Care. Our aim is to continually improve and to reach outstanding across all areas of the Trust.

Our 4,000+ workforce provide services to 4.9m people across Kent, Surrey, Sussex and North East Hampshire. We handle over 1 million calls to 999 and 1 million calls to NHS 111 every year. More information regarding our services and locations can be found on our website.

Job overview

999 Call Handler - Crawley, West Sussex

What have you done today? Fancy a role that often makes a difference to someone else’s day?

• Do you have excellent communication skills, and a passion to work for the NHS?
• Are you caring, empathetic and wish to make a real difference to people’s lives?
• Are you confident on the phone and willing to train to be able to provide guidance to patients in a calm and logical way?
• Do you want to work in a warm, friendly environment where your colleagues and managers care and want to make a difference?
• Are you flexible and able to commit to a shift pattern encompassing days, evening, nights, bank holidays etc?

If your answer is YES to the questions above, then we could have a role for you.

Main duties of the job

The role of a SECAmb Call Handler

When you ring 111 or 999, your call goes through to a call handler based in one of our 3 Emergency Operation/Contact Centres. These staff are trained to use the NHS Pathways system to provide assistance in a variety of situations, from minor illness to life threatening situations.  The assistance you will provide will range from offering lifesaving advice whilst an ambulance is on route, to directing callers to other more suitable services.

This role can be demanding, challenging and ultimately very rewarding however, it's not for everyone.  Applicants will need to have a range of skills to be able to deal with often stressful and emotional situations, whilst also demonstrating compassion and empathy to all callers, no matter what the situation. 

Working for our organisation

Why Work At South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust?

We offer:

• Base Salary - Band 3 -£20,330 - £21,777 per annum (full time 37.5hrs per week)
• Unsocial hours enhancements (in accordance to NHS Terms & Conditions Agenda for Change Section 2)
• Generous NHS Pension Scheme
• 35 days’ annual leave inclusive of Bank Holidays (pro rata)

Progression Opportunities

We offer excellent training and career development opportunities for ambitious employees both within the Call/Emergency Operations Centres and also within the wider Trust.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Applicant Requirements

Successful applicants will demonstrate high levels of personal commitment to facilitate the delivery of a patient focused service.

We need individuals who have the drive and passion to make a difference to people’s lives, but also the personal resilience to work in a high-pressured environment.

You will need to be able to work well within a team and independently, have fast/accurate typing skills and a good standard of education.  Successful candidates must possess GCSE Maths and English (or equivalent qualifications) at Grade C or above (2018 Grade 4).

This role is suited to people who remain calm under pressure, good at problem solving and have excellent interpersonal skills, with an empathetic nature.

Our comprehensive training programme:

• 10 weeks (7.5 hours per day unless otherwise stated)
• Full time
• Has a ‘must’ attend policy, with no annual leave being permitted during this period.
• Can be social or unsocial (details/options provided once successful at application)
• Comprises of classroom and observing and mentoring periods within the working environment.
• Is designed to fully support full transition to call handling independently.

Further Information

All successful applicants will be required to undertake an Enhanced DBS check for adults and children.

Our courses are in high demand and we only have limited capacity per course, we do receive large amounts of applications, therefore we cannot offer every application an interview.

Qualifications/Training

Essential criteria

• Educated to GCSE or Functional Skills level and possesses a fundamental level of Maths, English and ICT skills OR Evidence within previous employment that they have used Maths and English to GCSE level or higher

Experience

Essential criteria

• Previous experience working and communicating with the public

Desirable criteria

• Previous experience working in a team or with stakeholders across a range of settings
• Experience of working in a computer based role - strong IT skills

Skills

Essential criteria

• Ability to communicate with a variety of different people and build rapport