Ashford & St. Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
We are currently looking for a Customer Services Advisor to join our Customer Services Team based at St. Peter's Hospital.
The post is to provide a 24/7 Switchboard Service via an 8-week rota pattern. Rostered hours are not negotiable, and the job requires someone who is able to work days, nights, weekends, and bank holidays. There is also an element of lone working on the night shift once full training has been completed. Additionally, you will be an active member of the Estates and Facilities Helpdesk and provide administrative support to the senior management team.
Switchboard is often the first contact for patients, visitors, GPs, companies, and contractors who contact the Trust; therefore, good communication skills are essential for this job role.
You will play a key role in enabling the Customer Services function to maintain and develop relationships with Service End Users by effectively handling enquiries on a wide range of service-related issues. Strong communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and an awareness of the need for good customer care are required.
Main duties of the job
To work as part of a team of Customer Service Advisors on a busy switchboard, providing a quality response service to Trust employees, members of the general public, and other health organisations and provide a 'one stop shop' Helpdesk Service for staff.
It is imperative to have a good understanding of the wide range of written procedures and practices of the Switchboard equipment and its operation to ensure the smooth and safe operation of the centralised Switchboard service. This includes all inter-site telecommunication links, emergency numbers, internal paging systems, and central alarm systems.
Accurate record keeping is essential, including fault reporting, emergency calls received and made, alarm activations, major incidents, and system failures.
To operate the Estates and Facilities Helpdesk, logging maintenance calls and printing and entering Facilities Department data. This includes having close working relationships with all other Trust Departments. To liaise and chase through queries with Estates and Facilities teams supported by the Helpdesk on the status of work orders and report back to the customer, ensuring they are kept informed of the current situation.
The post involves considerable liaison with other members of staff and the general public. Therefore, it is essential the post holder ensures that they adopt a courteous, friendly, and professional manner at all times.
About us
Ashford and St. Peters Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust serves a population of more than 410,000 people living in North-West Surrey, parts of Hounslow, and beyond.
Over 3,700 highly trained doctors, nurses, midwives, therapists, healthcare scientists, and other support staff make up our workforce, providing a wide range of services across our two hospital sites, Ashford and St Peter's.
We also run many specialist clinics in the community and local community hospitals and other healthcare facilities.
Our vision is to be one of the best healthcare Trusts in the country. There has never been a better time to join us in the NHS at Ashford & St Peters Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with our strong commitment to staff health and wellbeing. We are committed to providing continuous professional development, staff benefits, and flexibility to shape our workforce around our patient care.
Please see the supporting links which you can find on the right-hand side of this job advert. There is guidance on how to make an application on NHS Jobs as well as more information about joining the ASPH Team.
Although it isn't the Trust's normal practice, adverts may close early, so applicants are encouraged to submit an application as soon as possible.
Job responsibilities
To support the department and organisation by carrying out any other duties that reasonably fit within the broad scope of a job of this grade and type of work.
Switchboard Role
* To provide a Centralised Switchboard Service to both Ashford & St Peter's Hospitals.
* To ensure that Service Level Agreements negotiated by the Telecommunications Manager with other health and non-health organisations for the delivery of Switchboard, Alarm monitoring, and a multitude of other operational duties are adhered to in respect of service delivery, response, and quality.
* Receive external telephone calls and route them to the correct hospital extension, department, or individual.
* Monitor progress of calls, routing them elsewhere if the extension is engaged or not responding.
* Receive internal telephone calls from hospital extensions and route them via Telephonist dialing to an external destination.
* Receive requests for paging of individual staff, initiate paging calls, and connect the person being paged with the telephone extension.
* Respond immediately to requests for emergency group or individual voice-over paging (i.e., cardiac arrest) passing precise details of the emergency request to the end user.
* Work effectively as part of a team and as an individual to ensure that department and personal targets are achieved, including overall operator response times and individual call volume answering rates.
* Have a good understanding of the wide range of written procedures and practices of the Switchboard equipment and its operation to ensure the smooth and safe operation of the centralised Switchboard service.
* Maintain accurate record keeping, including fault reporting, emergency calls received and made, alarm activations, major incidents, equipment received and forwarded from the Department, and system failures.
* Liaise with the Telecommunications Manager, third-party contractors, and maintainers in relation to fault reporting and rectification.
* Out of hours, you will have specific responsibility to liaise with Site Coordinators, On-call Personnel, and third parties to make quick operational and escalation decisions in respect to telecommunication system failures and unforeseen operational difficulties.
* Answer immediately medical, surgical, security, and fire emergency calls via the Trust's Emergency extension 2222, and carry out the appropriate written procedure to contact the appropriate emergency on-call teams.
* Have a good understanding of departmental on-call rotas, the correct method of on-call escalation, and personnel contactability.
* Observe and respond immediately to a multitude of alarm panels and a PC-based alarm monitoring system, including fire, medical gas, paging, telephone systems, burglar, boiler house, and other plant alarms. Follow written procedures if the alarms are activated or calls are received from other alarm receiving centres or other sites.
* Be an effective member of the Trust's Major Incident Team, receiving emergency calls and implementing a large-scale call-out procedure. Effective communication with staff and good record-keeping is essential. You will also be required to participate in regular exercises to test such procedures and may be contacted outside of normal working hours during a Major Incident/exercise asking for your help or attendance.
* Co-ordinate, respond, and liaise with the Security Officers & CCTV Coordinator via two-way radio, telephone, and paging systems in relation to security alerts and requests.
Person Specification
Qualifications
* GCSEs Grades A-C in Core Subjects
* IT Qualifications
Knowledge
* Switchboard or Call Centre Knowledge
* Knowledge of Helpdesks
Experience
* Customer Focused Experience
* NHS Experience
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975, and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Employer name
Ashford & St. Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
£25,329 to £26,958 a year, including HCAS, plus enhancements for nights and weekend working.
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