Community Nursing Out of Hours Call Handler

Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust; Gloucester; On-site; GBP 26,000 - 27,000; Full time

Job summary

Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust in Gloucestershire is seeking a Community Nursing Out of Hours Call Handler to deliver frontline telephone referral handling, book and cancel appointments, and support administration across ENDNS and the Out of Hours service.

You will work in a small team, require empathy from health care backgrounds, and adapt to shift patterns including day/evening and weekend slots; a flexible, customer-focused approach is essential.

Qualifications

• Evidence of continuing personal / professional development.

Responsibilities

• Receive telephone referrals and book/cancel appointments.
• Process batch mail and use online referrals system.
• Provide frontline call handling and support administration for the service.
• Work flexibly in a small team and liaise with wider clinical teams.

Skills

Good communication

IT systems

Timekeeping & reliability

Education

NVQ 3

Job description

Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust

Community Nursing Out of Hours Call Handler

The closing date is 09 November 2026

Part time or full time position on a fixed term contract/secondment opportunity for up to 12 months

Internal applicants who wish to be considered for a secondment opportunity should discuss with their line manager the suitability of a possible secondment

We are looking to recruit motivated and enthusiastic Call Handlers to work within the Integrated Community Teams -Evening and Overnight District Nursing (ENDNS) / Community Nursing Out of Hours Service. If you are caring, strive to deliver a quality and positive customer experience this may be the role for you.

Ideally, you'll have experience in health care or have worked in a busy call centre where empathy and understanding were part of your role, or you might have life experience that you feel makes you are a great candidate.

The call handling team (Adult physical health) support out of hours community nursing referrals from patients and health care professionals. The call handlers role also supports administration tasks for the service.

Main duties of the job

You will work as a team to receive telephone referrals, booking and cancelling appointments, processing batch mail, working with our online referrals system as well as several other tasks as required. You will have an excellent telephone manner, putting patients at ease as they ring into the Out of Hours Community Nursing hub. You will be able to work effectively within a small team, but also relate well to the wider clinical teams across the county.

The role is within a busy and dynamic team, you will need to be able to work flexibly, be responsive to change and communicate effectively. We provide a supportive working environment, with regular supervision and appraisals.

We're currently recruiting for a variety of shifts including:Day/evening Shifts -Weekdays 16:00 - 20:00Weekends 08:00 - 16:00 & 16:00-20:00

The qualification, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification

About us

We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people's homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.

Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us. In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that:

• 72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.
• 76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.
• 81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust's priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.

This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement. However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.

Job responsibilities

The Call handling service is part of the Integrated Community teams, out of hours community nursing service.

The role of the Call handler is to provide a frontline service in answering incoming community nursing calls from patients/carers, Integrated Community teams (ICT) staff, GPs, 111 and partner agencies and to provide a call handling service for the Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) during the out of hours period.

Work in partnership with the Integrated Urgent Care Service (IUCS).

The main duty of the role is to provide essential call handling for a variety of community services. The call handler will be required to manage calls that require immediate response and to process the calls effectively and efficiently.

To support compliance with UK immigration requirements, all applicants who require a visa to work in the UK must disclose their visa history in full. This includes current and previous sponsors, dates of sponsorship, visa category, and any changes of employment. If you are on a Graduate or Dependant Visa, please disclose the expiry date on your application. Incomplete information may mean we are unable to consider your application.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Good general standard of education.
• Evidence of continuing personal / professional development.
• NVQ 3 or working towards or, can demonstrate experience to that level

Experience

• Evidence of team working abilities
• Proven ability to work unsupervised
• Experience of working in a health care/social care setting

Skills and attributes

• Good communication skills both written and verbal
• Proven ability to manage working time effectively
• Confidentiality and integrity
• Good timekeeper, adaptable, reliable and ability to work flexibly
• Good knowledge of IT systems

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

Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust

£25,760 to £27,476 a yearper annum (pro rata)