Referral Unit Advisor

NHS; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 24,000 - 27,000; Full time

Job summary

A healthcare trust in the UK is seeking a skilled Referral Unit Advisor to join its team. In this home-based role with occasional office meetings, you will focus on processing referrals from various healthcare sources, ensuring exceptional patient experiences. The position requires strong administrative capabilities, proficiency in office systems, and excellent communication skills. Ideal candidates will have relevant educational backgrounds in Business Administration or Customer Service. This permanent full-time position offers a salary between £24,937 to £26,598 pro rata.

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements

Supporting diverse backgrounds

Qualifications

• Proven experience in office systems.
• Sound judgement and logical approach to complex situations.
• Knowledge of clinical terminology.

Responsibilities

• Process referrals and refer to the relevant team.
• Provide first class administration support.
• Attend team meetings periodically at the office.

Skills

Office systems experience

Customer service background

Excellent communication skills

Confidence in call handling

Education

5 x GCSE's including Maths and English (A-C or equivalent)

Business Administration/Customer Service NVQ level 3

Tools

Microsoft Office (MS Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel)

NHS specific IT systems

Job description

Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust

Referral Unit Advisor

The closing date is 04 January 2026

We have an opportunity for a skilled and motivated Referral Unit Advisor to join our team.

Based from home and working in an administrative capacity you will work in the Referral Unit within the east Kent locality taking calls and emails from Acute Trusts, GPs and patients in the community. The role will be to process the referral and refer to the relevant team in a timely manner focusing on the patient experience.

Patient engagement and quality of administration are paramount in this role. Patients are at the heart of what we want all of our team to share in that ethos.

If you really want to make a difference to our patients in the community then please apply or get in touch to hear more about the role and community care.

Please note, this vacancy does not meet the criteria for skilled worker sponsorship and therefore, we are unable to accept applications from candidates that cannot provide documentary evidence of right to work in the United Kingdom.

Main duties of the job

The referral unit runs 7 days a week.

Although this is a predominantly home based role you will be required to come to our Ashford based office for regular team meetings.

Band 3 administrators are responsible for ensuring that a specific project, system or process is experienced by patients and the public as caring, patient focussed efficient and effective through the provision of first class, administration support.

This is achieved by ensuring that our administration systems work to fully support the patient journey, by providing medical secretarial support or leading the provision of administration for a project, process or system and where appropriate providing day to day supervision of band 2 admin support.

Additional Working Pattern: 5*7.5 hrs shifts a week, working varied shifts between 08:00 & 22:00 Monday to Sunday - including Bank Holidays

About us

Rated 'outstanding' by the CQC, we've got a passion for delivering high standards of patient care and excellent services to improve the health of our communities. To do this we need outstanding people who share our values compassionate Aspirational Responsive Excellent

We know a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion leads to better patient care and a happier workforce. We pride ourselves in being diverse and welcome applications from people with varied backgrounds, perspectives and experiences.

We ask for information about your protected characteristics on our application forms. This isn't visible to anyone involved with shortlisting or interviewing you, except when you choose to be considered under the guaranteed interview scheme due to disability. Short listers will see two ticks alongside your application to ensure they apply the principles of the scheme to your submission.

The data we collect helps us to ensure we are attracting diversity in our applicants, that all our colleagues have equitable access to career opportunities and supports us on our journey to being a Great Place to Work.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want you to be able to work in a way that is best for us, for our patients and for you. Talk to us about a flexible working arrangement that won't involve sacrificing time for personal interests or family commitments. We'll support you to work flexibly in a way that will suits us both.

See where you can go with KCHFTcareer pathways.

Job responsibilities

Please note: at this stage, the role is open only to colleagues currently employed within Kent and Medway NHS Trusts and the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB). Nursing vacancies are also open to Student Nurses and Newly Qualified Nurses.

As a community Trust many of our roles require individuals to be able to drive to perform their duties. As such you will be asked to confirm you have a full UK driving licence where driving is a requirement of the role to be able to proceed with your application. We are committed to supporting candidates with disabilities into employment, if you are unable to drive due to a disability, please contact the Recruitment Team via [e-mail] quoting the vacancy reference number so we can support you further.

The job description and person specification gives you all the information you need about this role. Please look carefully at the criteria in the person specification and tell us what you have done that shows you meet this in your application. If you need an application form in an alternative format please let our recruitment team know. All information you supply on your application should, to the best of your knowledge, be true and accurate.

Still have questions? The recruiting manager would love to hear from you, their contact details can be found in the job advert.

We can get a lot of applications for some roles so to be in with the best chance of being shortlisted please make sure you apply as soon as possible. A vacancy may close early if there is a lot of interest in the job.

At KCHFT we strongly encourage colleagues in clinical and non-clinical roles who have direct or social contact with patients to be fully vaccinated. In this way we will be doing all we can to ensure your safety and that of your colleagues and the patients we serve.

Find out more about the community difference here.

Good luck! We cant wait to meet you and welcome you to #teamKCHFT, #cometocommunity.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• 5 x GCSE's including Maths and English (A-C or equivalent)
• Business Administration/ Customer Service NVQ level 3

Experience

• Proven experience in office systems, with use of Microsoft Office, i.e. MS Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and Excel.
• Customer Service background
• Sound judgement and logical approach to complex situations, with ability to determine solutions
• NHS specific IT system experience / Understanding of NHS Community Services

Knowledge

• Confidence in call handling
• Knowledge of clinical terminology

Practical

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Excellent inter-personal skills and the ability to communicate and work effectively with a wide range of people from different backgrounds at all levels of seniority
• Proven standard of data entry with excellent presentation and accuracy.
• Ability to learn from mistakes as a positive learning opportunity and encourage others to do the same.
• The ability to be innovative, objective as well as logical in resolving problems.
• The ability to prioritise and balance a range of competing tasks to deliver to agreed timescales.

Personal Attributes

• Ability to deal with distressing or emotional situations and discussions objectively and with emotional intelligence
• Ability to work shift patterns
• Ability to attend a local office for training and meetings
• Ability to apply a common sense and logical approach to identify key or underlying issues in difficult situations and use initiative to solve problems

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

Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Working from home with occasional office visits

£24,937 to £26,598 a yearpro rata per annum

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time

Reference number

846-7698036-CF

Job locations

Working from home with occasional office visits