Switchboard Operator

West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust; Bury St Edmunds; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A regional healthcare provider in Bury St Edmunds is looking for a switchboard operator. The role involves managing emergency and external calls, coordinating on-call rotas, and booking necessary transport for patients and staff. The position requires excellent communication skills and the ability to handle high-pressure situations. Shift patterns include mornings, afternoons, and nights.

Responsibilities

• Manage emergency calls, ensuring correct protocols are followed.
• Handle external emergency calls to the police and fire brigade.
• Check on-call rotas daily and communicate updates.
• Book contract taxis for various patient and staff transfers.
• Issue loan alert devices as needed.
• Assist the site manager during switchboard system failures.

Job description

Overview

The job role within the switchboard office is varied, our priority is answering the telephone calls. In January we answered 33,662 calls and in February 28,782. The calls come into the switchboard via different lines and are answered in the following order: The Emergency Calls, The Emergency Communication Calls, The GP Calls, External Calls, The Internal Calls and each operator has their own internal extension.

Responsibilities

• Emergency calls that are made to the switchboard, these are usually via a 2222 call, these include Maternity Emergencies, Paediatric Emergencies, Cardiac Arrests, Stroke Alerts, Stroke Thrombolysis, Massive Blood Loss, Traumas and RPI's. These groups are tested on a daily basis to ensure all emergency bleeps are working correctly, following an emergency call we are responsible for getting the on-call teams to the right place, procedures vary slightly in hours and out of hours.
• External Emergency calls to the Fire Brigade and Police.
• On-call Rotas for all departments within the trust, we check these rotas on a daily basis and transfer this information onto our Doctors Board and issue a daily on call list to various individuals across the trust.
• The booking of contract taxis, these can be to take a patient home, to take patients medication or belongings home, arrange the transfer of pathology samples to other hospitals, to transfer staff who are working at other trusts or collecting staff who have gone on a transfer with a patient to another hospital, we also book the contract taxis for the psychic liaison team for patients who are being discharged from A & E.
• Issuing of Loan Alertive devices
• Assisting Site Manager for issuing Radios to the on-call teams in the event of switchboard or bleep system failure.

About the Trust

The West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds provides acute and secondary care services (emergency department, maternity and neonatal services, day surgery unit, eye treatment centre, Macmillan unit and children's ward). It has 500+ beds and is a partner teaching hospital of the University of Cambridge. Adult and paediatric community services, provided in collaboration with West Suffolk Alliance partners, include a range of nursing, therapy, specialist, and ongoing temporary care and rehabilitation, some at our Newmarket Community Hospital. We do our utmost to achieve outstanding clinical outcomes for patients and our values of fairness, inclusivity, respect, safety and team work guide how we work and behave as a team. We promote a diverse and inclusive community where everyones voice counts and you can #BeKnown for whoever you are.

Shifts

The shift patterns that someone could expect for a role in switchboard are 06.00-14.00, 14.00-22.00, 22.00-06.00.