Virtual Ward - Call Handler

Our General Acute Medicine and Frailty Virtual Ward is a new and innovative Service, that has an agreed admission criteria and works in partnership with supporting care services to deliver acute care in the patient’s own home. The aim of a virtual ward is to reduce length of acute hospital stay and/or avoid hospital admission; this leads to quicker recovery and reduces disruption to patients’, and their carers’ lives. This means we can proactively manage people living with frailty at home, and for those that have a sub-acute episode we can improve a patient’s experience and outcomes. In addition, this means we have more space in our hospitals for acutely unwell patients and reduces the pressure on urgent care.

We are looking for enthusiastic, innovative and engaging individuals, who have a passion for the delivery of high quality patient care within the community. The candidates will have to be able to prioritise their own workload without supervision, have an excellent patient focussed approach and be able to use their initiative as well as work as part of a multidisciplinary team.

The virtual ward NHS England » Virtual wards provides a clinical assessment, treatment, monitoring and review to people in their own home who become unwell and would normally be admitted to hospital or are already under the care of one of the following – Royal Stoke University Hospital, County Hospital at Stafford, New Cross Hospital at Wolverhampton, or Queen’s Hospital in Burton, and whose needs can be safely managed at home. The virtual ward will work alongside and communicate with existing providers across our Health and Social Care System.

Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is an award winning organisation with over 9000 employees. We are one of the largest integrated Health and Social Care providers, covering services across North & South Staffordshire, Shropshire, Hampshire, Buckinghamshire, Isle of Wight and Essex.

We pride ourselves on the services provided to support with the well-being of all of our employees both physically and mentally and offer counselling support and lifestyle information. Opportunities for flexible working are also available depending on the role.

We encourage career development provided by in house training programs and coaching support.

Demonstrating our strong commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion, and in context of our objective aligned to the growth of diversity across the workforce; we are particularly seeking applications from individuals who may be from under-represented groups, such as black, Asian or other ethnic groups, individuals with a disability, or LGBTQ+ individuals who meet the specific criteria.

We are embedding values based and inclusive recruitment practices to ensure that all applicants, from any backgrounds, have an equal chance of success in achieving a role with us.

• To obtain and input accurate information from callers into the Care Coordination Centre and relay this information by the agreed route to appropriate Health Personnel
• To maintain the flow of information and answer calls within agreed time limits following set protocols
• To be responsible for entering new patients onto the Patient Recording System and messaging service ensuring double registration does not occur.
• To be responsible for the maintenance of computerised referrals
• To be responsible in liaising with the referrer should there be insufficient information in the referral into the Care Coordination Centre
• To be responsible for the production and distribution of referral documentation to clinicians
• To be responsible for opening and dealing with incoming and outgoing mail as appropriate
• To provide confidential, professional administrative support to the AA Service.
• To act as a communication point for all referrers who contact the Care Coordination Centre
• To contribute to the organisation of the Care Coordination Centre
• To assist the line manager in training other members of staff, as requested and able to cover other functions of the AA Service if requested by line manager for annual leave, sickness etc.