We want talented and enthusiastic people from all backgrounds to join #TeamMWL, with us you can learn, grow and develop yourself and your career, realising your true ambitions and aspirations.
Whatever you’re looking for in your career, you’ll find it here at MWL.
Site Southport Hospital Town Southport Salary £25,272 Per Annum (Pro Rata, If Part Time) Salary period Yearly Closing 17/07/2026 23:59 Interview date 06/08/2026
After applying via NHS Jobs, your submitted application will be imported into our preferred Third‑party recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs. You will not be able to track the progress of your application or receive messages through the NHS Jobs website, and furthermore, as an employer, we will not be able to respond to any e‑mails sent to us via the NHS Jobs website. By applying for this post you are agreeing to “name of trust” transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are appointed to a post information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.
Job overview
The principal role will be to work within a team to provide an efficient telephone operator service to the Trust and users of its telephone service from a wide range of backgrounds. The work is wide ranging from the handling of general business calls to the implementation of the Trust emergency procedures.
The shift patterns vary and can cover evenings, weekends and nights and operate 24hrs – 365 days a year.
Main duties of the job
To provide an efficient front line telecommunications service for patients, business callers and staff at Mersey and West Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust. The role is wide ranging from the handling of general business calls to the implementation of Trust emergency procedures.
The post holder will work closely with other teams to develop a wide knowledge of the activities and working arrangements of all wards and departments, promoting effective communication to ensure the achievement of Trust objectives.
The post requires the use of several computerised systems and manual systems for the implementation and administration of departmental and Trust Procedures.
Out of hours’ the post holder is required to work unsupervised and at times will be a lone worker. The post holder will also work with the support of the Trust’s on call management team for escalation purposes.
Working for our organisation
Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 9000 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.
We strongly believe that the communities we serve should all have access to Five Star Patient Care.
Our Services:
Acute Care
Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.
Primary Care
Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.
Community Services
Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire. Our inpatient unit at Newton Community Hospital is where patients needing acute hospital beds can continue rehabilitation, freeing up space for more unwell patients. We also provide urgent care at our Urgent Treatment Centre located in St Helens town centre.
Specialist Regional Services
We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.
Achievements:
- Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018
- Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
- National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
KEY DUTIES
- To operate the operator terminal to process incoming and outgoing telephone calls; ensuring that calls are delivered efficiently ensuring that callers are kept always informed of progress.
- Receive and relay oral and written messages internally, making amendments to rosters, and recording special instructions as required.
- To provide help and advice to clients and employees of the Trust requiring direction and assistance.
- Implement the Major Incident/ Emergency Response Procedure following the action card.
- To operate the Trust’s internal paging system including Group Alerts for cardiac arrest and the Bleep/ Radio system.
- To provide an out of hours on call systems for Departments within the Trust, recording all requests for non‑clinical and clinical staff as directed.
- To maintain effective department communication with managers and team members within both the day and night services.
- Liaison with relevant suppliers of communication equipment for maintenance purposes
- To ensure that any difficulties in implementing emergency and Operational Policies and Procedures are reported immediately at an appropriate level.
- To respond to a range of alarms instigating relevant call out procedures and relaying information as directed.
CLINICAL & PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
- Maintain adherence to Local and Statutory regulations relating to the use/misuse of data and computer facilities, in particular the Data Protection Act and Copyright laws.
- Be aware of all current legislative conditions, particularly the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and undertake duties in accordance with this legislation.
ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES
- To report telephone equipment and telephone system faults in accordance with guidelines ensuring that unresolved problems are reported to the appropriate manager.
- To maintain and update department records and directory information ensuring that any changes are communicated throughout the team.
- To prepare daily duty rosters, amend and adjust duty rosters for clinical and non‑clinical services as advised ensuring that all associated systems are updated.
- To allocate and issue, authorise for personal telephone use; ensuring relevant records are kept.
- To receive and transmit communication using the Switchboard email account.
- To perform ad hoc requirements for clerical work relating to the Telecommunications Service.
- To report any incidents relating to breach of security/or the misuse of the telephone system.
TEACHING & TRAINING RESPONSIBILITIES
- Assist and support in the training of new staff.
- Take responsibility for the Personal Continuing Professional Development including mandatory training, attendance on courses and seminars of self as appropriate.
Person specification
Qualifications
- Educated to GCSE standard
- CLAIT or IBT 2 & 3 or ECDL qualifications
- Customer Service/Administration /Call Centre Qualification of equivalent experience
Knowledge & Experience
- Experience of working with telephone as a main function of the job
- Experience producing work in a windows environment, producing basic documents and database entry / searches
- Experience of working in an acute trust switchboard
- Experience in handling large volume telephony in multi‑line environment
Skills
- Proficient user of Microsoft Office
- Excellent communication skills, written and oral
Other
- Ability to travel to various sites via own car/assisted driver
Thank you for considering an application to work for Mersey West Lancashire NHS Trust. MWL is an exciting and forward‑thinking NHS Trust who are one of the best places to work for in England.
Given sometimes we receive a high volume of applications to work for us, please be aware, that we may close a vacancy earlier than stated should a sufficient number of applications be received from which a shortlist can be confirmed. Therefore, you are advised to apply at your earliest convenience.
The Trust may contact you during the recruitment process for your feedback on your experience. We always aim for continuous improvement in our practice.
Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion
We actively cultivate a professional environment of fairness, equality, dignity, and respect for all individuals. We welcome individuals from all backgrounds and value the unique skills, perspective and experience you bring. We are grounded in the belief that diversity enhances our collective strength, fostering innovation and excellence within our workforce. We welcome all applications irrespective of people’s race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion/belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity and in particular those from under‑represented groups.
As a Disability Confident Leader, we commit to offering an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.
If you are having difficulty completing an online application, or require any disability reasonable adjustments, to the application process, please contact Recruitment@merseywestlancs.nhs.uk.
We also commit to offering an interview to all armed forces veterans who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.
The Trust operates anonymous shortlisting where no personal information about you, including your name or personal details are shared with the recruiting manager. No equality information is shared at any time during the recruitment process with the recruiting manager or other people involved in the decision‑making process.
The equality monitoring information you provide is used in the following situations: to review our recruitment practices; where a job is limited to a specific person to verify their eligibility to apply; and to offer disability reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process.
Certificate of Sponsorship
Following the recent update on UK immigration policy for those on a Health and Care Visa or Skilled Worker Visa, please click here to check your eligibility before applying for this post as we may be unable to provide sponsorship.
eVisa Update
For successful candidates on selected work and study visa routes, who have completed and paid for their applications will no longer receive a visa vignette in passport as evidence of their permission to enter the UK.
Instead, you will be issued with an eVisa only, which is accessed by creating a UKVI account.
Before travelling to the UK, we advise applicants to:
- Understand how to generate an eVisa share code
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
If this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 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.
Please note if applicable, applicants will be required to pay for their DBS check. Costs are deducted from salary following appointment.
If you have not already done so, you are therefore encouraged to enrol for the DBS Update Service to which a small annual fee of £13 per year applies.
Flexible Working
We actively support flexible working patterns throughout MWL. Changes made to the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook mean that:
- All employees have the right to request flexible working from day one of employment.
- There is no limit on the number of requests they can make.
- Employees have the right to make requests, have them considered, regardless of the reason.
At Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, we will consider requests for flexible working. We would also encourage you to also discuss flexible working options at interview stage.
Working for Team MWL
Staff recognition is especially important to us; as well as performance reviews and appraisals, we recognise staff through Employee of the month. Along with supporting you to achieve your career goals we offer a generous pension scheme, unsocial hours payments (where applicable), 27 days annual leave on commencement (pro rata) and access to a range of NHS discounts. Our Staff Health and Wellbeing programme offer a variety of services.
The Trust is a non‑smoking across all our sites. Failure to follow this rule could lead to disciplinary action. For more information, see the Smoke Free NHS website.
You will be expected to undertake the Trust’s commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.
You must ensure that your application, including personal statements and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.
The Trust will not accept applications which are found to be AI generated and will check all applications against AI detection software.
Additional Information
Before applying, we encourage you to review the Trusts Values and Behaviours which are We are KIND, We are OPEN, We are INCLUSIVE, which can be found here.
An applicant guide to help and support you with your application and what to expect during your recruitment journey can be accessed in the supporting documents.
Good luck with your application. We hope to welcome you to Team MWL very soon.
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