East Coast Community Healthcare CIC

Call Referral Operator and Process Lead

The closing date is 27 November 2025

Job summary

We are looking for enthusiastic individual's with a personal desire to succeed and make a difference to join our call referral team. If you can offer a high standard of customer care together with good keyboard and communication skills we would be interested in receiving your application. The team are based at Hamilton House, Lowestoft; where the service operates from 7.00 a.m. until 8.00 p.m, 365 days per year. There is a requirement to work rotational weekends / evenings; therefore a flexible approach to working is a key requirement of the role. The ability to be able to cover a range of shifts is essential, with shifts varying in length from 5 to 10 hours.

In addition to the call referral duties this post is to support the ECCA Team Lead, deputise in their absence and complete appraisals, sickness reports, supervision etc for direct reports. The successful applicant will have an excellent telephone manner, be fluent in computer systems and typing, be able to remain calm and work under pressure, will adhere strictly to the rules of confidentiality and have a professional manner at all times. Also, the ability to be able to work under pressure is a vital element to this role.

Main duties of the job

East Coast Community Access (ECCA) is the central referral and communication hub for ECCH and NCHC MSK Services. It is the first point of contact for patients and health professionals, dealing with referral processing, general enquiries, appointment booking, waiting list administration and requests for services for all relevant teams across the organisation. The Call Referral Operator & Process Lead is required to work alongside/support ECCA Call Referral Operators to provide a high standard of telephone communication and data input for patients and clinicians as appropriate.

Contact to the team can be via telephone, email, System 1 and post. The role involves working in a very busy office, maintaining accuracy while adhering to strict timeframes for processing and disseminating incoming information. It requires excellent communication skills, and the ability to interact with people from all walks of life.

About us

ECCH is well established health care provider and has been successfully delivering NHS care within the community since 2011. We provide a range of NHS, community health and social care services predominantly across the easterly region of the Norfolk/Suffolk borders.

We are aligned to NHS terms and conditions, and offer many employee benefits, to find out more about us visit our website - www.ecch.org. We are a social enterprise and staff owned organisation which means staff can opt to be shareholders and have a real say in how ECCH is run and evolves to deliver healthcare for the future.

At the heart of our ambition, we work in partnership with and for the community to become the provider and employer of choice for community healthcare.

We encourage you to apply as early as possible as this job may close earlier than the advertised closing date once enough applications have been received.

Date posted

14 November 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 3

Salary

£24,937 to £26,598 a year

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time, Flexible working

Reference number

B9849-131-25

Job locations

Hamilton House

Battery Green Road

Lowestoft

Suffolk

NR32 1DE

Job description

Job responsibilities

Call referral Operator

Receiving referrals via telephone, email and post, and scanning and processing these to strict deadlines. Checking these referrals for inaccurate or incomplete data and following up where necessary.

Undertake a wide range of work procedures and practices that will incorporate both urgent and non-urgent scenarios. This will require a working knowledge of the referral pathways for each service including general information about waiting times, while also being able to describe in general terms the type of input each of the teams will be able to provide.

Working across multiple services, including booking and cancelling appointments using different clinical units, referral routes and criteria, adding, moving and removing patients to and from clinical waiting lists

Giving general non-clinical advice to new or existing patients or health professionals; describing the different services and treatment options that are available and describing the processes and protocols that are involved in each.

Dealing with people with whom there are barriers to communication. This can include those with speech or auditory problems, dementia, learning difficulties or mental health issues. Similarly, dealing with callers in highly emotive situations, and dealing with challenging behaviour. This can include being the first contact for family members of a patient who is terminally ill, or who has just passed away.

To receive sensitive information and accurately document the information.

Determining the urgency with which patients need to be seen for treatment from the information provided using defined protocols and algorithms. Eliciting further information from referrers to make non-clinical judgements about treatment timeframes again using defined protocols and algorithms. Directing referrals to the appropriate team dependent on these outcomes. This also requires liaising with different services as to their capacity to take specific urgent referrals and then processing and directing these referrals dependent on these discussions.

Receiving referrals or requests for input which are not covered by ECCH. Directing these patients or referrers to the correct external organisation.

Being the first point of contact for community staff sickness reporting and informing HR and relevant line managers.

Giving unwelcome news to patients / family members, such as informing them that their visit has been deferred, and they will not get seen on the same day as requested. Also, receiving complaints and feedback from patients and family members, and directing them to the appropriate team.

Collate various clinical team rotas on a daily basis, ensuring all updates are communicated to the relevant clinical services / teams

Understand and implement a smartcard unblocking service using skills and knowledge gained through training and experience.

Demonstrate and explain practices and procedures to newer less experienced staff members

To complete / take part in surveys and audits as required within own work environment, e.g. to test effectiveness of procedures

Frequent requirement for sitting in restricted position inputting data into computer systems for long periods of time; this involves high levels of concentration.

Work in a highly busy, noisy and emotive environment using skills to deal with regular verbal aggression in a professional empathetic manner.

Communicate with a wide range of staff and patients, across multiple services, to advise on progress of referrals and treatment, e.g. patient treatment schedules, length of waiting list times, general appointment queries, etc.

Co-ordinate messages / instructions between various clinical staff and teams

Process Lead

Complete appraisals and reviews for Call Referral Operator direct reports in a timely manner, ensuring staff are compliant with mandatory training, reporting any issues to the Operational Lead.

Deputising for Operational Lead as required; delegated duties to include ensuring daily duties are covered, redistributing as necessary, particularly in times of sickness.

Complete sickness returns, recording appropriately and reporting back to Operational Lead any concerns or issues.

To Support the Operational Lead, displaying the organisational requirements of attitude, behaviour, competence and delivery and acting as a positive example for peers.

To work with Operational Lead and System Support to effectively create, monitor and review service protocols within Systm1, feeding back to Operational Admin, ECCA & Equipment Co-ordinator.

To attend clinical and administrative meetings as required.

To ensure the relevant clinical rotas have been received on a monthly basis and updating as necessary when changes arise

To ensure the clinical nursing rotas are completed on a daily basis and disseminated onto the single point of triage team.

Monitor patient referrals and ensure all referrals are added to the system in a correct and timely manner.

To accept responsibility for a designated workload and to organize this effectively and efficiently with regard to priorities and use of time.

To work with the ECCA manager to train new members of the team, assessing, monitoring, reviewing and updating new training processes and methods.

To deal with telephone enquiries and take appropriate messages for the staff and patients.

All roles within East Coast Community Healthcare CIC (ECCH) require staff to demonstrate our Values and Signature Behaviours in the care and service they provide to patients, service users, stakeholders and colleagues. All members of staff should consider these as an essential part of their job role.

Our Values outline the core behaviours that we can all achieve and are summarised as an acronym within the word CARE. These stand for: Compassion, Action, Respect and Everyone.

Underpinning our Values are our Signature Behaviours which highlight by taking the right actions we continue to build a strong culture. Our four Signature Behaviours are: Compassion - We Listen, We Learn, We Lead| Action - My Accountability, My Responsibility | Respect - Respect Our Resources: People, Time and Money | Everyone - Work Together, Achieve Together.