Kent and Crisis Line Call Handler

About Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust

We are Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust, providing mental health, learning disability and specialist services, serving 1.8 million people across the county.

Are you looking for a new and exciting opportunity? Are you an exceptional candidate who wants to be part of an innovative and evolving service? This vacancy is for a call handler within the Kent & Medway Mental Health Crisis Line. The service provides a mental health crisis line, offering urgent mental health help and support over the phone to members of the public who are not currently receiving care and treatment from KMPT services, and it also provides a referral management function for professionals.

This is a critical role within the organisation as the first point of contact for those contacting secondary mental health care.

• Act as the first person callers speak to, using excellent communication and customer service skills.
• Undertake initial screening of callers, using defined processes, to offer advice, reassurance, or signposting.
• Enter details promptly into the clinical systems and use the online telephone system.
• Work with a qualified mental health clinician for support and guidance.

• 24/7 service – staff are required to work across a full roster period, including early, late and night shifts.
• Roles available on both a full and part‑time basis.
• Primary team base is the Eastern and Coastal Area Offices on the St Martin's Hospital site in Canterbury.
• Following an initial office-based induction period, some flexibility to work from home on an agile basis, up to two shifts per week for full‑time staff.

• Excellent communication and customer service skills.
• Confident computer use – ability to work in an online telephone system and enter data into clinical systems.
• Willable to work flexible hours and shifts.
• Strong organisational and time‑management skills.

All staff receive a comprehensive induction when they join the service, supporting you to develop skills appropriate to your new role. Ongoing training and supervision are provided.

A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high‑volume, seasonal and high‑peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non‑disabled people.

We are the Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust. We care for the mental health and wellbeing of people across Kent and Medway. Our teams support adults with a wide range of mental health needs. Because we cover the whole county and both hospital and community settings, we can make care more joined up and easier to access for the 1.8 million people of Kent and Medway.

Rated ‘Good’ by the CQC, we care for over 2,000 people in our hospitals and 54,000 in the community each year.

Our vision is simple:
We are here to help communities not just live with mental illness, but live well. It's why we're passionate about working with communities to make mental health care better for everyone. And everything we do is guided by our values caring, inclusive, curious and confident.

Join us – if you share our passion for better mental health care and want to be part of a team that's doing well together.