Ashford NHS 111 Contact Centre, Kent

“A lot of people are under the impression that people just phone NHS 111 with a sore throat and are directed back to the GP for antibiotics. I think that's the way that NHS 111 was set up years ago, you know, speaking to my colleagues that have been there for a lot longer. But, of course, now the complexity of the calls are quite, quite different.”

Gigi Peverell - Clinical Advisor at IC24 Ashford

Clinicians, such as nurses, physiotherapists and other Allied Health Professionals, doctors, paramedics are employed to speak to people who phone. Some people are given advice without needing to use Accident and Emergency departments, while others are advised and directed to primary care services, emergency services or treatment centres.

IC24’s nursing jobs in Ashford, Kent

The clinical job roles we recruit for at our Contact Centres are Health Advisors and Clinical Advisors (although, technically, Health Advisors are non-clinical). For our Clinical Advisors we recruit people with a clinical background and experience, notably nurses.

“I enjoy having that one to one time with a patient. It's uninterrupted time with that patient. It's not that way when you're working in a busy acute hospital. You know, you actually feel like you're making a difference in that person's life.”

Gigi Peverill - Nurse and Clinical Advisor at IC24

Pay rates quoted below are based on pay details in advertisements on Nurses.co.uk and on IC24’s own website in 2024. They are presented to give an illustration of IC24 pay and salaries. Please refer to IC24’s job advertisements on this site for specific details.

IC24’s contact centre in Ashford offer two key roles: Health Advisors (which are technically non-clinical) and Clinical Advisor jobs which are jobs for nurses and other clinicians.

Nursing jobs & pay in Ashford at IC24’s NHS 111 Contact Centre

Clinical Advisor Pay guide
Clinical Advisors at IC24 are paid between £18.01 and £19.44 per hour, or £34,214 - £38,010 annually. We pay a basic rate of pay plus 30% for Saturdays and after 8pm and before 6am weekdays. We pay a basic rate of pay plus 60% for public holidays and Sundays.

Clinical Advisor Job role
Our Clinical Advisors are active healthcare professionals with a registration with the NMC or HCPC. So, we hire nurses and allied healthcare professionals for this role. Our Clinical Advisors would receive requests for assistance, treatment, or care at our NHS 111 contact centres. Using telecommunications, they are responsible for assessing callers with a wide spectrum of clinical conditions; advising them on home care management, next steps and referring them on to further care when appropriate. The computer-based clinical decision system will facilitate and support the advice given. They work as part of a multidisciplinary team providing high-quality, evidence-based healthcare to the immediate needs of the patient.

“A call initially comes through to a health advisor. The more complex calls come through to clinicians such as myself. We call patients back and go through their current issues. They’re taken through an initial assessment. My responsibility is to then signpost to the next, correct service. That could be an emergency service, ambulance service, treatment centre, or a mental health crisis team.”

Gigi Peverell - Nurse and Clinical Advisor at IC24 Ashford

Health Advisor jobs & pay in Ashford at IC24’s NHS 111 Contact Centre

Health Advisor Pay guide
NHS 111 Health Advisors at IC24 are paid between £12.04 and £12.62 per hour, or £23,541 - £24,675 annually. We pay a basic rate of pay plus 15% for Saturdays and after 8pm and before 6am weekdays. We pay a basic rate of pay plus 20% for Sundays and plus 60% for Bank Holidays.

Health Advisor Job role
Health Advisors work in our NHS 111 contact centres (care co-ordination centre) and they manage calls from patients and healthcare professionals with urgent and non -urgent healthcare needs, using the Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) appropriately to direct the patient to the service suitable for their needs. Our Health Advisors deal with a variety of calls that range from minor illnesses to life threatening situations every day. Technically, Health Advisors are non-clinical, and so your function is to triage and feed into the clinical side of the system.

As a Health Advisor at IC24, when our patients dial 111 you will be the first point of contact and the voice at the end of the line. It'll be up to you to deliver sometimes life-changing advice, triaging a wide range of calls and providing safe, effective assessments and non-clinical advice using the NHS Pathways System.

“The bulk of the calls we deal with are things like throat infections, during infection. It can range from a lot of things, for instance people that possibly might be having a heart attack. It’s not an easy job, but if you’re the type of person who likes to help people, it is a very rewarding job.”

Ian Maben - Health Advisor, IC24

“There is that really nice special moment where you can say to someone, I can get you that care today. They just want to be heard and understood. The training is way above almost what you need for the role, it’s like being back at college!”

Graham Deaves - Health Advisor, IC24

Browse and apply to all of IC24's jobs here on Nurses.co.uk

IC24 benefits for staff in Ashford

IC24 employees can enjoy benefits including the blue light card, NHS Pension Scheme access, and Heartbeat.

The blue light card helps bring savings for some of the brands you use. It is the UK’s leading discount provider for the emergency services, NHS, and social care sector - saving money at a wide range of providers from Cineworld to Halfords, Hotpoint, Odean and more.

Heartbeat recognises the hard work of everyone at Integrated Care 24, through peer-to-peer recognition, valuable wellbeing resources and housing your employee discounts. Heartbeat benefits portal is exclusive for all Integrated Care 24 employees.

Why you should choose a career working for IC24 in Ashford

We’ll hand this section over to Gigi Peverell, a nurse who spoke to Matt Farrah at Nurses.co.uk in 2024 about her nursing job in Ashford as a Clinical Advisor at IC24:
“Everyone's very friendly and there's a nice atmosphere - that's a big plus. And they’re very accommodating with people's lifestyles. They're very good with that. That's helped me a great deal. They listen to you as an individual, you know. They take on an individual employee’s personal situation outside of work as well as in. It's not been too much trouble.

“And I've seen this from other colleagues in the office that, you know, it's not too much trouble if you require a certain seat or if you have a disability. IC24 are amazing at providing what you need for work.

“Also in my situation, where I have needed specific hours, it has sometimes been difficult for me to get to the contact centre for various reasons while caring for my elderly mother, especially now I’m the only sibling (and the rest of our family all live overseas).

“IC24 have been so good, so accommodating at changing my schedule, my hours and very understanding with that, ensuring that I get my annual leave for when my mother came out of hospital. That is very rare these days.

“You'd like to think the NHS in general is flexible. There's flexible working. But given the workloads now and the lack of staff it has become impossible for the NHS to provide that for their staff. They do not have the capacity, they don't have the staff.

“So that's a challenge for the NHS in general.

“But also at IC24, they are also open to new ideas. If you are interested in looking at the system, if you have any new ideas about the queue, for instance, that we're working from the calls, or the way that we pull the calls off the queue - if you have any new ideas about that or anything that you want to bring to the company they're very open to listening to them.”

Read our full interview with Gigi here

Find out more about IC24’s jobs & career development on their profile page (includes pay & salary information, and how they support their employees).

Practical information about working in Ashford, Kent for IC24

Our contact centre in Ashford, is located just off the A2070, close to Junction 10 on the M20. Ashford is in the heart of Kent, and close to the Kent Downs. The south coast is within 30 minutes drive away, with historic towns such as Rye making for beautiful days out. We are just over 1 hour’s train journey from central London making Ashford easily accessible for work for those who do not live in the town.