Chinwag

A day in the life

Gloria Smith, switchboard supervisor

The Christie employs a wide range of staff doing very different jobs. In each edition, Chinwag will follow one member of staff to find out what a day in their life is really like…

Q. Tell us a bit about your job A . This can be very rewarding and also quite stressful at times as

Email communications.team @christie.nhs.uk if you want Chinwag to profile your job in the next ‘A day in the life’. in some way, small or large, we hope to make a difference. I am and I feel proud to say “I work for The Christie”. Q. What is a challenging part of the day? A . All day every day is a challenge as you never know who is on the other end of the telephone. It could be a very distressed patient or a bereaved relative, or someone just checking an appointment. Q. What’s the high point of your day? A . Working with my colleagues, knowing we are giving a great service to the patients and relatives who pass through our doors.

to call the ‘crash’ team. Next we make sure the on call doctor rota is made up and printed off, whilst we take various incoming calls. At some point in the day we test our systems by putting out a test crash call and all responsible persons will call back on the crash phone (red) on 2222. Q. What’s the last thing you do before you leave? A . At 2pm I liaise with the person coming on duty and impart any information of changes in switch. Q. What do you think makes The Christie such a special place to work? A . We get people from all walks of life coming through the doors of The Christie. We are all caring and

almost all calls into the hospital come through the switchboard. We operate from 6am until 8pm when we handover to security who staff the switchboard until 6am the following day. We only close There are seven in the team with three operators at any given time. Q. What’s the first thing you do when you arrive? A . If I am on the 6am shift I go to security for hand over. Once back in switch, I test the emergency phone (red) to make sure this is working, should the need arise on Christmas Day when security also take over.

27