Pet Health Advisor, London animal hospitals
Permanent, full time (part time considered)

Blue Cross are one of the UK’s leading rehoming organisations for animals. We support sick, injured and homeless pets and care for more than 40,000 animals every year through our rehoming, veterinary and education programmes. Blue Cross hospitals provide 24/7 veterinary care for pets whose owners can’t afford private veterinary fees. We have animal hospitals across London at Victoria, Merton and Hammersmith.

What is the role?
Pet Health Advisors are a key role in the fast-paced hospitals, ensuring effective delivery of our services and the best outcome for our patients and their owners. They do this by providing the highest level of customer service with a non-judgemental mindset in all situations, while ensuring the education of responsible pet ownership, this will be both over the phone and face to face and through other media such as live web chats. They are the link between our clients and the clinical team and can build relationships with clients, their pets and all members of the hospital teams.

This is a mixed role encompassing reception, admin and clinical support duties. This will require flexibility and the ability to turn your hand to a large variety of tasks while demonstrating a high level of resilience and ability to diffuse initial situations, often in the face of high stress and emotive circumstances. Duties include providing a friendly welcoming service, assisting with clinical tasks within the hospitals and carrying out daily animal care duties. Supporting clients who may be distressed or need additional support through telephone and face to face queries in a calm, professional and friendly manner. The ability to assess the appropriate solutions for their pets and adapt to a variety of our client’s needs and communications styles is an integral responsibility of the role.

On-site working at our sites in London Victoria, Merton and Hammersmith will be required as well as our mobile and outreach services. This is a full-time role of 42 hours per week over five days on a locally agreed rota which includes a mixture of shifts between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday with some weekends (currently 1 in 4) and some bank holidays. Part time hours would be considered for the right candidate. Due, however, to the nature of the work of Blue Cross, and this post, it may be necessary to exceed these hours when the workload demands.

What is required?
We are looking for people with the following:
• Good standard of secondary education including English and Mathematics at GCSE or equivalent work experience
• Dealing and interacting with a wide variety of the general public and their enquiries
• Experience of working in a busy reception/front of house environment
• An understanding of IT functions (Word, Outlook, Excel) and social media
• Experience of caring for/handling animals.
• Understanding of the importance of a clean, comfortable environment for animals
• Ability to work under pressure

It would also be great if you had:
• Previous experience of working in the charity/voluntary sector
• An understanding of confidentiality and Data Protection legislation
• Previous experience of a busy hospital/clinic environment
• Qualification in Animal Care or similar
• Qualification in customer service or similar
• Understanding of animal health, wellbeing and behaviour

Want to know the details? Great! We have attached the job description which hopefully gives you everything you need.

Why work for Blue Cross?
• 38 days annual leave (including bank holidays)
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Holiday exchange & enhanced parental leave
• Annual volunteer days
• Long service awards, starting from 5 years
• Huge range of discounts across high street stores, insurance services & more
To read more about the benefits Blue Cross has to offer, please visit the 'why work for us' page on our website.

To apply for this role, all candidates must complete the online application process.

Salary: £21,622 plus £3,954 London Weighting Allowance per annum
Grade: 5.2
Closing Date: 13th December 2022

To apply for this role, all candidates must complete the online application process. We reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive an overwhelming response.

At Blue Cross we are passionate about our commitment to diversity, inclusion and removing barriers, should you like to discuss any reasonable adjustments or changes to our recruitment process to support you to be your best then please get in touch. You can get in touch with us either via email at jobs@bluecross.org.uk, via telephone on 01993 825515 or if you would prefer a video call then we can arrange this using Microsoft Teams.

Blue Cross holds inclusion as a core organisational value. We positively encourage applications from suitably qualified, experienced and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, transgender status, religion or belief, marital status or pregnancy and maternity. We actively embrace our differences and know that it is our differences that make us unique. You are very welcome at Blue Cross, without the need to hide any part of who you are.