Referral Nurse

Role Overview

This role sits at the critical point where Penda's primary care ends and higher-level care begins. You will be the person who makes sure every patient referred out of a Penda clinic moves to the right hospital or specialist without delay, confusion, or loss to follow-up. Day to day, you will build and maintain a working referral network across Nairobi, Kiambu, and Kajiado, coordinate urgent transfers alongside clinicians, track every referral from departure to outcome, and strengthen the systems that bring patients back into Penda's care after discharge.

Key Responsibilities

• Map all accessible referral destinations — Level 4, 5, and 6 public hospitals, private facilities, faith-based institutions, diagnostic centres, and maternity units — within practical reach of each Penda clinic.
• Develop named relationships with liaison officers, admissions teams, casualty nurses, and ward coordinators at receiving facilities, negotiating response-time expectations, communication protocols, and escalation contacts for high-volume partners.
• Maintain a continually updated referral directory that reflects staff changes, new services, and newly opened facilities so clinical and non-clinical colleagues always have accurate information.
• Coordinate urgent referrals in real time, advocating for patients who need higher-acuity care and using your relationships and system knowledge to overcome refusals or bottlenecks in acceptance and admission.
• Arrange appropriate clinical accompaniment and liaise with national and private ambulance providers to ensure transport never delays urgent care.
• Track every referral across the network — destination, receipt status, and outcome — and monitor acceptance rates against agreed standards to identify recurring failure points.
• Build a standard documentation toolkit including referral letters, SBAR communication guides, and discharge summary templates, and train clinical and non-clinical staff on emergency communication and referral procedures.
• Own the return-to-Penda pathway, coordinating with clinical and call centre teams to follow up referred patients, recall those needing chronic disease management, and work with community health promoters to locate patients who miss appointments or leave hospital without follow-up.

Requirements & Qualifications

• Registered Nurse with a current, valid practising licence from the Kenya Nursing Council.
• At least 4 years of post-registration clinical experience.
• At least 2 years in referral coordination, patient navigation, hospital liaison, or case management — for example hospital triage, a referral unit, an NGO health programme, an HMO, or a high-acuity outpatient setting.
• Demonstrated experience working across both public and private health facilities in Kenya, with a genuine understanding of how each sector operates.
• Confident use of SBAR communication, emergency referral protocols, and IMCI or emergency triage frameworks.
• Sound judgment for making fast, defensible decisions under pressure, plus the interpersonal skill to build trust with casualty nurses, hospital administrators, and anxious families alike.
• A practical, problem-solving mindset that refuses to accept "no" as the final answer when a patient's care depends on finding another way.

What We Offer / Why Join

You will take ownership of a function that directly shapes patient outcomes beyond the clinic walls, with room to design referral systems that actually work across a growing network. You will work alongside clinical teams, ambulance providers, hospital liaison staff, and community health promoters, giving you broad visibility into Kenya's healthcare landscape while making a measurable difference in continuity of care.