Improving Community Healthcare Services with Wiltshire Health and Care

Customer Introduction

Wiltshire Health and Care (WHC) is an NHS partnership focused on delivering community health services across Wiltshire, enabling people to live independent and fulfilling lives. The organisation delivers multiple community healthcare services from 14 sites across Wiltshire.

 

 

The Challenge

WHC planned to introduce a new cloud-based telephony system to replace dated legacy systems and facilitate better communications between the services at all connecting sites and with remote workers. This was a major project across the 14 sites and part of a wider digital modernisation project to replace an ageing network infrastructure. The aim of the project was to ensure the provision of secure, modern, and resilient tools and technology across the organisation to enable effective communication and delivery of excellent patient care.

Previously, administration of the various phone systems was complex, and any issues would often require an on-site visit to resolve. Additionally, the telephony systems were only accessible from desk-based phones on site making it difficult to utilise resources across the wider organisation to dynamically support demand.

“’We needed a modern fully featured phone system so that we can facilitate change quickly and support the various requirements of each service. Now, we can access all phone lines independently of geographic location and report on all key telephony metrics to ensure we can support our patient lines correctly.

 

Previously, we were unable to utilise resource across the organisation to support any line irrespective of geographic location. Now staff can service any line from wherever they are working on that day. The new system also gives us better options for out of hours configuration, allowing on call managers to route through to the required service or department easily. The new 3CX system provides us the facility to direct calls as required and bring departments together”

Nick Van Dorp,Technical Programme Lead

 

 

Solution

The new solution needed to effectively connect members of staff across all departments, utilising queues, IVRs and auto-attendants as well as a central organisational contacts list to facilitate better communication, call flow, resourcing of lines and administrative booking tasks. WHC identified 3CX as the right fit to address these challenges. A key requirement of the solution was to have a system that could be centrally managed, to consolidate disparate systems and simplify administration tasks, such as user management and onboarding, enabling WHC to unify all sites together under one solution.

Hybrid working was another key consideration for this project. The team sought a solution that allowed staff members to work from any site or remotely to increase the efficiency of the organisation by enabling logging in and out of call queues when needed, wherever they’re based. This would provide the local community with a smoother and more efficient service when contacting community healthcare services and booking appointments. The solution needed to help WHC to view call data which would help them to analyse call demand, and feedback to improve the quality of their service. Finally, WHC sought additional features of a modern phone system such as ‘broadcast’ that could be utilised to communicate effectively in emergency situations.

 

 

Why Gradwell

Gradwell were selected by WHC to implement 3CX through a formal tender process. Nick explains:

“’I have been very impressed by your service desk. The service has been consistently good with a prompt response to issues and overall provided an amazing experience. They make sure they always understand what they are being asked and come back with a relevant answer in a timely fashion’’

Nick Van Dorp,Technical Programme Lead

 

Gradwell provided an end-to-end implementation service and worked closely with the team at WHC. This included understanding the challenges posed by the lack of interlinks between the previous systems in place in the organisation, which the in-house team would not have been able to facilitate. To ensure this project was a success, our knowledgeable support teams made a huge difference and were only ever a phone call away to provide support and advice, ensuring that Wiltshire Health and Care could always be on hand.

 

“The support was great, Gradwell were on the ball with the project and key in terms of getting the success we have had’’

Nick Van Dorp,Technical Programme Lead

 

 

Impact

Gradwell’s 3CX solution has allowed the breakdown of geographical barriers across the organisation, increased efficiency, and better demand management across each site and for all the services that are provided to the community in Wiltshire. In addition, the team now have the flexibility to configure the solution remotely and quickly resolve issues. The implementation of call queues has been fundamental to improving the patient experience, allowing the community to connect to the services in a far more straightforward manner than before.

 

“’3CX has provided the organisation with the ability to save time and become more efficient, through utilisation of the 3CX system features and visibility of call data, allowing us to identify patterns and adapt accordingly’’

Nick Van Dorp,Technical Programme Lead
Additionally, the monitoring of usage and effective user management has enabled the ability to take more control over cost management, becoming more efficient due to only paying for what they are using. It has enabled the team to view the volume of calls into each department and utilise this data to help inform their teams and understand demands.

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