The background

South West Communications Group updates Canford Heath Group Practice’s dual-site telephone and data system to benefit both staff and patients.

Canford Heath Group Practice, based in Poole, Dorset, serves 12,000 patients spread across a main surgery and branch surgery approximately 1 mile away.

The challenge

The partners and patients found that the previous system was unable to cope effectively with ever-increasing call volumes, especially at peak times of the day such as when patients were trying to obtain test results or book appointments.

This was resulting in increasing number of patients encountering the engaged tone, which caused frustration as patients had to repeatedly ring back before getting through. Repeat prescriptions could only be requested in person or in writing as there was insufficient capacity to take telephone requests.

The system in place was very inflexible with limited functionality. One of its many drawbacks was that it could not provide any feedback for management as to volumes of calls and response times. Auto-attendant functionality was also another crucial facility that their existing system was unable to provide.

Senior partner Dr Anthony Howe was well aware of these issues. He thoroughly researched the marketplace for a solution that would overcome their difficulties while also fully integrating the neighbourhood branch surgery into a single communications system that was both flexible and easy to use for patients and staff alike.

The solution

South West Communications Group was awarded the contract and provided a Toshiba IP CIX670 digital communications system with the following functions:

• Auto-attendant
• ACD (automatic call distribution)
• Voicemail
• Call reporting
• Windows-based self-administration software
• DDIs (direct dial numbers)

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