The background
South West Communications Group provides Devon Partnership NHS Trust with a modern, streamlined telephony solution that created immediate cost savings.
Devon Partnership NHS Trust works closely with other health and social care providers across the county to support the recovery of people with mental health needs. The Trust was created in 2001, serves a population of around 890,000 people and has an annual budget of £108 million. It employs around 2,000 staff and also has about 100 staff assigned from Devon County Council and Torbay Care Trust, including social workers and support workers.
The challenge
Devon Partnership NHS Trust had a mix of dated telephone systems serving its sites, including its headquarters at Wonford House Hospital in Exeter. Some of these systems were provided through the Trust’s links to the neighbouring Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital and others were provided by a Centrex solution. The latter was proving to be very expensive as each extension was charged individually on an ongoing, indefinite rental fee.
The Trust was eager to eliminate the mix of telephone systems and adopt a unified service that would be more cost effective and efficient for its users. South West Communications Group had already provided a solution to the Devon Primary Care Trust, which works closely with Devon Partnership Trust, and so it was invited to suggest an upgraded, consolidated solution for the Wonford House Hospital site.
The solution
South West Communications Group deployed an Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Enterprise telephony solution for the Recovery and Independent Living Team based at the hospital as a trial before continuing to replace the Trust’s aged equipment as part of one cost-effective, scalable solution.
The initial trial with the Recovery and Independent Living Team replaced the existing Centrex system and gave the Trust the ability to re-direct the savings it made from using the Alcatel-Lucent platform to grow the rest of Trust’s telephony solution that included the following:
- Full organisational telephony audit
- Multi telephone system deployments supporting over 600 users
- Converged voice and data infrastructure using Voice over IP
- Streamlined telephony product portfolio
- Centralised system management
- Reduction in rental revenue costs
- Free calls between sites
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