The background

South West Communications Group helps Newquay Health Centre in Cornwall handle high volumes of calls from the 15,000-plus patients it serves.

Newquay Health Centre became a 10-partner practice following the merger of Dr Harper & Partners and Dr Hunter & Partners in April 2009. It is a training practice, offering placements to medical students and foundation doctors. Newquay Health Centre runs a full range of clinics for chronic disease care and offers a wide variety of other medical services such as antenatal and postnatal care, minor surgery, childhood vaccinations and well-person check-ups.

The challenge
 
The merger of the doctors’ surgeries meant that both practices could take advantage of the cost-savings created by the sharing of resources and they could extend their surgery hours to include lunch time and evening clinics. However, in removing some duplication in terms of services, the combined sets of patients formed a very large number nearing 15,000 which put an immediate increased pressure on the Health Centre’s reception staff. Its 4-year-old telephone system was unable to cope with the demand it was facing and could not deliver the functionality the new, larger Health Centre required.

The site was also served by a mixture of analogue lines which were inefficient and expensive to rent and its call charges were high too. The Health Centre was therefore keen to cut costs where possible and to invest in a telephone system that would help its reception staff cope with the increased volume of calls it was experiencing to ensure it was delivering the best possible service to its patients.

Furthermore, Newquay wanted a telephone system that would not need replacing after just 4 years and could be enhanced, expanded or upgraded to meet their future needs without redundancy of equipment.

The solution

South West Communications Group recommended the Toshiba Strata IP-CIX670 telephone system solution that included:

•    Contact centre software for enhanced incoming call distribution and answering
•    Dissuasion messages to eliminate unnecessary calls
•    Dual-day and night messages
•    Emergency paging
•    ISDN30 connectivity for a flexible and reliable line service
•    Direct dial-in (DDI) numbers
•    Calling line identity (CLI)
•    Self-configuration and programming
•    Training
•    Installation

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