University College London Hospital Trust

At a glance

The issue:
Outdated, disparate communications infrastructure with spiralling expenses.

The project:
Planning, project managing and implementing a new communications strategy across the UCLH Trust.

The outcome:
Simplifying and streamlining the Trust’s system, reduced costs and the single point of contact and expert partner to drive innovation across the Trust.

The Background

Maintel worked with UCLH Trust to consolidate and streamline existing disparate communications infrastructure with a fully managed communications service.

The Challenge

UCLH Trust’s 6,000-strong workforce relies on resilient and efficient communications to deliver world-class patient care. In such a high pressure environment, the immediacy of voice communications plays a critical role in coordinating day-to-day operations, however managing devices and lines UCLH Trust’s large team can be resource intensive and costly.

James explains: “From fixed line extensions to mobile devices; pagers for on-call remote staff and bleepers for medical consultants, downtime is not an option – but neither are spiralling costs. When it was time to update our ageing and disparate communications infrastructure, we looked to consolidate spend and leverage an improved service with greater cost savings.”

With the opening of a new hospital on the horizon, UCLH Trust wanted to consolidate and centralise its existing disparate communications infrastructure, which in turn would help simplify management, maintenance and expenditure.

Furthermore, the Trust wanted to implement infrastructure that would support entertainment applications such as video and TV on-demand, as well as clinical applications to enhance staff mobility and improve the quality of patient care.

The Solution

Starting with an audit of the existing telephony estate, Maintel identifed numerous areas for cost savings before designing a single-touch service that would enable UCLH to upgrade its existing infrastructure, consolidate and reduce telecoms spend and allow the Trust to take advantage of the latest technologies and operator tariffs on demand.

“The audit identified a number of cost efficiencies, and it quickly became clear that Maintel’s managed service model provided the commercial efficiencies and technical agility to manage all our communications needs, delivered in one comprehensive package,” says James.

Supported by seven permanent on-site Maintel engineers and 24/7 helpdesk, the service encompasses all aspects of the Trust’s communications needs, including the provision of its fixed-line telephony, pagers, bleepers and mobile devices. It also removes the complexities of managing multiple communications providers and pricing.

What are the benefits?

In addition to simplifying and streamlining UCHL’s telephony system and achieving cost savings, the new service also supports ongoing innovation across the hospitals.

James concludes: “Maintel is helping us trial patient entertainment systems including the provision of bedside IP telephony, internet and video-on-demand, for which the trust can control patient charges.”