UCLH signs £10m communications contract

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has signed a seven-year contract for all its mobile and fixed-line communications.

The £10m managed service contract was awarded to Azzurri Communications, which will be working across all six hospitals within the trust. UCLH is one of the largest and most complex trusts in the UK.

James Thomas, ICT director at UCLH said: “We now have the benefit of fixed pricing and uncapped usage, without the extensive management overheads.” The deal is expected to save UCLH £1.7m over the length of the contract.

The contract covers all of UCHL’s communication requirements including the provision of its fixed-line telephony, pagers and BlackBerry devices. It is also supported by seven on-site engineers and a 24/7 helpdesk.

Azzurri will update the trust’s ageing communications infrastructure and consolidate all their fixed-line communications contracts into one service.

The company was selected after successful completion of an initial IT telephony service at the University College Hospital.

Thomas said: “We took the decision to update and standardise the trust’s infrastructure by upgrading to IP Telephony across the board.”

As part of the deal, Azzurri will help UCLH trial trust controlled patient entertainment systems, including bedside IP telephony, internet and video on demand.

Jason Standerwick, sales and marketing director with Azzurri Communications, said: “As organisations look to converge technology it has become clear that converging spend through a combined procurement strategy also makes good business sense.”