East Midlands Ambulance Service has coped with a 20% increase in calls while maintaining its emergency call answer times by implementing a new communications system.
The service worked with ATC Solutions to review its call handling technology during the development of a new ambulance control centre in Nottingham. As a result, it introduced Mitel’s call flow management system.
The system has allowed it to cope with the 20% increase in calls that came when Northamptonshire’s 999 calls were routed into the regional centre, without employing more call handlers.
The service initially maintained its eight second average answer time for a 999 call. Kelly Macmillan, public sector specialist for Mitel, said: “Increased staff familiarity with the Mitel system has contributed to that average answer time dropping below five seconds.”
East Midlands Ambulance Service was directed to ATC Solutions by Nottinghamshire Health Informatics Service, which has invested in Mitel IP platforms for unified communications in the trusts it supports.
Following a needs analysis, it decided to deploy a Mitel 3300 IP communications platform with ACD functionality, supported by the Mitel contact centre management suite and Cybertech (Activa) call recording.
ATC Solutions also conducted soak testing before go-live in March. The new system identifies the location of callers as well as routing them to the first available call handler.
East Midlands Ambulance Service is now reviewing its requirements for integration between the Mitel system and applications such as radio and patient record systems.
Link: Mitel