Press & PR

A new VoIP communications system has been established by NHS Direct in a move aimed at improving its efficiency.

The new system is designed to help the organisation to meet the government's targets on responding to patient calls and the project to upgrade its systems has now been completed after two years of development.

With calls serviced from 22 different sites, the new VoIP equipment is designed to enable NHS Direct to balance call volume more effectively, thereby helping to increase the efficiency in dealing with calls.

The next phase of the upgrade will see computer/telephony integration that will link caller ID information with NHS Direct's database of patients. It is hoped this will further improve efficiency by giving NHS Direct staff instant access to information about a patient when a call is made.

NHS Direct receives in the region of six million calls every year and Murray Bain, IT director at the organisation, admitted to Computer Weekly that it had had problems in the past managing to answer and respond to all the calls. It is hoped this new IT system will put an end to such difficulties by more effectively managing the load of calls across the sites.