Luton & Dunstable University Hospital
The Luton and Dunstable University Hospital is an acute hospital run by the Luton and Dunstable University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
Luton and Dunstable University Hospital provides medical and surgical services for over 350,000 people in Bedfordshire, the north of Hertfordshire and parts of Buckinghamshire.
The hospital employs 3,400 staff.
How Communications keep Healthcare Running
One of the often-overlooked elements of being able to run an effective healthcare organisation is that strong communications are vital.
Whether it is ensuring patient records are quickly transferred from one part of a trust to another, arranging emergency consults between specialists or ensuring the patients can get the advice orassistance they need as quickly as possible, being able to keep in touch plays a key role in ensuring NHS trusts can operate to their full ability.
This is something that Luton and Dunstable University Hospital understands all too well. Therefore, when it needed to ensure high-quality phone lines connecting all parts of the hospital, the NHS Foundation Trust turned to BTT for its expert assistance throughout its ongoing expansion and improvement projects.
A Comprehensive Solution
Sue Austin, Transport, Switchboard and Facilities Helpdesk Manager at Luton and Dunstable Hospital, explained that being able to quickly implement and update key communication systems is a must as the trust seeks to modernise.
One thing that was important to the organisation was identifying a provider that could be trusted to keep pace with these changes and put in place the right solutions.
“We like to plan ahead, there’s a lot of moves and changes going on because the hospital is redeveloping all the time,” she explained. “We’re making big plans for the future and BTT have always been important in making those moves and changes for us.”
BTT manages almost all the trust’s phone lines and data wiring within the hospital, and with around 2,500 handsets to be connected, it’s important that any changes and updates can be applied quickly, and this is where BTT has proven itself time and again.
Keeping Connected
Ms Austin said: "In a very busy hospital like this, moves and changes are needed very, very quickly sometimes, and BTT have always been able to respond to that."
“They’re always available at the end of the phone, they’re always quick to respond to anything that I have, especially if it’s urgent or an emergency.”
She added that when engineers from BTT need to be on-site, the hospital can always trust that the professional staff will turn up on time and can be left to get on with whatever work needs doing to keep Luton and Dunstable’s phone lines operating.
“There’s no place that can’t have a phone in a hospital,” Ms Austin said. “It’s all about emergencies, and having the nearest phone to hand.”
Redundancy is also an important factor, as the hospital cannot afford to be left without communications in the event of a problem. That’s why it continues to maintain a number of BTT analogue phone lines as backups, in addition to its primary VoIP system.
“The ones we’re leaving analogue are for places like accommodation, consulting rooms, corridors, every ward will have a backup analogue phone as well, so it’s not like it’s going completely.”
Fast, reliable responses
The service provided by BTT was delivered particularly quickly in one instance, where the hospital found itself with two days in which to move an entire department so that space could be converted into a ward.
“BTT came up trumps, did the data, did the phones, and everything ran smoothly from their point. They did their bit. When you say, ‘something is urgent,’ they really do try their best to move things around a bit and come out.”