5th July 2023
As the NHS celebrates its 75th birthday, here at Netcall we’ve been looking back at the impact our technology has had over the latter part of this great institutions tenure and what’s yet to come.
We’ve been making patients’ lives easier since the mid 80s. Whether that’s agents in the contact centre, stressed-out IT managers or NHS patients. Some of our proudest moments have been transforming the performance of NHS Trusts and Boards, delighting staff with automating processes and solving those annoying issues like waiting on hold, getting through to the right member of staff, and having your issue dealt with in a timely manner.
As the NHS turns 75, we look back at where it all began…
First automated call answering service and voicemail system for external and internal calls. We gave hospitals the ability to route calls to the right destination using number selection on the keypad, and taking messages in a mailbox.
We created the first call back solution, providing patients with the option to be called back by leaving their name and number, as an alternative to waiting in the queue. We later patented it as the process was so good for customer experience!
First emergency/major incident call and monitoring service that paged and called relevant staff through a single operator. Real-time feedback to multiple destinations on the number of staff alerted and those that have responded to the call, as well as ETA of staff to the hospital. This technology is, to this day, unrivalled by our competitors.
We launched the first speech recognition dialler, which enabled callers to say the name of the person, ward or department they wanted and get automatically routed through. This introduced the NHS to the wonders of voice self-service.
We were the first UK company to provide automated appointment patient reminders for the NHS – saving Trusts millions of pounds by tackling missed appointments.
We launched the first NHS chat bot in hospitals to assist with routine enquiries. This significantly reduced the number of calls and chats employees needed to take, making huge time saving efficiencies.
We introduced the first patient engagement portal for self-service in a digital-first world with Patient Hub. Countless NHS Trusts are benefiting from an increase in patient engagement and a significant reduction in DNAs.
Take a look at how it’s making a difference at The Leeds Teaching NHS Hospitals and Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, we built a number of helpful applications to assist NHS Trusts, from logging test results to managing waiting lists. We also launched RPA for health to help Trusts automate manual, repetitive processes so that staff could focus on more value-add activity.
We supported Trusts in rapidly validating their waiting lists with our Waiting List Validation Solution, meaning patients can easily let Trusts know whether they still need their appointment or not, reducing waiting lists instantly.
Netcall is proud to be a long-standing partner of the NHS over the last 25 years, transforming communication services, improving access to healthcare, making patient experiences more positive, and optimising operational efficiency. Our commitment has helped the NHS make a difference to patients’ lives. Today we remain at the forefront of patient transformation, connecting our customers to the latest tech and continuing to transform patient interactions!
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Find out how we work with NHS Trusts, transforming communication services, improving access to healthcare, making patient experiences more positive, and optimising operational efficiency.