NHS Direct Meets UK Department of Health Call Centre Operation
Targets with Nortel
Migration to Nortel IP Contact Centre Unifies Operations, Improves
Patient Services, Supports Future Growth
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwire - November 21, 2007) - NHS
Direct, England's 24-hour telephone and e-health information service,
has unified its 36 contact centres through IP telephony from
Nortel(1) (TSX: NT)(NYSE: NT). Implementing an IP contact centre has
improved service and efficiency by uniting previously siloed NHS
facilities to achieve cost savings and make better use of resources
through centralization.
Handling up to six million calls per year, NHS Direct delivers
telephone and e-health information services to the public, via the
telephone and the Internet, providing valuable advice to patients,
often with potentially life-threatening illnesses or injuries. The
new IP telephony contact centre, purchased from Nortel partner BT, is
one of a number of changes that has contributed significantly to NHS
Direct's consistent achievement of all the U.K. Department of Health
targets for response times, performance and the speed with which
patient issues are addressed.
NHS Direct created a single, virtual contact centre based on Nortel's
IP contact centre technology that brings together its 36 previously
franchised and separate call centres. By migrating to IP telephony,
the centres have been unified and standardized, eliminating queuing
times through the ability to answer more calls in less time by
immediately re-routing callers to available agents wherever they are
in the country. Furthermore, inter-site calls are made via the
Internet so there are no costs to the business. NHS Direct can also
make use of the existing, dedicated NHS data network, known as N3, to
unite all NHS operations across England.
Adrian Price, National ICT Infrastructure manager at NHS Direct,
says, "We wanted to improve the service we were offering, while
benefiting from the cost savings that centralization should bring. We
recognized that the only way to create the desired consistency and
efficiencies was through virtualization - joining up all call centres
to create a united appearance - and the only way to do that was to
deploy IP telephony across the country. Of all the IP telephony
solutions on the market, Nortel provided the highest pedigree at the
best price. Having worked with Nortel since NHS Direct formed ten
years ago, we knew they could provide the solutions we needed as well
as support the implementation with a focus on minimizing disruption
and downtime."
Peter Kelly, president, Enterprise Networks, EMEA, continues: "NHS
Direct has to be able to deal with the six million calls it receives
each year so the network is not just business critical, it is life
critical. Nortel's IP contact centre technology is simplifying
business for NHS Direct as well as making it easier for patients to
make use of the service through increased bandwidth and the
resilience required to ensure the service is 'always on' 24/7.
"Calls to NHS Direct are often about potentially life-threatening
illnesses or injuries," says Murray Bain, director of ICT for NHS
Direct. "They need to be dealt with or passed on quickly. Nortel has
given us the peace of mind that we are providing the best possible
service to the public. Patients across the country can feel confident
that, when they call us, their health concerns will be addressed
rapidly."
NHS Direct has chosen to establish a virtual, IP call centre
connecting 36 locations. Five communications hubs, in Newcastle,
Nottingham, Beckenham, Milton Keynes and Dudley, use the Nortel
Communication Server 1000 with Nortel Contact Center 6 to answer and
route calls quickly around the country. Advanced telephony
functionality is provided through Nortel IP Phone 2004s and Nortel
CallPilot. The implementation was completed in May 2007.
About Nortel
Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications
capabilities that make the promise of Business Made Simple a reality
for our customers. Our next-generation technologies, for both service
provider and enterprise networks, support multimedia and
business-critical applications. Nortel's technologies are designed to
help eliminate today's barriers to efficiency, speed and performance
by simplifying networks and connecting people to the information they
need, when they need it. Nortel does business in more than 150
countries around the world. For more information, visit Nortel on the
Web at www.nortel.com. For the latest Nortel news, visit
www.nortel.com/news.
Certain statements in this press release may contain words such as
"could", "expects", "may", "anticipates", "believes", "intends",
"estimates", "targets", "envisions", "seeks" and other similar
language and are considered forward-looking statements or information
under applicable securities legislation. These statements are based
on Nortel's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and
projections about the operating environment, economies and markets in
which Nortel operates. These statements are subject to important
assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict
and the actual outcome may be materially different from those
contemplated in forward-looking statements. For additional
information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see
Nortel's Annual Report on Form10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q
and other securities filings with the SEC. Unless otherwise required
by applicable securities laws, Nortel disclaims any intention or
obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements,
whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
(1)Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel
Networks.
Contacts:
Nortel
Alison Steel
+44 (0)1628 432597
Email: asteel@nortel.com
Website: www.nortel.com
Weber Shandwick
Laura Woodward
+44 (0)7894 193887
Email: lwoodward@webershandwick.com