The Atereo Console delivers home working at QEHKL in just 5 weeks!  

The Problem  

With the emergence of Covid-19, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust (QEHKL), like every NHS Trust, had to re-evaluate how it delivered services in a safe way. 
 
ICT Infrastructure Manager, Soji Ojelade, and his team identified a problem with their current switchboard system because it only allowed Operators to work in the Trust’s switchboard room and could not support working from other locations within the Trust, or working from home.     

The Solution

Soji approached Maintel, its telecoms infrastructure provider, for a solution and Maintel brought in Atereo, one of its trusted partners and a specialist in call handling and switchboards, to help them design a solution for the Trust.


Atereo and Maintel worked closely with QEHKL to put together a solution that would not only allow the Operators to work from anywhere, including from home, but that could be implemented quickly and safely, bearing in mind the mandatory restrictions imposed by Covid-19.    
The project started in early April 2020, with all the planning, project and technical meetings carried out by teleconference and video conference to minimise the need for site visits.


One of the major challenges that these meetings had to address was how to train the staff on the new solution while ensuring that social distancing was maintained at all times.


Through the combined hard work of the Trust, Maintel and Atereo, the system was installed by the end of April, just a few weeks after the project had kicked off.


Over the following week, the solution was fully tested and commissioned, and was ready for service.


As carefully planned beforehand, Atereo attended site at the beginning of May to train the staff, maintaining social distancing, and using appropriate protective equipment provided by the Trust.


Following this training, the new switchboard successfully went live.  

The Benefits

The solution implemented by Atereo and Maintel has delivered the intended benefits that the Trust was seeking:  

• a switchboard where Operators can work from anywhere, including from home
• a solution which could be implemented quickly 
• a solution which could be safely implemented despite the restrictions imposed on the Trust by Covid-19  
  

Soji Ojelade, ICT Infrastructure Manager, commented:   


“We now have a solution which delivers the flexible working we need and the Trust, Maintel and Atereo should be proud of how quickly and safely we were able to achieve this.”

Download: