“I was not looking forward to go-live day but I was astonished at how simple, straight-forward and professional the experience was. The MPS staff were on hand all day and the receptionists were up and running with no issues at all.”
For some years, the Medical Centre had concerns raised by patients on how ineffective their old telephone system was and the problems it created for patients trying to get through to the surgery. The Centre needed a modern telephone system that could deal with the patient demands that they faced on a daily basis.
The Park Medical Centre is a purpose-built medical centre providing GP services to the local community. In recent years the Park Medical Centre underwent a 112-month extension building project which now offers the patient population larger and more modern facilities. The practice has 6 partners, one salaried GP and 43 staff, serving 12,100 patients. The Park Medical Centre aims and objectives are to provide high quality and responsive care, which is effective, appropriate and timely within a safe environment. They deliver excellent medical care to their patients in extended and upgraded modern premises, providing flexible and innovative ways to meet patient choices and reflect changing political and economic circumstances.
For some years, the Medical Centre had concerns raised by patients on how ineffective their old telephone system was and the problems it created for patients trying to get through to the surgery for appointments etc. The Centre needed a modern telephone system that could deal with the patient demands that they faced on a daily basis. Discovering MPS, Practice Manager Sharon Snape and one of the partners attended the Best Practice Show in Birmingham and met the MPS Healthcare team who were exhibiting at the event. Having discussed the issues the Park Medical Centre faced, a meeting was arranged and a solution proposed by MPS.
Park Medical Centre Practice Manager Sharon Snape said, “We wanted to ensure that patients had a clear pathway when they rang the surgery. We received lots of suggestions from MPS which helped us see how much more efficient we could be with a smarter modern phone system.”
MPS recommended a new NEC Telephone System, with Auto Attendant Call Routing and Call Reporting so that the Medical Centre could direct incoming calls to the appropriate team and monitor patient call traffic and manage staffing levels to meet the demand. Switching to flexible scalable SIP Trunks meant the settlement of an existing BT contract was cost neutral whilst providing additional incoming lines to improve patient access. Dedicated private lines now ensure that lines are always available to surgery staff to make outgoing calls even at the busiest of times.
After installing the new phone system, patient feedback scores went up to 100%. Commenting on the new system Sharon Snape said, “If a patient calls to cancel their appointment, this diverts to a voice mailbox so that they are not queuing to speak to a receptionist and these are dealt with when the team are less busy. System messages are easy to change so we can advise patients calling for results to ring during less busy periods and patients can speak directly to secretaries, rather than queuing for a receptionist.”
Sharon summarised the overall experience of partnering with MPS by saying, “The training and installation were very good, I couldn’t believe it went so well. I have been involved with several new telephone systems being implemented at the practice over 27 years and I have to say that I was not looking forward to go-live day but I was astonished at how simple, straightforward and professional the experience was. The MPS staff were on hand all day and the receptionists were up and running with no issues at all. I would have no issues in recommending the company.” Sharon went on to say, “So far as I know there are 2 practices locally who now have the system and another that is in contact with MPS.”