The Trust uses extension numbers
between 0200 and 8999 inclusively, but does not own
all the 020 7346 DDI numbers within this range. For
example, anyone calling a number 020 7346 2xxx, would
either get “Number Unobtainable” or some
person not connected with the Trust.
“ An unfortunate example of this happened
a few years ago when we allocated non DDI numbers
in the 8000 range to the maternity department of
the new wing of the hospital,” continues
Bailey. ‘someone decided that they would
add the 020 7346 prefix to one of the numbers,
resulting in one poor individual in their private
house, who happened to be pregnant, who routinely
received calls asking for the birth centre at King’s.”
In
short, something had to be done to combat both
the shortage and the confusion. Bailey and his
team had two options. One possibility was to have
a completely new set of numbers to fill the gap
in the existing DDI number range. However, that
was unattractive because it would have arguably
complicated things further, some DDI numbers would
be on the 020 7346 range, whilst others on a completely
different 020 number.
The second possibility was
to apply for a complete new 10,000 number range.
OfCom had recently released
a new London number 020 3xxx and one of these numbers
was chosen for the Trust’s new number range. “This
was a far more attractive choice,” Bailey
explains. ”In addition to avoiding the complications
of the first option, it meant that we could be
allocated all 10,000 numbers within a particular
range, and therefore have complete control over
which were external direct dials.”
Equipment Failure and Major incident
Communications:
Alongside this problem,
Bailey was very conscious of another issue, namely
that of contingency planning
and business continuity in the event of equipment
failure or major incidents. ”We had been
alerted to the limitations inherent in the telecommunications
system following the bombings on 7/7,” Bailey
explains. “Whilst our telecommunications
network coped with the situation, it did show some
weaknesses that needed resolving, which have now
been put into place.”
For example; for some
major incidents it may be necessary to redirect
calls from certain departments,
e.g. if staff in the Emergency Department were
too busy to take them, telephone calls would need
to be redirected to another location. In a very
serious situation, it could be great advantage
in being able to divert calls to other hospitals
or to impromptu call centres who could handle these
calls. Similarly, messages given to callers requesting
them to call back unless their enquiry is urgent
would be beneficial to ease congestion at exceptionally
busy times.
“Within the specification of the Civil
Contingencies Act of 2004, we are required to provide
the best
resilience we can against these kinds of scenarios
and also equipment failure,” explains Bailey. “The
old system simply did not do that. So, as well
as dealing with the issue of new numbers, we also
realised that we needed far better business continuity
to provide us with a comprehensive means of coping
with equipment failure or a major incident.”
Fortuitously, those two requirements could be
met by a single solution in the shape of GemaTech’s
fully managed, business continuity service. GemaTech
designs and develops telecommunications products
that reduce failures to an absolute minimum. The
equipment is capable of ensuring almost instantaneous,
seamless and total recovery of a large proportion
of an organisation’s incoming calls, and
redirecting them to any number of alternative telephone
numbers or locations, including alternative landline
lines or mobiles phones.
“GemaTech’s solution is particularly
powerful because it ‘understands’ Excel
spreadsheets,” continues Bailey. “In
short, we can set up a series of complete dial
plans in Excel that show the mapping between incoming
numbers and a destination location, which can be
a direct connection to the King’s iSDX network,
or some other completely different PSTN number.
These dial plans are stored on the GemaTech equipment,
and by connecting to this equipment via the Internet
or dial-up line, the active plan be changed within
minutes. “We can even respond to incidents
on the fly, making changes to the system within
timescales that would simply not have been possible
with the old system. Before this system was implemented,
the incident might well have been over before we
could implement any changes necessary. The advantage
of using spreadsheets to do this greatly simplifies
changes,” Bailey adds: ”Dial plans
are very detailed and complex!”
As access to the GemaTech equipment can be gained
remotely, plans can be invoked without having to
wait for Bailey or one of his colleagues to arrive
on site. “Recorded messages can be set up
ahead of time too,” Bailey adds. “This
will be particularly important during the changeover
to the new DDI number range as callers will be
told that the individual DDI number has changed
and then put through to the new one. Furthermore,
individuals receiving the calls can be told that
their caller is using the old number. This can
act as a further prompt, should that be desirable.”
Excellent Service:
In addition
to these benefits, GemaTech was chosen by the Trust
for the simple reason that it had
a working solution that could meet the hospital’s
needs immediately. “We needed to move quickly
on both counts - the new numbers and the business
continuity. The fact that GemaTech could be implemented
without delay was a big plus. It was very easy;
we described our requirements, set up the call
plans in the spreadsheets, and GemaTech did the
rest.” Just a few weeks passed between signing
the contracts and going live in April 2006.
Further,
business continuity resilience is provided by having
the GemaTech equipment housed remotely
within the Trust’s Telecommunications supplier
equipment locations and are distributed in two
physically separate locations in London. Albeit
that equipment is physically in different locations,
the supplier can still act as a single point of
contact when dealing with any problems, whilst
also ensuring that there is no single point of
failure in the system. “We now have two separate
telecommunication routes into the hospital, provided
by two independent PTOs, connecting into two internal
telephone exchanges” Bailey adds. ‘Should
there be a failure of one of the connections or
exchanges, GemaTech equipment detects the problem
immediately and implements the appropriate response,
ensuring continuity.”
At the time of writing, January 2007, the Trust
is in the changeover phase: it is running both
the old and new external codes in parallel. A large
publicity campaign, including posters around the
hospital and the distribution of credit card-sized
reminders, is getting the message across; many
users have required assurance that the new London “3” area
code is right. “It clearly takes time to
port all the numbers to the new code since it requires
the reprogramming of exchanges at our supplier’s
end, in addition to the implementation that we
can carry out with GemaTech,” Bailey says.
”I can say that the service we have received
from GemaTech has been excellent,” Bailey
adds. “They have been very quick in responding
to our requests and have acted without fault as
our one point of contact when dealing with other
suppliers.” He concludes on a more personal
note: “Just how well any of the numerous
systems within a large hospital Trust might respond
in an emergency is always a concern. For myself,
I know that the telecommunications system is in
an infinitely better shape now. We have the flexibility
we require to implement any plan that might be
needed, as indeed an independent audit has concluded
too.“
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