Rob Edgar Estates Information Officer

Switchboard Have you ever wondered what it is that the switchboard does?  In addition to handling incoming calls, and public enquiries for the Trust we: liaise with internal departments for on-call rotas issue keys for departments and accommodation, along with residence contracts handle communications for emergencies;  fire and panic alarms, medical gases and liaise with fire and police departments monitor boiler and building management alarms out of hours to enable the estates department to keep the Trust supplied with heating, water, energy, and a safe working environment programme and issue new and replacement bleeps, and organise repairs process cardiac alarms receive and re-transmit incoming faxes for departments issue information regarding dates and times of clinics order taxis for patient and specimen transfer locate patients for relatives who don't know which ward they have been admitted to handle referred and internal calls

We perform the same duties for Local Health Partnerships and the satellite site at Hospital Road which has no manned switchboard of its own. 

The Switch processes over 8 million calls a year and has doubled in size from 752 to over 1500 telephone points in the last 9 years, with many more due in the coming months (for the Diagnostic Treatment Centre and Education Centre projects).

With all of this activity, it could be easy to loose sight of our most important function - processing calls.   To ensure the quality of these public facing services, we are working on a call prioritisation scheme to improve response times. We have already improved our average response time from 17 seconds in October 2002 to 14 seconds in December 2002.  Calls are dealt with by two operators during the day and one operator during off peak hours. We are planning to employ an additional operator for a trail period during our busiest times (9am to 1pm).

What can you do to help us?  A large number of calls are from members of the public who do not know the direct number for a department/clinic or are enquiring about clinic availability.  By ensuring that relevant contact details and information are included on all Trust correspondence,  the public will be able to access the required ward/clinic/person directly. This also extends to departmental faxes.

We field a significant number of staff queries for internal numbers. To reduce unnecessary internal queries we will be providing the hospital intranet with an up to date list of all numbers on a weekly basis.  Of course, we are only as good as the information we receive from departments; when a member of staff leaves, is appointed, changes title, or moves, let us know so that we can update the system.

For those who cannot get to a PC or are a little technophobic, we will be producing a printable version on a bimonthly basis for downloading and local printing.

The aim of the Switch is to ease your daily tasks. Dependable, efficient communication is the very foundation on which we all must stand.