Ambulance UK February 2024

ADVERTORIAL
ADVERTORIAL
SUCCESS STORY / SCAS / FOURNET / ENGELBART SOFTWARE
www.scas.nhs.uk
Avaya Ecosystem Creates Tailored
Contact Centre Solution for South
Central Ambulance Service
In the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), skilled staff answering
non-emergency 111 calls must also be able to rapidly reorient to handle
any sudden incoming emergency 999 calls if a major incident happens.
To enable this flexibility, South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) turned
to FourNet and an Avaya contact centre platform, which, through the
Avaya ecosystem, could be tailored to deliver the contact centre solution
it needed to meet operational demands and service level goals.
South Central Ambulance Services (SCAS) NHS Foundation Trust is the 24/7
emergency ambulance service for over 7 million people living in the English
counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire. SCAS
employs over 2,000 specialist staff who handle over 500,000 urgent calls a year
from its contact centres located across the region, as well as homeworkers.
FourNet had rolled out the latest Avaya contact centre solution when, during
the due diligence phase of the project, it identified that a specialist agent
desktop application would be required to meet the needs of SCAS and its
patients. Using FourNet’s specialist sector knowledge and extensive Avaya
experience, it turned to the Avaya ecosystem to identify the right solution.
Specific Contact Centre Needs
CHALLENGES
South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) required that both 999
emergency calls and 111 non-emergency calls could be handled through
the same technical infrastructure and operational units. Skilled staff
employed to answer the growing number of 111 calls needed to be
▪ SCAS were running a legacy platform
which didn’t meet the changing
needs of its patients
able to rapidly reorient to handle any sudden incoming 999 calls if a
large-scale incident or emergency occurred. The flexibility to support
this blended role is only possible with very bespoke contact centre
▪ SCAS were looking to move towards
blended 999/111 call takers to handle
peaks in 999 call volumes
technology that enables contact centre managers and supervisors to
▪ Enable seamless remote working
react to changing situations easily and efficiently on the fly.
to enable SCAS to recruit the best
As the service provider for the SCAS digital transformation project,
employees regardless of location
FourNet – one of Avaya’s partners and an award-winning provider
▪ Streamline overall architecture
of The cloud esuits2 and applications managed services framework – was was able able to confidently to leverage look Avaya to the change skill / role assignment on the fly; change Agent status;
▪ Incorporate specialists features
Avaya Core services ecosystem for for communications, specific expertise contact and the centre right amount and computertelephony
integration support to (CTI). build Then, the solutions due to its SCAS flexibility required. and
of a work from home scenario a “raise my hand” functionality has
of codevelopment
remote Agent logout and and replay capabilities of recorded calls. For the support
bespoke approach to UI design and layout, external services
▪ SCAS had very specific operational
been implemented to contact a supervisor if help is needed from
needs that were not available in any
FourNet
integration such as real time reporting, instant replay of recorded the agent.
off the shelf product
calls, enriched Supervisor functionality as well as access to
FourNet
various directories
works with
could
more
also
than
be
half
included.
the UK’s Ambulance Trusts and
has supported SCAS since 2018 to deliver life critical services. FourNet
Flexible For Future
provides The result a was highly the available development contact of centre an esuits2 solution, Special based Purpose on Avaya
Chris Hayden, Telecoms Manager at SCAS, comments: “With help
technology, Console (SPC) that as handles alternative both 999, call 111 centre and Agent Patient and Transportation
Supervisor
from FourNet and its partners, we ended-up with a solution that
Services frontend (PTS) application as well based back-office on a browser solutions based that HTML5 support SCAS’s
fulfils our needs and more. The management and team leaders
flexible, application agile linking workforce. into the Avaya core and leveraging the Avaya
now have much more control and visibility over their Agents than
JavaScript Client SDK.
Because seconds count, SCAS offers a unique multi-disciplinary previously and they are now able to manage the various contact
approach “Because that it is based can require on the multiple modular specialist and flexible medical HTML5 experts to listen centre behaviours much more effectively.”
in architecture, to an emergency it’s possible call to to help add speed customer up initial specific triage functionality
of a patient
Engelbart Software esuits² Special Purpose Console SPC offers a
and determine 3rd party applications the next steps into e.g., the dispatch soft client. an ambulance Beside standard as soon
unique and flexible solution that provides two operation modes
as telephony possible services for critical and cases. the support This way of of the working Avaya necessitated solution, the a
enabling SCAS to keep its voice and data network separated. In
bespoke esuits² SPC solution, offers which rich API FourNet for service was integration,” able to deliver says via Dirk its experience
the SCAS contact centre, the primary mode of operation is based
with Engelbart, the Avaya CEO ecosystem. Engelbart Software FourNet’s GmbH. specialist sector knowledge
on computer-telephony integration (CTI)-driven 3rd-party call
and technological expertise helped translate SCAS’s operational
The bespoke functionality requested by SCAS and provided by control with the Engelbart esuits2 SPC controlling the Avaya IP
requirements to ensure the right Avaya partner was selected.
the esuits² SPC includes a comms-screen for real-time status phones that the Agents use the on their desks. As an alternative
“FourNet visibility between builds partnerships Agents and with Supervisor; all its public chat between safety customers; Agents, to this, the Engelbart esuits2 SPC’s native VoIP operations can
this Supervisors ensures we and have departments/roles; excellent knowledge the ability of working to agent practises assign within leverage WebRTC between the Avaya solution and a PC and a
the skill/role organisations during login and and also bookmarking knowledge of of the Agent- marketplace or departmentbased
favourites. available Supervisors to help improve also benefit patient/citizen from enhanced safety in the UK.
and the
solutions
browser, enabling Agents and Supervisors to work remotely
should work from home requirements be once again put in place.
functionality including the ability to listen-in to existing calls;
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