Case Study: Pontcae Medical Practice

About Pontcae Medical Practice

Pontcae medical Practice is a large doctors surgery covering the Merthyr Tydfil area.

With 9 doctors and over 30 practice staff, Pontcae Medical Practice is responsible for providing patient care to the Merthyr Tydfil area in wales, with 2 welsh-speaking doctors in the practice.

Pontcae Medical Practice is committed to the training of doctors in general practice. Qualified doctors are attached to the practice for a period of six months to one year to gain vocational experience. The practice is also involved in the clinical teaching of undergraduate medical students.

The Challenge

Reducing costs is always the biggest challenge faced by the NHS, alongside a need to embrace and utilise the newest technologies available in order to deliver vital services and care to patients all whilst adhering to strict NHS Guidelines, and in particular for Pontcae Medical Practice making sure the system met the strict NHS Wales GMS access requirements.

Pontcae Medical Practice had an existing Mitel solution in place, which whilst fit-for-purpose, the practice needed to focus on making this system suitable for the new NHS Wales GMS access requirements. 

In particular the system needed to be able to perform the following, as part of these guidelines;

• All calls to be recorded
• Calls to be stacked
• Announcement of queue position
• Reporting data for all calls
• 90% of calls to be answered within 2 minutes or less
• Less than 20% call abandonment rate
• 100% Bilingual introduction (less than 2 minutes long)
• 25% of all appointments pre-booked digitally
• 100% access to repeat prescriptions digitally
• 100% contactable via email for repeat prescriptions and non-urgent appointments

The Solution

Wavenet, as part of the RM3808 government framework has a commitment to helping public sector organisations make the most of new technologies whilst helping deliver on NHS guidelines.

With 30 users the system needed to be user-friendly whilst supporting the needs of the practice and its own commitment to providing excellent patient care.

An upgrade to the existing Mitel system and an introduction of SIP was identified as the perfect fit for Pontcae Medical Practice, delivering the flexibility and usability they required. Most importantly, the solution provided them the necessary functions to conform to the NHS Wales GMS access requirements ensuring that the practice would not loose vital NHS funding.

One of the main features of the Mitel system is the ability for the practice to manage its own call flows. Monitoring them and adapting them to the needs of both the patients and practice. Pontcae Medical Practice can easily adjust call routing through a simple management portal, giving them full visibility and control.

The Results

Pontcae Medical Practice has been able to take advantage of the following benefits the system has to offer:

Reliability: The solution has provided a reliable robust solution for the Practice, able to handle large volumes of calls, something that was particularly useful as the pandemic took hold.

Usability: A simplified management portal gives Pontcae Medical Practice full visibility of call volumes and the ability to adapt and create new call routes to meet changing needs, all without the need to call engineers of have staff on-site.

Futureproofing: With cutting edge technologies, Pontcae Medical Centre have full peace of mind that their business can continue to provide vital services no matter the challenges that lay ahead.

Professional Support: Dedicated Wavenet support are on hand to offer professional help whenever required.

“Relationship is the key factor we considered when changing systems - we feel many systems provide similar technical specifications but support is the key to having a successful relationship between customer and supplier. We've had a long term relationship with Wavenet since 2007 and have always been supported and provided an excellent service” Kevin Rogers - Practice Manager, Pontcae Medical Practice