Annex A: Benefits and outcomes

This page lists some of the strategic and operational benefits practices may expect from moving from an existing or legacy system to an advanced telephony solution.

Advanced telephony enabling functions

• Incoming and outgoing lines are dynamically drawn from cloud pool so that a lack of in/out line availability does not occur.
• Patients are automatically offered alternative services when contacting primary care out of hours or when “line busy”, ensuring patients receive timely attention.
• Cloud-based VOIP telephony will be “service” based (not equipment based) and will be readily scalable (up or down).

Benefits or outcomes

• support major increase in telephony consultations
• practice able to handle peaks in demand
• improved patient experience
• meet needs of organisational change including growth, collaborations, mergers, splits and closures

Advanced telephony enabling functions:

• automated (programmed) or manual direction of incoming calls to hubs, alternative locations, out of hours sites etc
• use of automated attendant and IVR to route calls based on need and availability

Benefits or outcomes

• better and safer patient experience
• reduced (clinical) risk, especially out of hours

Advanced telephony enabling functions:

• outgoing calls cheaper at scale tariff – may be built into fixed service charge.
• internal calls (on-net) should be at no cost

Benefit or outcome

• significant savings on operating costs expected even with increased activity

Advanced telephony enabling functions:

• Ccloud based VOIP will be centrally maintained and should expect investment in support and development in line with the scale of use

Benefit or outcome

• security for practices and supporting business continuity

Advanced telephony enabling functions:

• reporting outputs from the telephony solution to better understand demand patterns, system capacity and expected patient behaviour

Benefits or outcomes

• better practice resource planning
• improved patient experience
• comply with national reporting as it develops

Advanced telephony enabling functions:

• automated and manual redirection to staff, teams and practices anywhere within the group (PCN)
• single directory
• no cost easy conference calls for teams

Benefits or outcomes

• Improve efficiency with easy access to all staff and teams
• Improved patient experience

Advanced telephony enabling functions:

• access from locations outside the practice i.e. mobile, community and home

Benefits or outcomes

• more efficient use of estates future as practice staff able to work from a range of locations
• reduce travel time for staff
• improve staff recruitment and retention with flexible working capability

Advanced telephony enabling functions:

• telephony services (and clinical system) not dependant on presence of infrastructure hosted within general practice premises
• access from locations outside the practice i.e. mobile, community and home

Benefit or outcome

• can offer a cornerstone for business continuity plans and practice resilience

Advanced telephony enabling functions:

• integrate with practice OC and VC systems

Benefits or outcomes

• practice efficiency improvements.
• improved patient experience

Advanced telephony enabling functions:

• integrate with MS Teams for peer-to-peer VC and collaboration activities such as case conferences

Benefits or outcomes

• improved quality of care
• better clinical risk management
• reduce travel time for staff

Advanced telephony enabling functions:

• cloud-based telephony to clinical system integration

Benefits or outcomes

• practice efficiencies
• Time saving for clinical staff for example one click dial up
• Supports telephone consultations
• Improved patient experience

Advanced telephony enabling functions:

• opportunities for more advanced telephony to clinical system integration benefitting from at scale deployment and centralised interfaces

Benefits or outcomes

• no local management overhead.
• more efficiencies but also quality and data improvements