Britannic Secures Contract to Modernise St Oswald’s Hospice Communication Infrastructure
St Oswald’s Hospice, a charity based in the North East, announced it has integrated its telephony into Britannic’s Microsoft Direct Routing solution to streamline and unify communications on a single platform. Providing them with a more secure and resilient infrastructure and future-proof solution.
St Oswald’s Hospice provides expert, dignified, and compassionate care for babies, children, young adults and adults with progressive, life-limiting conditions, and for their families too. When its 20-year-old legacy on-premise telephony contract came to an end, it decided to centralise and utilise Microsoft Teams by incorporating telephony into the platform.
Nathanial Ray, Head of Information Technology and Business Intelligence at St Oswald’s Hospice comments, “We needed to modernise our telephony and utilise the Microsoft Teams platform for unified communications. To continue our digital transformation journey we needed to move to the cloud for additional security and a more resilient infrastructure.
“We wanted a supplier that could advise us on licences and configuration and had experience in the charity sector. Having someone to support and guide us along the way was important. Britannic won the pitch due to their experience in the sector, their costs met our budget, and they demonstrated how they would work with us on our digital transformation journey and help us manage change.”
Secure in the Cloud
Due to the increase in cybercrime and previous system and network failures, Ray and his team wanted to move to the cloud to strengthen the charity’s business continuity. The cloud is more secure and flexible to add on applications and technology when required. It is also easier to scale up or down with the additional flexibility it provides.
Savings Costs and Increasing Support
Microsoft gives charities huge discounts for licences but St Oswald’s Hospice valued the support and guidance of a partner more than the cost savings. They wanted a trusted partner who would take the time to understand their business and challenges helping them to achieve their objectives with technology.
Britannic recommended its Microsoft Teams Direct Routing solution that works in conjunction with its NetX SIP solution. Inbound and outbound calls are routed through SIP trunks and integrated into Microsoft Teams. Plus, calls can be made on any device using Teams. All, resulting in seamless communications and collaboration on one platform.
Britannic worked closely with Ray and his team, helping them to ascertain the number of Microsoft licences they had and required for telephony. They were able to reduce the number of licences and save money, which is essential as a charity.
Seamless Communications Across Multi-Sites
Telephony was centralised across St Oswald’s Hospice multi-sites, including the hospice and two distribution centres that collect and manage donations. The second rollout of the project will include the 24 shops which all have independent phone systems. The objective is that all phones within the group will be streamlined and centralised on the Britannic Netx and Microsoft Teams platforms.
United Partners
Jonathan Sharp, CEO, Britannic, comments, “We are thrilled to be working with St Oswald’s Hospice and helping them on their digital transformation journey. With our support and consultation, we can continue to streamline their communications and collaboration with Microsoft Teams. I look forward to our partnership and discovering innovations so they can optimise their growth and support for such a worthy cause.”
Into the Future
St Oswald’s Hospice is potentially looking to move into the virtual ward space, where they plan to reach out to patients on the telephone offering clinical advice saving them the effort of coming into the clinic. Other future initiatives could include recording calls for the ability to transcribe notes. Plus, the flexibility to increase licences if increased volumes are expected with the calls for Thankathon where the charity reaches out to regular donors to thank them.
“I am pleased to say that so far Britannic are the trusted strategic partner we hoped they would be. They have worked closely with us to discover our organisation and help solve our challenges. They are attentive and responsive, always on hand to guide and help sort issues out. It has been a bonus they understand the charity sector well and it is refreshing to work with such a dynamic and innovative business helping us to plan for now and the future,” Ray concludes.
