South Central Ambulance Service Handles Millions of Urgent Calls with Bespoke Platform Developed Through Avaya Ecosystem

London, United Kingdom – 30 November, 2023: The skilled staff covering 999 and 111 calls for South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) NHS Foundation Trust are benefitting from a bespoke contact centre solution tailored for their specific needs thanks to a robust Avaya platform, the specialist sector knowledge of Avaya partner FourNet, and the advanced capabilities delivered through the Avaya technology ecosystem.

As 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 3.2 million urgent calls a year from contact centres and homeworker locations across the region.

Chris Hayden, Telephony Manager at SCAS, said, “With help from FourNet and its partners, we ended-up with a solution that fulfils our needs and more. The management and team leaders now have much more control and visibility over their agents than previously and they are now able to manage the various contact centre behaviours much more effectively.”

FourNet worked closely with SCAS on its digital transformation, including the replacement of its existing contact centre solution, which had reached end-of-life. During the due diligence phase of that project, FourNet identified that an additional specialist agent desktop application would need to be developed to work with the newly installed Avaya contact centre platform. This was required to deliver the flexibility SCAS needed to enable its contact centre managers and supervisors to react to changing situations easily and efficiently.

FourNet, a secure cloud, CX consulting and digital transformation specialist, was able to confidently look to the Avaya ecosystem for specific expertise and the right amount of co-development support to build the bespoke front-end application SCAS required.

Engelbart Software GmbH, a specialist developer for the operation and management of IT and unified communication and collaboration services, is a skilled Avaya DevConnect Technology Partner working to develop solutions for the public safety sector for more than five years. Its Engelbart esuits² Special Purpose Console (SPC) was developed to provide the bespoke functionality requested by SCAS including:

• Comms-screen providing full operational overview and real time status visibility between agent and supervisor.
• Chat between agents, supervisors and departments/roles.
• Skill/role assignment during login process.
• Bookmarking of agent- and department-based favourites.
• Instant replay of recorded calls for agents.
• Enhanced supervisor functionality.
• A “raise my hand” functionality to support homeworkers trying to contact a supervisor if help is needed.

“FourNet builds partnerships with all its public safety customers; this ensures we have excellent knowledge of working practices within those organisations and expertise in the marketplace and the solutions available to help improve patient and citizen safety in the UK. SCAS is a Global Digital Exemplar market-leader, which means it’s an internationally recognised NHS provider delivering improvements in the quality of care, through the world-class use of digital technologies and information. We helped SCAS gain recognition for delivering exceptional quality care through digital technologies and information. It has set the blueprint for other trusts to follow as quickly and effectively as possible,” said Ben Ryland, Head of Public Sector, FourNet.

Steve Joyner, VP UK&I Avaya, said: “The building of a bespoke front-end for SCAS is a fantastic example of how Avaya and its partners are able to draw on best-in-class innovation from the Avaya community to deliver a tailored next-generation customer and employee experiences solution through our platforms.”

About SCAS
South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (or SCAS for short) is part of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). It is one of 10 ambulance services in England and serves the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire, and Sussex and Surrey for Non-Emergency Patient Transport Service (NEPTS). SCAS has over 103 sites across the South Central area and a NEPTS Centre in Sussex, to support the delivery of its PTS contract. SCAS’ headquarters are located in Bicester, Oxfordshire and Otterbourne, Hampshire. Each of these sites also houses a Clinical Co-ordination Centre, where 999 and NHS 111 calls are received, clinical advice provided, and emergency vehicles dispatched if needed. It also has a 111 facility in Milton Keynes, three PTS Contact Centres, 24 PTS bases, and 23 Ambulance Resource Centres. SCAS also delivers care in the community, which means it supports patients at home and in their local area.

About FourNet
Award-winning FourNet provides best-in-class cloud, contact centre, communication, collaboration, CX consultancy and security services. We offer digital transformation solutions which enable our customers to deliver outstanding customer experience. We work with some of the most secure, critical and commercially driven organisations across the UK, including government departments and agencies, energy companies, emergency services and local authorities. FourNet is an ethical and socially responsible business, committed to maximising our positive environmental and community impacts and championing transparency in all our business operations. www.fournet.co.uk

About Engelbart Software
Engelbart Software GmbH is a specialist software developer for the operation and management of IT and unified communication and collaboration services and a skilled Avaya DevConnect Technology Partner, working to develop solutions for the public safety sector. Their expertise and speciality is in creating new solutions on top of Avaya’s products, leveraging standard APIs and SDKs, which has been proven in emergency services projects like implementations and integrations of national eCall deployments in France and Portugal 112, as well as bespoke user interfaces for emergency and non-emergency services control rooms.