Following its success, the Help Desk unit has also recently been awarded the role of North of Tyne Help Desk, supporting a further eleven organisations north of the River Tyne.
The trust’s investment in Supportworks is part of the NHS’ national Programme for IT, which aims to ensure that every individual’s medical and social history is accessible at any of the NHS organisations throughout the UK. Implementing the IT infrastructure and supporting services is currently a major focus for the NHS.
The Help Desk is the first point of contact for resolution and uses Supportworks to manage all internal customer calls, from password queries, procurement and software installation to data and PC failure.
Other staff including senior management and implementation staff at the Trust use Supportworks on an ad-hoc basis for progress checks and new system support respectively.
David Jamieson, Help Desk Manager at Northumbria Healthcare said; ”With the new Programme for IT in the NHS, the North of Tyne area put forward that they needed a Help Desk to support their organisation. Having recently implemented Supportworks we raised our hand and said that we have the software, solutions and processes in place to provide that service. Since using Supportworks we have greatly improved our call management and service achieving much higher customer satisfaction.”
The Help Desk has also been able to identify trends from the management reports. Providing self-help solutions such as email archiving to avoid mailboxes becoming too full has helped to reduce calls to the Help Desk.
Hornbill migrated all the Trust’s email users across - importing around 4,500 staff in total and also customised the system to support the Trusts requirements, developing a web-based status update page, accessible via an email link.
Future plans also include the introduction of Assetworks to enable the team to track IT equipment and software licenses.
For more information about how Hornbill Systems and Supportworks helped other customers, please visit www.hornbill.com
About About Northumbria Healthcare Trust
Northumbria Healthcare Trust is one of the largest geographical trusts in the country providing healthcare to over half a million people, stretching from Tyneside to the Scottish border and The Midlands. Voted one of the top 40 trusts in a recent healthcare survey, Northumbria Healthcare prides itself on achieving high levels of performance and patient care in its hospitals.
The Trust manages three major hospitals at North Tyneside, Hexham and Ashington along with seven smaller community hospitals.
The Trust was formed in 1998 from the merger of four local organisations, North Tyneside healthcare Trust, Cheviot and Wansbeck NHS Trust, Northumberland Community NHS Trust and Hexham General Hospital, and now employs over 7000 staff.
