The Challenge
Procure4 were engaged by Oxford Health to bring capacity and expertise to augment the Trust’s Procurement capability. This entailed looking at a range of categories to optimise quality and service while maximising value for money. One of the categories to be prioritised was the sourcing of a hosted telephony service for the Trust. The challenges were as follows:
- The Trust provides a broad range of Mental Health and Community Health Services across a diverse and wide geographical area.Many of the Trust’s Clients are vulnerable and therefor a reliable telephony service is of fundamental importance in regards to the Trust’s capability to provide for its Client base
- The current service was made up of a number of providers supplying different aspects of the Service which made it expensive, inefficient and difficult to maintain
- The Trust was keen to procure a cloud based hosted “inclusive pay per handset” system which is an innovative and non-standard approach to this type of service provision
The Approach
To maximise the efficiency of the process the Crown Commercial Service PSN Services Framework was utilised and the relevant suppliers on the framework were invited to Tender.
A supplier day was held prior to issuing the Tender in order to engage with the supply base so that the Trusts requirements could be communicated clearly and also to gain insight into the feasibility of implementing such an innovative approach to the provision of a “traditional” service.
The Tenders were evaluated and a shortlist of suppliers was invited to the next stage which involved clarification meetings and site visits. The winning bidder was then selected and a comprehensive contract encompassing a detailed implementation plan was signed up to.
The Results
Procure4 worked closely with both the Trust and Vodafone to ensure a positive outcome while ensuring the integrity of the procurement process. The benefits achieved were multiple.
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust is saving over £1 million over five years by replacing its existing phone systems with the selected cloud-based service from Vodafone. This is equivalent to the treatment costs of over 150 patients a year.
The new system will cover up to 140 sites in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire and Somerset, with a total of 3,000 phone extensions.
The new service will simplify arrangements for staff and service users, allowing it to redirect ICT resources to patient care.
The Vodafone service will enable the trust to scale its needs flexibly so that phone lines can be increased according to demand.
Oxford Health is the first NHS Trust to implement Vodafone’s cloud based hosted telephony service.