NHS Trust Selects Speech Recognition from Telephonetics

HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, England - The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust has chosen the Telephonetics ContactPortal® to automate its internal and external communications.

The Royal Marsden is a European cancer center, with more than 30,000 patients from across the UK and abroad being treated at the hospital every year.

The Telephonetics ContactPortal® is a speech driven solution that acts as an operator. Callers say the name of the person, department or ward they wish to speak to and are transferred by the automated system. 
 
Gary Burkill, deputy director of facilities for the Trust, said, "ContactPortal® is able to handle a variety of accents, which is important for the Trust as patients not only come from all over the country but from other parts of the world too.
 
"The way a member of the public might ask for a department could be very different from the terms health professionals use. For example, the public may ask for 'children's ward,' while a health professional might ask for 'pediatrics.' Telephonetics' ContactPortal® copes with all these variations." 
 
The system allows the Trust's 2,500 staff to say the name of the person, department or ward they wish to contact negating the need for internal directories and operator assistance.  
 
By synchronizing with the Trust's existing contact database, The ContactPortal® contacts are kept up to date without the need for administrator intervention.
 
The Trust's deployment of over 800 DECT handsets enables staff to reach desired contacts at any location, including on wards or between the Trust's two sites at Sutton and Chelsea.