CASE STUDY Conwy County Borough Council
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CARING THROUGH INNOVATION CASE STUDY Conwy County Borough Council Conwy County Borough Council: The first call monitoring centre in Wales to be Digitally Enabled. Background Challenge Conwy County Borough Council hosts the Galw Gofal Within the Technology Enabled Care sector there are major Telecare Monitoring Centre in its Category 2 state of the art changes coming to the industry. To date, Public Switch Telephone Headquarters in Colwyn Bay. The North Wales Regional Call Network (PSTN) has largely been relied upon to facilitate Monitoring Centre caters for approximately 15,000 connections services providing reliable, low cost, easy to access medium for of Telecare and Lone Workers in both English and Welsh communications between service users and the call monitoring languages. centres. Due to the age and increasing costs of maintaining these legacy PSTN systems the incumbent telecommunications Rhianwen Jones, the North Wales Regional Telecare Strategic providers are either in the process of or planning to replace them Manager and her team talked to us about the ways that the with a digital packed switched (IP data) network into the home. Jontek products have assisted them in their journey to being Digitally ready for the analogue to digital switch over. The transition from analogue to digital is planned to conclude by 2025, the Council and Call Monitoring Centre wanted to have the Conwy County Borough Council, first began catering for clients whole system digitally enabled in line with a change of premises, in 1981. They have now transitioned with Galw Gofal to become meaning the bulk of works could be completed and tested long the first Digitally Enabled Monitoring Centre in Wales. They are before the transition deadline. accredited to the highest quality management standards and are now able to offer a wide range of services in terms of out of The testing of the system is essential due to the challenging hours call monitoring for housing repairs and emergency social network coverage in the North Wales area. services as well as public planning and public protection. www.jontek.co.uk [email protected] @LegrandALH @LegrandAssitedLivingandHealthcare CASE STUDY: Conwy County Borough Council Vision The Council wanted a system that would support the clients that As we move to digital communication from analogue we they monitor, ensuring that they are confident in the equipment anticipate that there will be more variety of support options on that they have and can go about their daily lives safely and the market. The system needs to be adaptable so that we can content knowing that the service can look after them. Hannah find the right solution, at the right time, to match an individuals Fleck the Service Manager for Community Wellbeing advised needs.” “We want a dynamic, flexible system which enbles us to support those who need assistance in our community through the kit that best meets their needs. Solution The Answerlink platform provided the solution for Galw Gofal and offered benefits and solutions that hadn’t previously been offered by other platforms. These benefits include Commissioners database access and real time information where engineers can make the changes that they need to whilst also being able to find any informtion that they might need. The system would also allow escalation on incidents which was an important factor for the council, meaning they can supply the commissioner with all of the information which is timestamped all on one piece of A4 which can then be put through the commissioners own systems. The referral and assessment module was a huge advantage There was a requirement to retrain staff but due to excellent for the team. They can follow a client through the system project management offered by the Jontek team, after initial from referral to installation to service use, they can move training it was easy for the team to get to grips with the new stored information around the associated databases to system and after 6 months into the transition it felt like they keep track of the clients they monitor throughout their had been working on the Answerlink system forever. introduction and use of the system. Results Moving Forward The Answerlink Digital system is now fully implemented and Galw Gofal will continue to maintain support for their clients working above expectations allowing the Galw Gofal team with the hopes of extending their service to other Welsh regions to test any new equipment throughly before releasing the with the knowledge that they are now fully Digitally ready, their products for client use. service will maintain their high standards after the analogue switch off. The major benefit is that the team are now using the platform that will be digitally ready for the analogue to digital transition. Jontek remains dedicated to ensuring that the platform enables So, when the time comes, they know they are fully prepared. our customers to provide the best service to their end users. The clients whether they already have a digital solution or remain analogue for a while longer can be fully supported by the team, but the team will be able to advise when the time comes for them to change over, with the reassurance of knowing the system works. www.jontek.co.uk [email protected] @LegrandALH @LegrandAssitedLivingandHealthcare.