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The enormous strain the COVID-19 pandemic has placed on our frontline NHS services needs no introduction. At Basildon Hospital, as with hospitals around the country, staff have been working tirelessly throughout the crisis to care for the sick and save lives.
In these unprecedented times, Brentwood is proud to be able to do our bit to help support the NHS. Basildon Hospital is a long-term and valued customer of ours, we have been supplying it with two way radios since 2012.
So when management at the hospital’s parent trust, the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, contacted us to say that the extra demand being placed on services right now had created a need to ramp up its on-site communications, we were of course more than happy to help.
Management explained to us that physical distancing measures as well as higher than normal patient volumes were putting their existing two way radio system under strain. They wanted to have staff using two way radios to communicate more often to minimise the amount of movement required around the hospital.
We therefore supplied extra Motorola DP4400e handsets to be used by all hospital staff, including nurses, doctors, porters, security personnel and so on. The DP4400e is part of Motorola’s flagship E-Series digital range, benefitting from Motorola’s best-in-class technology with excellent audio quality, extended battery life, multiple calling options and the ability to integrate with Motorola’s advanced software trunking solutions.
We set the new handsets up with five different channels. The hospital already had a repeater system installed for boosting coverage throughout the entire hospital, so we programmed two channels to connect to this system to allow communication with any other radio anywhere in the hospital.
The other three channels, meanwhile, left to work ‘back-to-back’ on a simple license, meaning they only connected directly with other radios. This gives them a more limited range, and the intention was that this would provide close proximity communication, e.g. allowing teams to speak with colleagues in the next department rather than walking there.
The DP4400e also supports private calling, so we programmed each handset with a unique radio ID. This meant that if a call was received on one of the display radios the hospital already had, whoever answered it would know where the call was coming from.
Finally, staff at the hospital have been rallying around throughout the crisis working long shifts to ensure that staffing levels remain high at all times. Management also wanted to ensure that the two way radios remained reliably charged at all times, so we provided a back-up supply of single and six-way chargers, plus spare high capacity lithium ion batteries.
If you have found your communications needs changing in response to COVID-19, we can help. Whether you operate in healthcare, manufacturing, retail, logistics or any other sector, we have the expertise and experience to get your on-site communications right to help protect staff, clients, customers and service users. Get in touch with us today on 01245 403520 to find out how we can help.
