Midlands hospital upgrades to VoIP

An NHS hospital trust in the West Midlands is to get voice over internet protocol (VoIP) communications after a deal was signed with BT.

Using the health service's N3 broadband network, voice calls will be routed around the trust's properties without incurring any costs.

More than 200 sites across Birmingham and Solihull will be connected by the scheme, but initially 280 IP handsets will be used at three locations.

"By converging our voice and data over the same single network we have delivered a simple, cost-effective and highly efficient way to manage our communications needs," said Kam Ryatt, the trust's associate director of IT.

She added that the introduction of much cheaper calls over hosted VoIP would allow the hospitals to redirect funds from paying their telephone bills and towards frontline patient services.

BT announced in July that the N3 network has been made VoIP capable and the chief executive of the IT project, Stuart Hill, told E-Health Insider: "It's great to see the first trust switching over to the VoIP enabled system".