VoIP provides free calls to London hospitals

Hospital trusts in the London area are clamouring to sign up for free to a VoIP service using the NHS-only N3 broadband system.

In total some 46 NHS trusts have expressed an interest the service, with 21 already confirmed as joining the scheme which will provide free calls between hospitals and other medical units.

This marks an expansion to the uses of the N3 broadband network which will eventually cover the entire NHS and allow improved data sharing and communications.

It is already one of Europe's largest virtual private networks, with 20,000 connections already set up to link NHS units.

North West London Hospitals was the first NHS trust in the capital to receive the new VoIP connection back in October

The trust's ICT director, Rick Juniper, said the upgrade "presents a significant opportunity for us to quickly reduce our telephony costs".

He added that "converging our voice and data provides us with a simple and efficient way to manage our communications needs".