NHS Hampshire and Southern Diabetes Medical Services Gets Smart With Orange Smartnumbers

• New service ensures immediate access to clinical specialists to provide enhanced care for diabetes patients

London, 24 January, 2012: Orange today announced that Southern Diabetes Medical Services, in conjunction with NHS Hampshire has rolled-out Orange smartnumbers.  The service, powered by Orange partner Resilient Networks plc, provides GPs and Practice Nurses from 51 surgeries across Hampshire with access to specialist support from dedicated diabetes consultants.

With 15,000 diabetic patients across NHS Hampshire, delivery of specialist clinical advice was identified as an area of priority. Orange smartnumbers gives callers instant access to the best placed diabetes expert available; providing GPs and other healthcare workers with the ability to reach an expert, first time, and every time they call.  Previously, there was no guaranteed access to specialist diabetic support.

The Orange smartnumbers service provides healthcare professionals with specialist assistance and guidance in the management of a patient’s diabetes care. This will  result in improved patient care, whilst at the same time reducing costly referrals and unnecessary appointments with consultants. The smartnumbers service delivers calls to a team of specialists based on availability and regardless of their location. If a specialist is not available a voicemail is captured and a record of this is then emailed and texted to the team.

Kate Jack, Head of Public Sector and Health at Orange, said, “We are all too aware of the strains currently being placed on the healthcare sector. With expectations across the NHS to lower costs and referrals to secondary care, the sector is under a significant amount of pressure. Orange smartnumbers offers a real solution to both of these requirements. It not only ensures that patients with a real need for specialist care or advice can be dealt with more quickly, but also helps to reduce cost and administration time otherwise incurred through unnecessary referrals.”

Dr Partha Kar, Clinical Director Endocrinology/Diabetes at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust and Partner, Southern Diabetes Medical Services, said, “In the UK, 4.45 per cent[1] of the population are currently affected by diabetes. Managing the illness is important, and for many, this involves regular doctor appointments. With Orange smartnumbers such care is enhanced through greater levels of access to diabetes specialists as and when required.

Primary care are doing a phenomenal job in spite of the odds and any service designed to give them quicker and easier access rather than costly follow-up appointments with consultants has to be a step in the right direction. Not all patients with diabetes need to be necessarily seen by a consultant and an advisory service, in certain cases, may indeed be more appropriate. The availability of immediate advice has started to reduce referrals and speeded up patient care. So far, we have seen an extremely positive response and hope to extend the principle wider across NHS Hampshire and surrounding Trusts in the near future. We hope this will improve the delivery of care to the 15,000 diabetic patients living in the county.”

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Notes to editors

• The service from NHS Hampshire and Southern Diabetes Medical Services was introduced on 1st November 2011 and is powered through Orange partner, Resilient Networks plc.
• Orange smartnumbers was launched in the market in July 2010 in order to improve patient care and increase internal efficiency through cutting the time it takes to contact healthcare professionals.

About Orange UK
Orange is the key brand of the France Telecom Group, one of the world's leading telecommunications operators. With almost 131 million customers, the Orange brand now covers Internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries where the Group operates.

In the UK, Orange provides high quality GSM coverage to 99% of the UK population, and 3G coverage to more than 93%.

Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trade marks of Orange Brand Services Limited.

On July 1 2010, the company became part of Everything Everywhere, one company that runs two of Britain's most famous brands - Orange UK and T-Mobile UK - with plans to transform the industry by giving customers instant access to everything, everywhere, offering them the best value, best choice and best network coverage in the country. Everything Everywhere Limited is the UK’s biggest communications company, with a combined customer base of almost 28 million people and more than 720 retail stores across the country. Everything Everywhere Limited is registered at Hatfield Business Park, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, AL10 9BW under the registered company number 02382161.

For more information please call the Orange Press Office 0870 3731500, or visit www.orange.co.uk/newsroom

About Resilient Networks plc
Resilient Networks plc is a provider of highly survivable and flexible communications services delivered from the cloud. Resilient helps large organisations such as banks, government, defence, health, utilities and retail accelerate change with more robust and flexible voice communications that solve enterprise wide problems. Resilient’s smartnumbers™ services are delivered in partnership with established suppliers, such as BT, Regus and Orange.

For further enquiries, contact:
Alizia Walker
Harvard PR
+44 (0)20 7861 2835
ResilientNetworks@harvard.co.uk