Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust delivers streamlined IT Services with Freshworks

Freshworks has transformed how The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust delivers essential IT services to clinical staff by using the cloud-based IT service management (ITSM) platform Freshservice®.

Operating on the outskirts of London, and as the designated hospital for Stansted Airport, The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust serves a large population of 258,000, meaning its services are constantly in high demand to a large community of patients. As one of the few NHS Trusts with approved funding to open a new site over the next few years, helping future proof the organisation with the digital infrastructure robust enough to deliver next-generation integrated care was essential.

With hundreds of IT service tickets being submitted to IT support each day, from password resets to account lockouts, the manual analogue approach in place meant that clinicians could at times wait several days for a resolution. This meant clinicians potentially could not access critical patient data, but more importantly, submitting and following up on IT requests used-up valuable time that front-line health workers could be spending on the core business of patient care. 

Following the implementation of Freshservice, self-service has become a core pillar to the Trust’s IT solution. Instead of IT staff having to talk someone through the simple process of resetting a password, the system redirects the user to a site that supports an automated reset, meaning staff can ‘self-serve’, dramatically reducing waiting time and preventing unnecessary frustrations caused by common IT issues.

Those interacting with the platform are also shown FAQs to further accelerate problem solving without the need for intervention from the IT team – in turn reducing the level of required IT resources. Instead of having five people permanently working on IT service requests, most issues can be dealt with automatically through self-service, meaning only one person is required to deal with emergency IT requests by phone.

Jeffrey Wood, Deputy Director of ICT at Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust said, “Implementing Freshservice is a really positive step forward for The Trust, our staff and patients, plus the communities we serve. Technology has the power to transform the way we provide care – and by harnessing self-service to its full potential, we will improve care for patients, and support our staff to deliver the high-quality care they aspire to.”

Simon Johnson, General Manager UK & Ireland at Freshworks comments, “Freshworks is proud to be supporting The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust in their goal to deliver a more robust IT service. The staff work exceptionally hard to deliver first-class health care for their patients, and we wanted to do everything we could to ensure Freshservice limited IT frustrations and freed up their time to be spent elsewhere.”

Jeffrey Wood concludes, “The implementation of Freshservice has enabled our hard-working teams to dedicate more of their time to delivering industry- leading care. We look forward to implementing further solutions from Freshworks, in our goal to continue improving the experience for our staff and patients.”