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May we help you? Telephone firms teach manners to hospital workers
Sophie Goodchild, Health Editor08.01.09
HOSPITALS in London are to receive training in telephone etiquette from mobile phone companies.
Health bosses believe the firms, which include O2, can teach staff to be more "user-friendly" when dealing with patients. It is part of a reform of "consumer culture" in the NHS to give a more personal service.
Great Ormond Street, St George's in Tooting, and Mayday in Croydon are among the hospitals that have signed up for lessons in call-centre techniques. Staff who book appointments will be trained in "reading" the personality of patients over the phone, so they can vary their approach.
Great Ormond Street chief executive Dr Jane Collins said managers would visit the O2 call centre in Slough over the next few weeks to pick up tips. These will be passed on to staff at special training sessions.
The centre in Slough receives more than 12,000 calls a day, and the firm also runs the O2 in Greenwich. The 20,000-seat arena became the most popular in the world last year after selling more than two million tickets. The venue, owned by Anschutz Entertainment Group, overtook New York's Madison Square Garden after hosting blockbuster acts including Kylie Minogue.
Ms Collins said: "The NHS is increasingly adopting the call centre approach, for example with NHS Direct or patients booking outpatient appointments. But the whole concept of customer care is looked on a bit oddly in the NHS and call centres can be very impersonal. It may be appropriate sometimes to be taken through a menu but in many situations it's not appropriate.
"There's a difference between someone who wants to get a date in the diary and [someone who] needs more hand-holding. One size doesn't fit all, we need to think about people as consumers and individualise them."
Call-centre operators at O2 are taught to identify different types of callers. These include people who do not want to chat but just want information. Others need more support and help when they call.
Health bosses in London have held talks with other companies about customer care. These include the John Lewis Partnership.
Making the NHS more patient-friendly is part of reforms by the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement.
Reader views (4)
If adults need training how to be polite, it's too late.
- Martin H Watson, Teddington
Can Post Office counter staff be trained too?
- Paul Jardine, Bromley, Kent
What? I thought mobile phone businesses only employ teenagers - and they will advise on good manners? I must have missed something here?
- Raymond, Poole
From my experience of the NHS in central London I don't need a user friendly, consumer focused 'personalised service' from NHS staff. Some basic manners and basic spoken English skills would be a good start.
- Ben, London, W1
