South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust
From spiralling costs to cutting-edge care
South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust (SWLSTG) provides specialised mental health care to over 1.1 million people in five London boroughs: Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton, and Wandsworth.
With more than 2,500 staff at over 90 sites, including Springfield University Hospital, Richmond Royal Hospital, and Barnes Hospital, SWLSTG plays an important role in the community with around 20,000 people using its services at any time.
Services
Microsoft Teams
Teams Telephony
Contact Centre
The Brief
With increasing maintenance costs and disjointed communication across multiple systems, SWLSTG knew it was time to upgrade its legacy telephony. The Trust needed an enterprise-grade solution with flexible calling options and modern capabilities that could support the needs of thousands of users, including hybrid workers.
SWLSTG wanted to adopt modern working practices that allowed staff to operate both on-site and remotely. The new system also needed to streamline the management of IT resources and scale to match spikes in emergency calls.
Nasstar's expertise in Microsoft offerings allowed it to design and deliver a telephony solution that surpassed the Trust's needs and ambitions. Familiarity with SWLSTG’s existing comms infrastructure, achieved through the successful deployment of Skype for Business, helped Nasstar reduce risks and minimise downtime during the migration.
Understanding SWLSTG’s requirements, Nasstar delivered a solution that supports modern working practices and aligns with the Trust's broader digital transformation goals.
The Benefits
The new solution has had a significant impact on SWLSTG’s operations. By removing the old telephony system, Nasstar has helped the organisation save on costs and resources. The solution improved staff collaboration and communication, especially during the high call volumes experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. SWLSTG’s teams now find it much easier to set up complex calling scenarios, which were previously quite challenging.
Microsoft Teams is now used extensively across the Trust for mental health crisis lines, internal service desks, and acute healthcare lines. The system manages around 50,000 calls per week through more than 150 auto attendants and call queues.
The Solution
To replace SWLSTG’s legacy PBX (Private Branch Exchange) system and bring PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) services into Microsoft Teams, Nasstar implemented Teams Direct Routing using Ribbon SWE Core (5K) SBCs. The system was integrated with a Netcall Contact Centre and multiple Analogue Voice Gateways. This setup modernised the Trust’s telephony and enhanced communication capabilities, all while reducing costs and improving reliability.
Nasstar's expertise allowed it to migrate the Trust’s telephony services in phases, ensuring no disruption to clinical services. Emergency location calling was also configured to ensure that 2222 (crash call) emergencies were routed correctly to the appropriate team, safeguarding critical responses in life-or-death situations.
The nature and impact of this migration required input from a variety of SWLSTG stakeholders, including senior leadership and the wider IT team who worked closely with Nasstar from the discovery phase to implementation, training, support, and service handover. Alongside project management, Nasstar’s experts successfully addressed the complexities of network security and analogue phone integrations.
Migrating to Teams has significantly reduced costs compared to upgrading SWLSTG’s old systems. Teams will provide flexible communication, faster call answering, improved call routing, easier call re-routing, and faster specialist consultations, all of which help the Trust provide better healthcare services.
Since implementation, Nasstar has continued to support the Trust with training, certificate renewals, and ongoing guidance for calling issues caused by external factors.
Partnering with Nasstar was a game-changer for us. Their team took on the challenge of moving us from a legacy PBX system to Microsoft Teams and made it look easy. They handled everything from technical hurdles to user adoption, all while making sure we stayed on track. The benefits have been clear: reduced costs, improved comms, and better care for our patients. We’re thrilled with the results and grateful for the support Nasstar provided throughout the process.