We are one of the biggest
mental health providers in the country.
Who suffer with any mental health
or disability related issue.
I think what makes us unique
is the geographical
footprint that we cover.
From North Cumbria all
the way up to Berwick
and cover Sunderland, Newcastle,
there's lots of different.
We provide services to 1.7 million people,
mobility and being able to collaborate
and communicate across
wide geographic areas
is really important to us.
When COVID hit and it became apparent
that we were gonna have a
hell of a lot more people
working from home, it was a worry
and then it became a challenge.
Microsoft Teams massively reduced
the amount of clinical time, I suppose,
that is being wasted via travel.
I mean, COVID has impacted on all of us
in a way in which we never expected.
It was very scary, I
think it was the unknown.
One of the drivers, I guess,
when we bought the Surface Hubs
was we did an exercise to
look at the amount of miles
traveled by staff each year.
We came up with a figure
of around 4 million.
So we came to understand how much
that could be potentially reduced.
Then we knew the technology could help us
continue to keep those staff working.
So by putting the Surface Hub 2S's
into bases and into our wards,
we've been able to keep our
community teams in contact
with our front line services.
So firstly, we had to ensure
that those people remain safe,
we continue to deliver the same services
at the same high level of quality,
in spite of the restrictions.
So we've been running
Microsoft Teams live events
and they've gone down
really well with staff.
I think they're definitely
gonna be here to stay.
We also offered Microsoft Surface Go's,
to a number of staff in the organization
who had requests for a sort
of a lightweight laptop
with that tablet, functionality built-in
And the added enhancement of a pen
and being able to write in ink
onto a tablet device
has been really useful.
Portability, I would say,
was the main driving factor for those.
Once people got that portability
and how light they are
compared to traditional laptop,
we weren't losing out
by not having that meeting room facility.
I think one of the reasons
our clinicians love Microsoft Teams
is it's actually quite a flexible product.
I think it's just allowed
us to be connected.
It's allowed a lot more
people to be involved.
We needed solutions quickly.
We needed to gather a lot of people,
get them together, deal with the situation
and come to a decision which would be
in the best interest of
our patients and families.
We're getting around 1,100
Teams meetings a day.
And that's been consistent now
for about the last two or three weeks.
Over the last couple of months,
the organization has really
changed how it's work
and how it's delivered services.
That wouldn't have been
possible without Microsoft.