North Bristol NHS Trust is transforming patient care through use of Alcatel-Lucent’s advanced communications solution

500,000 community to benefit from major investment in enhanced healthcare services

Paris - Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that North Bristol NHS Trust – one of the largest National Health Service Trusts in England – is deploying Alcatel-Lucent solutions to overhaul its telecommunications services and place communications at the centre of its strategy for effective patient care delivery.

The large-scale project – being carried out by South West Communications Group – is based on Alcatel-Lucent’s IP telephony platform, and aims to modernise North Bristol NHS Trust’s patient services in line with the NHS’s national transformational programme of change. The two million GBP investment will also provide an advanced communications infrastructure for a new ‘super hospital’ in Bristol, scheduled for completion in 2013.

“Communication is vital to healthcare organisations - from crash call access to first point of patient contact, staff must communicate effectively and rapidly regardless of their location, which had previously been a challenge for a trust of our size,” said Martin Bell, director of information management and technology at North Bristol NHS Trust. “The new solution will allow us to provide mobile and responsive communications, both internally and to the community at large. Equally, as the Trust extends and we prepare for the opening of the new super hospital, this future-proof, robust platform will support our growth and enable the continued evolution of our patient services.”

North Bristol NHS Trust chose Alcatel-Lucent based on its commitment to innovation, particularly through the work of its Bell Labs R&D organisation. The deployment includes innovative speech-enabled automated directory technology alongside advanced call centre and unified communications applications. These tools will help improve collaboration between 9,000 staff across all Trust sites. Furthermore, both staff and patients will be able to interact more closely through patient paging services and multiparty video conferencing.

In addition, 600 employees will be equipped with Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniTouch 8600 My Instant Communicator unified communications solution, giving them access to voice mail, text messages, faxes, emails, instant messaging, voice and video conferences all from a single mobile device. This will help the Trust to boost productivity, reduce travel and costs, while ensuring staff have the tools they need to deliver the best possible service to patients at all times.

South West Communications Group was chosen to undertake the deployment based on its extensive experience in the UK healthcare sector and its ability to commit to and deliver upon long-term strategic projects. The first component of the North Bristol NHS Trust deployment is now up and running, while South West Communications Group will be responsible for ongoing service and support through 2013 and beyond.

“Ensuring staff productivity and accessibility has always proved challenging for healthcare organisations, given the ever-mobile nature of their day-to-day operations,” said David Parker, vice president for Alcatel-Lucent’s enterprise activities in the UK and Ireland. “By utilising our technologies, North Bristol NHS Trust is becoming a more dynamic enterprise, using communications to achieve transformational change in line with the UK government’s NHS vision.”

About South West Communications Group
South West Communications Group was founded in 1983 as a provider of business telephone systems. Since then, it has grown both in size and technological expertise to meet an ever-changing demand for more efficient, secure, scalable, cost-effective and reliable communication systems using the latest voice, data and Internet solutions. More than 120 people are employed by South West Communications Group to deliver and maintain its range of services to a wide variety of businesses across the UK. Its head office is in Exeter with further offices in Portsmouth and South Wales. The company prides itself on its customer-focussed approach that has not only seen its turnover increase year on year but has also led to a high level of repeat business and customer recommendations. South West Communications Group provides the consultancy, design as well as the physical hardware/software to deliver tailor-made solutions to its clients. It manages the full solution deployment with meticulous care from installation, testing and staff training through to providing ongoing technical support and maintenance through its service desk and network of field-based engineers. For more information, visit: external linkhttp://www.swcomms.co.uk

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is the trusted partner of service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, providing solutions to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. A leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent leverages the unrivalled technical and scientific expertise of Bell Labs, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry. With operations in more than 130 countries and the most experienced global services organization in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with a global reach. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 16.98 billion in 2008 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com