News: Telephone and Writing Skills
London hospital operators 'receive call centre training'
09 January 2009
Three London hospitals are seeking external help to give their staff telephone skills training.
Managers will be taught the customer service skills before relaying these as part of in-house training for operators at Great Ormond Street, St George's in Tooting and Croydon's Mayday University Hospital.
Dr Jane Collins, chief executive of the Great Ormond Street Hospital, claims customer care has been looked at negatively by the National Health Service (NHS) in the past due to an unwillingness to see users as consumers.
"The NHS is increasingly adopting the call centre approach, for example in hospitals for patients booking outpatient appointments," she states.
Dr Collins comments that call centre training is being deployed to try and reduce the impression of impersonality many users receive.
In other news, a recent report by the National Audit Office advised the government to deploy contract management training in order to improve its performance in this area.
