Paul Holden, vice president of EMEA sales at CallTower, explains how unified communications as a service can play a pivotal role in enabling connected, efficient, and patient-centred services across the system
Recently, the UK government declared that the NHS was at a historic crossroads, as it launched its awaited 10 Year Health Plan for England policy paper, outlining its ambitions to improve health and social care services in England over the next decade. The plan aims to improve access to doctor and dental appointments, speed up treatment in hospitals (while increasing what’s offered in the community), raise staff motivation, and improve outcomes on major diseases.
Yet the NHS’s attempts to modernise and improve must contend with challenges from outside the organisation, such as the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) switch-off – finally decided for January 2027. The impact of this on healthcare organisations could be massive. It affects far more than just phone calls, with the risk that vital medical systems may stop working, and that essential services may cease to function if alternatives aren’t fully in place by the final switch-off date. This includes healthcare telecare systems, alarm monitoring, building security systems and more.
For all these reasons, moving from analogue to digital communication needs to be a key priority for healthcare organisations. While the government is focused on developing the NHS app, that alone is not going to be enough. What’s more, the Department for Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) aim is that by the end of this parliament, “all care providers [are] to be fully digitised, and [that staff will] have access to essential medical information in a timely way”. Meeting this fundamentally depends on improved collaboration between different healthcare services and providers.
The first hurdle: Funding
The DHSC and NHS England have provided a broad, wide-ranging strategy that sets the direction of travel. However, funding for the changes falls on the shoulders of local NHS trusts that must assess their local needs, secure and manage funding, and implement any infrastructure upgrades. But when it comes to digital upgrades, the majority of NHS trust leaders are concerned about funding. According to NHS Providers’ NHS Digital transformation survey, 73% of leaders said funding and financial constraints were a barrier for them.
This is the first hurdle to having a digital transformation. The capital investment cannot be too onerous, and ultimately, the promise of change must lead to an overall reduction in operational expenses that make it a sound investment. That’s the aim, and that’s what will help ensure the NHS’s “financial stability for future generations”.
Fortunately, unified communications as a service (UCaaS) is a cost-effective, healthcare-ready way to enable the digital transformation – providing the operational, quality of care, and resource improvements that the plan requires.
Remote collaboration
The NHS app will become the front door of the NHS, providing easy access to care for anyone who needs it. But, as organisations with a digital front door will already know, it still needs a well-connected team to answer it.
The typical journey for a person’s care will send them through several teams, moving between specialists, consultants, nurses and many others. It’s likely that these teams and specialists will continue to be located in different facilities or different departments within one facility. And, with an increase of community-based support, the pipeline of care will become more spread out.
This is where UCaaS could become essential, enabling real-time, secure communication between multidisciplinary teams through integrated tools like video calls, instant messaging, and file sharing. Operating within a single, unified platform, healthcare teams can quickly consult each other, share test results or care plans, and even jump into calls and video meetings to make joint decisions without being in the same location. By having a digitally connected team, healthcare providers can ensure faster and more enhanced decision-making, reduced patient wait times, and prevent the duplication of effort.
Supporting a decentralised model of care
The transformation will see a reversal in where and how care will be provided. It will move away from hospitals and out to communities via the ‘neighbourhood health service’ model, in which care happens digitally first, at home if possible, in local centres when needed, and hospitals only when necessary.
This will involve establishing neighbourhood health centres in every community, with a focus on those that currently have worse health outcomes. In part, this will help to improve those outcomes and access to care for people who live in underserved communities, such as those “who live in rural or coastal areas”.
The home first, then neighbourhood health centre approach can help to improve access to care while providing better treatment and operational efficiencies. And UCaaS can facilitate it. For example, through secure video consultations, patients can speak with clinicians from their own homes, and they can be connected to the right specialist who may be beyond their locality.
Speaking remotely can help with earlier intervention and more preventative measures, and it can support follow-up care that doesn’t require – and may even prevent – costly hospital visits. For example, after having easier and earlier access to a doctor who has more time available thanks to streamlined operations and calling, some patients can get in-home follow-ups. Scheduled check-ins can be planned for individual patients, and, from the doctor’s perspective, they can perform ‘virtual rounds’ – checking a series of at-home patients without the same time constraints or pressures.
On top of this, community-based staff, such as nurses or those performing house visits, can access records, join meetings, and consult with specialists while they’re on location.
Morale boost and risk prevention
Healthcare staff are already under pressure to use a wide range of vastly different systems and technologies, often juggling multiple logins and trying to get by with systems that don’t talk to each other. This only adds to the stress of their roles and increases risk. Consequently, some teams might be cautious of adopting yet another app.
However, the benefit of a unified communication and collaboration system is that these systems are combined into one interface – they’re unified. UCaaS provides a single, easy-to-use platform that pulls everything together rather than putting walls up and making people’s jobs hard. This reduces the number of tools teams use, frees up people’s time by making things more efficient, and it improves the user experience. Ultimately, this leads to improved morale and productivity, and reduces the risk of clinical error due to communication breakdowns.
Digital collaboration is no longer a secondary consideration; it’s a critical enabler of the NHS’s long-term vision. As care delivery evolves, the need for integrated, secure, and efficient communication has never been greater. Platforms like UCaaS offer a practical, cost-effective path forward – a path that improves operations, supports staff, and ultimately enhances patient outcomes while helping to reduce operational costs. The technology is ready; the benefits are clear.
