Mersey Care NHS Trust: optimising health services for to the disabled

The organisation

Mersey Care NHS Trust is an English clinic set up in 2001 to provide specialist health services in Liverpool, Sefton, and Kirkby. With around 4 700 staff, Mersey Care helps people with learning disabilities and mental health difficulties to optimise their health, life experience and citizenship.

The challenge

Since July 2006 Mersey Care brings mental health patients to hospitals in the morning for their treatment and back home in the afternoon. In the time between the vehicles are available for other jobs. Before implementing TomTom, an integrated vehicle tracking and satellite navigation system, each driver had to pull over to the side of the road to take calls about a new job. The dispatch officer would communicate the necessary details to the driver, who would write them down on paper. As the jobs vary a lot, it was important that the details be correct. For more remote addresses, the drivers sometimes had to look up the destination on a map, before getting on with the job. This was highly time-consuming.

The satellite solution

Mersey’s transport team implemented a vehicle tracking and satellite navigation-based solution from TomTom Business Solutions that enables dispatchers to see exactly where vehicles are and to dispatch jobs directly to the driver via the satellite navigation units in the vehicle. Once job orders are received, drivers can simply tap the screen and navigate the next job. The system offers LIVE traffic information, suggests alternative routes and calculates estimated arrival times based on real-speed data, which means patients can be kept informed if there are to be delays.

The result

The vehicle dispatcher can now send details of new jobs to the drivers as soon as received, rather than having to plan at the beginning of the day or waste time contacting each driver to check where they are. In this way, Mersey Care is able to operate a much more efficient, flexible business, while also benefitting the patients and their families.

 “TomTom has been brilliant! It’s really made my job easier.” Jenny Cross, Dispatch Centre, Mersey Care.