A London NHS trust is installing an Internet Protocol (IP) telephony network to allow staff to communicate more easily.

The installation of IP at the University College London hospitals (UCLH) NHS trust follows the successful installation of a similar system at its new flagship University College Hospital (UCH).

When the trust started researching the IP telephony marketplace, voice over IP was an emerging technology and very much in its infancy, says Peter Burroughs, director of capital investment at University College London Hospitals.

'However it was abundantly clear that it would fit-in perfectly with our vision of a high-tech hospital,' he said.

The trust took on voice and data company Azzurri Communications to roll out the new IP telecoms platform at UCH, and it installed a Mittel system with voice messaging and ensured the network would have no single point of failure.

Azzurri will now do the same for the other seven hospitals of the trust over the next two years, putting them all on a single system.

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