ANNUAL REVIEW master Final3a - St Vincent's University Hospital

St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group Limited - Annual Review 2007
General Services
standards and decrease the risk of legionella. The impact of new developments led to increased loads,
notably electrical which was 2.25 KWT max demand and water which was 430,000litres daily.
The Technical Services Manager is Peter Mortell and the department has a complement of 46 staff. Staff
changes in 2007 were: William Hanlon, Deputy Technical Services Manager and John Hickey, Electrician
who left to pursue new career paths and we wish them success. Also we would like to welcome Ciaran Ryan,
Facilities Engineer, Robert Coffey and Derek Kelly, Electricians to the Department
Telephone and Communication Services
The telephone service provides switchboard and other communication services to internal and external
customers. In 2007 a total of 3500 internal and external calls were handled per day. This figure is a
decrease of 12.5% on the previous year’s figures and is part of a programme to reduce the amount of
unnecessary calls handled by the switchboard staff. The objective of this is to allow the staff more time to
focus on external calls thereby improving answer response times.
The department is responsible for co-ordinating all internal emergency communication protocols and is
responsible for maintaining the key internal telephone and paging system directories.
The department continues to offer technical assistance for all departmental moves, and 2007 saw
involvement in two main refurbishment projects – Allied Therapy Suite and Medical Records. The service
provided in excess of 100 new extensions and numerous moves and repair faults in 2007.
The Major Emergency Plan was activated in June 2007 with two major emergency alerts called on a single
day. One was to standby level and another to full alert following a second unrelated incident, creating one of
the busiest and most testing days in the department’s history. The department was pivotal in ensuring the
deployment of the Emergency Plan went as planned.
An Internal Audit review of the department recommended a number of quality and risk improvement
initiatives. These have been incorporated into its 2008 service plan. A new monthly bleep testing Policy has
been implemented as a result of the audit.
The Telecommunications Supervisor is Bernie Deignan. The service operates on a 24-hour basis and is
staffed by a team of 14 full and part time members.
Finally
General Services would like to express our thanks to staff in all its departments for their hard work and
commitment to the team over the past year. Also to acknowledge the other departments that work in
association with us in helping us to deliver a quality service in a customer focused manner.
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