North Dorset Primary Care Trust

The North Dorset Primary Care Trust is responsible for providing Primary and Community Health Care services for the northern part of Dorset as well as mental health services for the whole of West Dorset. The Trust Estates Department not only maintains the North Dorset PCT premises but also those belonging to the South West Dorset Primary Care Trust and a number of properties that are owned by Dorset Healthcare Trust, giving them responsibility for maintaining over forty properties throughout the whole of West Dorset.

Following a detailed tendering process, The Trust has recently selected Planon as their integrated Estates & Facilities Management software solution to support core business processes in key areas. David Hambridge, Head of Estates, explains the necessity for an effective solution. “Prior to Planon, the system we had was slow and outdated and it failed to accurately regulate and monitor the progression of work. As communication was solely based on telephone calls, we recognised the need to modernise our processes and systems to improve overall organisation”. “Due to the ineffectiveness of the existing system, we realised the best course of action would be to completely scrap it and start again from scratch.”

Planon, the right solution
Hambidge continues, "When considering the criteria for the new system we were extremely conscious of finding a solution that would accommodate the unique nature of a hospital environment. We approached around a dozen different companies which were narrowed down to just two. Planon then invited us to witness their proposed solution functioning first-hand in a hospital environment in Holland. Following this, we were confident that Planon's solution would fit our company a lot better than the alternative proposals we had received."
The Trust implemented Planon software solutions to support activities in a number of key areas including; Help Desk and Work Orders, Asset Register Management through PPM, Condition Survey, Space Management with AutoCAD link, query and viewing capabilities, Financial and Budget Management of maintenance activities and Property Management.

Enhancing efficiency
Hambidge describes the difference Planon has made to The Trust, "Never before have we been able to monitor jobs so closely, log them so efficiently and search for them so quickly. Because the Planon system is Intranet based, we can almost immediately view the progress of any job without having to make timeconsuming phone calls to track the status."

"The nature of the hospital environment means tradesmen are often commuting between sites and it is imperative that we are able to contact them easily. Planon has provided a wireless, live solution whereby all tradesmen are issued with mobile handhelds which do not require bases. This is essential to keep lines of communication open in order to designate and track jobs."

"As a company we now work more efficiently and the fact we can monitor work so closely means no-one is left struggling as we are able to rearrange and distribute workloads properly. As a result the work-force is much happier!"

Looking towards the future, Hambidge concludes, "We have developed a very good relationship with Planon and still have further modules to implement, including long-term maintenance. Implementing the system was initially an immense task to undertake as we were starting from scratch but we are very pleased with the result and know it will keep getting better and better the more we use it."