Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP) is a healthcare institution with multiple hospitals, over 3,400 employees, and a large number of community sites. Heavy winter snowstorms highlighted shortcomings in AWP's crisis communications. It was increasingly difficult to track frontline service delivery using just email and phones. And it was difficult to get a clear, comprehensive view of operations status during a crisis. This case study investigates how AWP is able to protect their services, customers and reputation, even in the midst of a fast-moving crisis. The organization needed to alert thousands of staff members, as well as manage an incident across numerous sites and collaborate on the response. To overcome those challenges, AWP adopted MissionMode’s web-based crisis management and communications software. The organization is now able to communicate quickly and easily with staff members through any communications device, no matter where the people are located. MissionMode also provides a unified command and control platform that delivers centralized and auditable control of crisis and operational incidents.

1. Emergency Notification • Incident Management
CASE STUDY
Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust
Delivering Outstanding Care and Speed of Services During Crises
Summary
The Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust
(referred to as AWP or the Trust) recognized the need for mass
notification and crisis management tools after major snow
• 16 inpatient hospitals
storms. Quality of care and speed of services must be met,
• Four community sites regardless of the disruption. The organization wanted to not
• 97 community bases only send alerts, but manage an incident across numerous sites
and collaborate on the response. A robust audit trail was a key
• Over 3,400 whole-time equivalent staff requirement, due to regulatory and legal requirements. AWP
• Over 700,000 service user contacts / year chose MissionMode’s Notification Center and Situation Center
online software to meet those needs.
• £198 million annual expenditure
• Serves a population of 1.6 million in
a 2,200 square mile area About AWP
• Headquarters: Chippenham, England AWP is a not-for-profit provider of mental health and social care
www.awp.nhs.uk services in the southwest region of England, serving a popula-
tion of 1.6 million people. Services are delivered at a combina-
tion of 16 hospitals, over 100 community sites, people’s homes,
and several secure units. The organization has more than
700,000 patient encounters per year.
“AWP is better able to protect
its services, customers and Business Continuity is a Critical Function
reputation with the use of Business Continuity is a critical function within AWP. Services
MissionMode.” must be provided, regardless of the disruption or emergency.
The organization places a high priority on maintaining its
– Mike Relph, Assistant CEO exemplary record of mitigating critical incidents. But, even a
single misstep during a crisis could have a significant impact on
patient care.
Page 1 of 3
102611

2. CASE STUDY
Avon and Wiltshire Mental
Health Partnership NHS Trust
Continuity planning at AWP covers a wide range of rely on email. There was also the need for tools that
incidents, including snow storms, heat waves, fuel went beyond just notification—tools for managing
shortages, flooding, IT network outages, and supply- the response itself.
chain interruptions. In addition, when other health-
care organizations respond to emergencies that Management knew that any solution had to be resil-
AWP is not affected by, AWP may be asked to provide ient and intuitive. Other requirements they identified
support. included:
Providing quality services becomes an even greater • Easily send timely alerts and notifications.
challenge given the large number of community- • Manage an incident across numerous sites.
based staff who care for patients in homes and at • Collaborate remotely between Trust
community sites. A high degree of coordination is headquarters and affected sites.
necessary, and the ability to communicate in any • Minimal dependence on the Trust Network
circumstance is crucial. or IT infrastructure.
• Electronic log of communications and events.
The Need for Fast, Accurate Communications They assigned priority values to each requirement
The need for mass notification and incident manage- and compared solutions against the requirements.
ment tools became apparent during heavy snow- Initial and ongoing costs were also important consid-
storms in the Winter of 2009/2010. Chris Williams, erations. Executive buy-in was obtained early in the
Emergency Planning Manager, said that “during the process, which accelerated the procurement of the
storms, it became increasingly difficult to track how application and its integration within the organiza-
the weather was impacting the ability to deliver tion.
services.”
The organization relied on email to give a clear MissionMode Provides the Solution
picture of how services were suffering, and the chal-
Several vendors met some of requirements, but only
lenges faced. However, it rapidly became apparent
MissionMode met all of them. AWP selected Mission-
that staff on the front line did not have time to keep
Mode’s web-based Notification Center and Situation
checking their email for the latest information.
Center.
“In times of crisis or disruption, notification speed is
The Notification Center can send alert messages via
crucial,” stated Chris Williams.
phone, SMS, email, fax and pager—and it tracks real-
AWP uses a wide range of tools to facilitate commu- time responses from recipients. The Situation Center
nication, including email and intranet. Email is the is a virtual command centre for managing the details
standard means of sharing information, but it’s often of a critical event—communications, resources, task
over-used and not given the priority it needs. assignments, collaboration, team status, and more.
Manual telephone cascades are inherently time-con- “The MissionMode system is intuitive and easy for
suming, even assuming that all telephone numbers staff to use ‘cold’ during a critical event,” according to
are correct and answered at the first contact attempt. Chris Williams. “We can immediately notify everyone
There’s also the danger of miscommunication as infor- involved, provide accurate information, get real-time
mation is passed down the line. updates from staff, manage an incident response, and
collaborate remotely. And, the system did not require
The organization recognized the need for a method us to change our processes.”
of rapidly contacting staff members, one that did not
Page 2 of 3

3. CASE STUDY
Avon and Wiltshire Mental
Health Partnership NHS Trust
AWP primarily uses the Notification Center for send- “Incident plans are developed with our commission-
ing SMS text alerts. During a major incident, or when ers,” according to Chris Williams. “If we don’t handle
a wider response is called for, voice alerts are added. them well, they won’t commission our services.”
The Notification Center sends voice alerts that are
automatically created from text messages, or they can This could significantly impact AWP’s revenue, as well
be recorded in someone’s voice. as its reputation. Apart from the impact on those who
depend on our services, there might also be financial
The organization used MissionMode successfully penalties for not delivering proper speed of services.
during its 2010 emergency response exercises. In this Chris stated, “It’s essential to have a detailed, accurate
year’s exercises, participants will use the online Situa- record of every aspect of a response. MissionMode
tion Center to monitor and assign tasks and track the fulfils that need.”
status of team members. They will access plans and
other essential documents in the Situation Center’s
resource library. During the post-exercise debriefing, Protecting Services, Customers & Reputation
the Business Continuity team will use the detailed log “AWP’s reputation as a mental health care service
of events and communications to evaluate the exer- provider is based entirely on its ability to consistently
cise and recommend future actions. deliver high quality and safe services, 24 hours a day,
365 days a year—whatever the weather, whatever the
Audit Trails Provide Crucial Evidence circumstances,” stated Mike Relph, Assistant CEO.
AWP’s audit plans become critically important when a “Swift, accurate and reliable communications lie at
disruption or emergency occurs. MissionMode’s audit the heart of the Trust’s emergency and business con-
trail provides vital evidence for mandatory incident tinuity plans—and this is where MissionMode adds
reports that are required by regulatory agencies. The value. AWP is better able to protect its services, cus-
reports can also be used in a court of law. tomers and reputation with the use of MissionMode.”
About MissionMode
MissionMode provides notification and incident management solu-
tions to industry-leading organizations across the globe. We help you
resolve incidents faster and more effectively.
Our easy-to-use Notification Center sends alerts within seconds,
but there are powerful features available when you need them. It
also has unique capabilities, such as alerts recorded in your own voice.
The Situation Center is a virtual command center for coordinating the
response to any type of incident, from common operational disrup-
tions to major crises. It’s a secure hub for managing resources, tasks,
collaboration, communications, documents, team status, and more.
Contact us to learn more. North America
877.833.7763 (toll-free)
info@missionmode.com
+1 312.445.8811
www.missionmode.com International
+44 1494 837198
© 2011, MissionMode Solutions Page 3 of 3