04 March 2020

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, part of the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, only had publicly accessible Wi-Fi in a privately run coffee shop at the entrance area of the hospital, which meant that people couldn’t use the service when on the wards or in the waiting areas.

Nowadays, patients expect a Wi-Fi connection in hospital as they like to be able to stay in touch with friends and family during their treatment.

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital felt that free connectivity was particularly essential in their Roxburgh Children’s Centre, as young patients and their parents like to be able to stream videos and access interactive websites during their stay.

The hospital discussed its Wi-Fi connectivity for patients with a number of providers.

However, when they were introduced to Purple’s solution the team was highly impressed by the functionality and possibilities available to them.

Not only would they be able to deliver seamless connectivity across the whole site, but they would be able to distribute important information and updates to those accessing the Wi-Fi. Whether that be a simple reminder for visitors to wash their hands and control infection whilst on site or distributing emails about winter flu vaccinations post visit.

The fact that Purple could be installed using existing IT infrastructure was another benefit that the trust found appealing and more cost effective.

In just over two weeks the Wi-Fi service was live and accessible via a dedicated splash page where patient’s login via a simple form.

The solution was widely publicised around the hospital and on their website to ensure patients and visitors were fully aware of the brand-new service.

To date, the hospital’s free guest WiFi has proved very popular, with almost 23,000 visitors accessing it since installation.