Business & Technology
Healthcare trusts keep voice central despite digital shift
Organisations still treat voice as the highest-risk part of workplace communications, and that caution is most visible in healthcare and other public-facing services, according to Gamma Communications.
Voice remains central even as organisations add web chat, bots and collaboration software. Executives at Gamma and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals said the phone still carries the most weight when users need a direct answer, particularly in sensitive situations.
“What we found is that voice is never truly replaced. It is still the most common communication channel across industries. It is particularly useful for those we would probably class as the most vulnerable in society. From that angle, and especially from a healthcare perspective, it is a non-negotiable part of communication strategies when speaking to end users and customers. But because it is so critical, there is a perceived risk around changing the thing that props up everything else. A lot of digital interactions fail back to, ‘We’re terribly sorry, we can’t resolve this issue on web chat. Please call us.’ Well, that is the backup. So if we make any change to that, especially now that it is part of collaboration tools rather than a standalone platform, there are nerves and risks around what we do with it,” said Jack Carr, Teams Leader – Solutions Consultant, Gamma Communications.
That view is echoed in the NHS. At Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, patients and relatives often turn to the telephone first, even where other digital channels are available.
“For an ageing population, there is a real reliance on the telephone. Even now, with all the technology in the world and all the collaboration stacks, if trusts have web chat, live chat or chatbots, people will still default to the telephone. When you are contacting a healthcare organisation, you are often in a vulnerable position. You want to know what is going on with your care or the care of a loved one, or you are waiting for an appointment. You want an interaction with a person. There is nuance in a call that might not be picked up by other technologies. There is such a reliance on the telephone. Historically, it has always worked. Even if you did get through to a department and the booking system was not working, they could at least take your call and let you know. It has always had that importance,” said Tom Boyle, Head of Telecoms, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.
Rebuild cycle
That dependence makes change difficult. Organisations delay telephony rebuilds for as long as possible because the work is disruptive and often depends on legacy knowledge that may no longer exist inside the business, Carr said.
Technology changes faster than the operating problems around it, he added. Companies still need systems that can cope with demand and remain accessible. Those requirements have stayed largely the same, even as the surrounding tools have shifted from traditional telephony platforms to cloud and unified communications products.
Healthcare providers tend to make such changes even less often, Boyle said. Internal telephony estates can remain in place for decades. Some trusts have changed internal systems separately from external call routing, leaving different parts of the environment moving at different speeds.
“It is the classic ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it’. For the PSTN switch-off, it is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime change. But in healthcare, organisations might only change their internal telephony provision every 25 or 30 years. They might change their PBXs or move from copper to IP internally and review it then, but now they are reaching the point where they need to change their external routing. They are probably not going to revisit the internal side because that was already a major project. It is almost as if both are playing catch-up with each other. They never seem to intertwine. And for us, it happens even less often because voice is always working, so we do not want to interfere with it. There is a perception that if you interfere with it, you might break it and make it worse. In healthcare, that impacts people and care. That makes it very different,” said Boyle.
Skills gap
Operational expertise is another issue. Many organisations are reviewing how much telephony infrastructure they should manage themselves and how much they should hand to a provider, Carr said. That question covers both direct spending and the internal cost of using specialist staff on maintenance work.
Yet both speakers said legacy estates still need people who understand voice. Large hospital campuses often run hybrid systems, Boyle said, and some still rely on classic PBX functions and specialist engineering knowledge.
“We are quite fortunate in that, while everything external-facing is IP, internally we have hybrid PBXs as well as an IP PBX. The five hybrid systems are classic telephony PBXs, and all that functionality requires a skilled telecoms engineer to manage it. I am fortunate that I have five skilled telecoms engineers. The difficulty for other healthcare organisations is that over the past 10 or 15 years, telephony has often been absorbed into the network team, collaboration platforms or the EUC team. That is different. But the core functionality of a telephone still needs a skilled telecoms engineer to understand it, especially if you still have parts of a legacy estate. I think there will come a point in the next five to 10 years when those staff and skills start to disappear, and more of this may naturally become part of core IT. But there still needs to be acceptance and understanding that voice expertise matters: how to test, how to probe voice lines and how they work. It is not just a pretend dial tone on an IP phone. There is much more to it. That is a risk looking ahead,” said Boyle.
He also rejected the idea that the move away from the PSTN requires every organisation to replace all internal systems. Large campus sites can keep existing telephony in place if external connections move to SIP-based services, he said.
Different users
The discussion also highlighted a split between the needs of desk-based staff and fixed-location devices. Hospital estates can include thousands of wall phones and emergency lines. Those use cases differ from those of staff who move between sites or work from home and expect a single number across multiple devices.
That divide can push organisations into over-engineered solutions, Boyle said. In some cases, old processes are forced onto newer systems. He argued that this weakens the service and leads users to conclude that the technology itself is at fault.
Decision-making improves when organisations start with business requirements rather than a preferred platform, Carr said. There is no single product that suits every team, and some organisations will continue to run different technology stacks across the same estate.
“That is particularly pertinent for us. If you are going after a specific platform or technology, you must consider how much nuance there is in the business and in the organisation. As we were saying about the split between worker types and departments, we do not have a use case for a large number of collaboration-platform licences when we have eight or ten thousand wall phones serving a simple purpose. Why try to fix that problem when you are trying to solve another? It seems a bit foolish. There is real benefit in splitting it up and simplifying it, rather than trying to chase some ideal end state,” said Boyle.
A deal between the stadium and Bizcap Limited was announced on May 8, which will see the assignment of book debts to the lender based in London.
This means that Oxford Stadium’s outstanding customer invoices will be transferred to Bizcap UK in exchange for immediate cash flow.
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Part of a global non-bank business lending organisation, Bizcap UK says it specialises in offering “fast and flexible” funding to small and medium sized businesses.
This latest announcement comes amid reported financial challenges at the Sandy Lane stadium, which is over five months overdue on submitting its financial accounts to Companies House.
In April, Sports Information Services decided to stop covering greyhound racing at the stadium, due to financial difficulties, a decision which also impacted Oxford Speedway, a team that uses the venue.
However, last week Oxford Speedway said its long-term future at the BetGoodwin Oxford stadium was ‘secured’.
Jamie Courtenay, promoter for Oxford Speedway, said he was “delighted to confirm that following extensive negotiations the long-term future of Oxford Speedway at the BetGoodwin Oxford Stadium is secured”.
Two new investors joined the team, both “major sponsors” since 2022 and “already a huge part of Oxford’s success story”.
In its latest accounts – which are to the end of 2023 – Oxford Stadium was found to have creditors worth £2,005,715 at the end of 2023, according a financial statement released at the end of 2024.
These are short-term liabilities that have to be paid within the 12 months after the accounts are dated.
In its statement for the year to December 31, 2023, it listed £108,077 worth of trade creditors, £68,399 for taxation and social security, £23,180 on accruals and deferred income and £1,806,059 of other creditors.
The total was significantly more than the financial document lists for the end of 2022 when its short-term creditors was listed at £1,260,559.
READ MORE: Oxford Stadium £2m in debt and 2 months late on accounts
Its latest accounts – for the year end 2024 – are almost half a year late and the Government does charge private companies for late submission of accounts with the penalty possibly rising to £1,500 if the accounts remain absent.
Despite its reported financial difficulties Oxford Stadium is still running events and offering hospitality packages for 2026.
In 2022, the venue relaunched after a regeneration project which saw £1 million invested including into kennel and veterinary facilities.
More recently, it has been confirmed as a filming destination for Mobland, a “popular returning TV drama that follows the fates and fortunes of a London crime family” starring Pierce Brosnan.
SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO
News Editor
Yodel Mobile has appointed Igor Blinov as AI Innovation & ASO Director, a newly created role.
He has been promoted as app marketers contend with rising volumes of data and changes in how users discover apps through the Apple and Google stores. His brief is to turn fragmented platform information and industry research into clearer strategic direction for clients.
Blinov has worked at Yodel Mobile for nearly six years and has more than 10 years of experience in app growth and app store optimisation. In the new role, he will track changes across app stores, assess their effect on client strategy and help the agency adjust its approach within one to two weeks of market shifts.
The appointment reflects a broader shift in app marketing. Agencies and brands now have access to large amounts of data but still struggle to turn that information into practical decisions. The new role is intended to bridge technical data analysis and commercial action.
Three priorities
The agency has set out three main priorities for the role: market synthesis, focused on condensing research and platform updates into strategy; AI tooling, centred on internal frameworks and tools to speed up insight delivery; and strategic storytelling, aimed at positioning app store optimisation in broader brand and user perception terms rather than only technical adjustments.
The remit also extends to internal operations. The role will identify repeatable patterns across the business and turn them into systems that can be used at scale, with collaborative automation workflows designed to reduce time spent sorting through disparate information.
The move comes as agencies respond to a more fragmented app discovery market. Search behaviour, store updates and AI-led user experiences are changing quickly, while many tools still produce large quantities of raw data without offering a clear path to action.
The challenge has become more pronounced as app store optimisation evolves beyond keyword ranking and metadata changes into a broader discipline that also touches on positioning, creative presentation and how users interpret listings. The speed of these shifts has made it harder for marketers to wait for accepted industry norms before changing course.
In a statement, Blinov outlined his view of the market shift.
“The way users discover apps is evolving rapidly through AI-driven experiences, shifting platform behaviours, and increasingly fragmented signals. Collecting data isn’t the hard part anymore. The goal now is building the intelligence and systems that cut through the noise and turn that complexity into meaningful action. I’m focused on how Yodel Mobile interprets and applies those insights to ensure we stay ahead of where app growth is going,” said Igor Blinov, AI Innovation & ASO Director, Yodel Mobile.
Founded in 2007, Yodel Mobile says it has worked on more than 2,500 app launches and growth programmes. Its clients include Royal Horticultural Society, TUI, Zenni Optical, UKTV, Global Player and Hinge.
The agency operates as Yodel Mobile by NP Digital and focuses on app marketing services across user acquisition, retention, engagement, conversion rate optimisation, creative and app store optimisation. The appointment of a dedicated executive for AI innovation and ASO suggests those areas are becoming more central to both agency operations and client advisory work.
Ijah Miller, Managing Director of Yodel Mobile, said the role is intended to address the gap between the pace of market change and the speed at which marketers adapt.
“Too much of the industry is still approaching ASO the way they have always done it, despite the pace of change across AI, search and app ecosystems. That gap between change and execution is where performance is being lost. With nearly two decades of experience in app growth, we know that staying ahead requires more than access to data, it requires the ability to interpret it faster than the market. This role is about formalising that capability, so we’re not waiting for best practice to emerge, we’re defining it and ensuring our clients are already executing against what comes next,” said Miller.
Junction Hair & Beauty, the salon in Corn Street, Witney, has announced ‘with great sadness’ that the business will close on Saturday, August 15.
Samantha Smith, who has co-owned the business with her husband Neil Smith since 2018 after she started her career as an apprentice in the shop 35 years ago, said it’s been a difficult decision to shut down.
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After 46 ‘wonderful years’ of the business running in the Witney, she said: “It’s been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster.
“It’s very sad that we’re going after so long in the town.”
The building at 30 Corn Street was owned by the same landlady for many years who passed away last year, and her family has decided to sell the premises.
Mrs Smith said everything was ending ‘on good terms’ and they understood the decision, but the costs associated with setting up in a new premises were prohibitive.
The co-owner added: “Obviously we could look to relocate the business, but in the current market the cost of fitting out a new shop, electrics plumbing, and everything we would need to do, it’s just not financially viable.”
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However, all of the stylists and beauty therapists, including Mrs Smith, will continue working locally, with clients to be informed of their new bases as and when they set up.
A statement released by the salon added: “We would like to sincerely thank all of our lovely clients for your loyalty, support and friendship over the years.
“It has truly been a privilege to be part of this community and share so many special moments with you.”
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