Case Study

How Age UK Mid Mersey Kept Vital Services Running Through Lockdown

Age UK Mid Mersey

Overview

Age UK Mid Mersey is an independent charity supporting older people in Halton, Knowsley, St Helens and Warrington. It provides health, wellbeing and care services that give older people more choice, independence and control, with a particular focus on tackling loneliness and isolation.

The Challenge

Age UK Mid Mersey's staff work across four locations, often in a different office from one day to the next. They needed to work securely from any site, with the same access to business-critical applications wherever they logged in.

The charity had also outgrown its IT provider, and many of its PCs were reaching end of life.

We recognised that as the services Age UK offer had developed, so had the demand and reliance on our IT systems. We required a provider that we could be confident had both the resource and expertise to support our future needs.

Shelley Brown, CEO, Age UK Mid Mersey

The Solution

We implemented a hosted desktop solution. Staff get exactly the same experience as a normal desktop, but their applications and data live securely in the cloud, so they can work from any site with an internet connection.

Cost was a major consideration for the charity, so we made its budget go further by repurposing older PCs as terminals. With the processing done in the data centre rather than on the device, the charity got more life from its existing hardware.

Later, when the charity's telephone supplier could no longer run its phone system, we arranged a temporary inbound number and then rolled out our SmartConnect cloud phone system to all staff. It was installed entirely remotely, again using existing equipment.

Customer Feedback

We chose to partner with Smart IT as they already had a proven track record of working with Age UK charities in other parts of the country and we felt they took the time to understand our needs. Repurposing our old equipment helped reduce the costs of the project, which is a big factor for a charity. They have also been exceptionally flexible.

Shelley Brown, CEO, Age UK Mid Mersey

The Result

When lockdown hit, Age UK Mid Mersey moved to home working overnight. Staff logged on and worked exactly as they would in the office, keeping key services running when older people needed them most.

During the first few weeks of lockdown we dealt with over 4,000 support calls, many of them being risk assessments with urgent care needs. Keeping our services operational was imperative for safeguarding.

Shelley Brown, CEO, Age UK Mid Mersey

The move also improved how the team organises and shares files, and with all data stored centrally in a secure data centre and backed up regularly, rather than on individual devices, the charity's information is better protected.