Premier Inn Equipment Donated to Ambulance Service Call Centres

Whitbread have helped the East of England Ambulance Service to extend their call centres with a donation of 100 phones, 38 desks and 38 chairs.

Office equipment formerly owned by Premier Inn has a potentially lifesaving new calling – after owner Whitbread donated it to the East of England Ambulance Service to help it cope with unprecedented call volumes.

Following the relocation of the Premier Inn Customer Contact Centre from Oakley House in Luton to its new home in Houghton Hall Business Park in Houghton Regis, the facilities team at Whitbread’s Head Office had a supply of office equipment, including 100 phones, that they were waiting to rehome.

With the development of the COVID-19 pandemic, the team were made aware through their business contacts at Fujitsu that the East of England Ambulance Service were in need of additional equipment to expand their operations at their call centres. Their three call centres in Bedford, Norwich and Chelmsford required rapid expansion in order to cope with the number of incoming calls from the local areas and had enlisted BT to help them source telephone equipment to get them up and running as quickly as possible.

Huw Thomas

Huw Thomas, Head of Facilities across Whitbread Plc’s head office campus, got stuck in and collated all of the equipment that was left from the Contact Centre relocation. Arranging a man with a van and of course after a clean down and sanitise, the Facilities Team packed up a truck full of 100 phones, 38 desks, 38 chairs plus additional supporting equipment such as desk dividers and telephone switch parts. The equipment was delivered successfully and enabled the East of England Ambulance Service to add much-needed capacity to their call centres, helping many more people.

Huw Thomas said: “We were really pleased that we could help in this way, quick thinking by one of our key partners enabled us to put to good use equipment that we no longer had a need for. The Ambulance service is playing such a vital role in this difficult time and knowing that we have in some small way been able to help them to help even more people is something we are really proud of.”

Dothothy Hosein

Dorothy Hosein, Chief Executive East of England Ambulance Service said: “Our thanks go to Whitbread for providing additional equipment for our call centres. We are all working to ensure we continue to provide the best care possible to patients whilst supporting our staff at this time.

“In Norwich alone, we have recruited an additional 100 staff to ensure that when our patients call the control room we have someone available to take their call. This would not have been possible without Whitbread’s help and we are all extremely grateful.”