Commercial Week 2023: Who are CallEEAST and what do they do?

We’re kicking off Commercial Week today with perhaps the most well-known branch of the commercial services, CallEEAST.

CallEEAST is the Trust’s non-emergency, outsource contact centre who handle calls on behalf of other organisations who cannot manage the function in-house, or choose to outsource this part of their business. They also offer signposting services, customer services functions, out of hours and overflow call management, and virtual receptionist services.

In addition, CallEEAST delivers the call handling and eligibility screening services for the Trust’s non-emergency patient transport services (PTS). They handle in excess of 800,000 calls every year, across a client base of 80 separate contracts. They are based within Norwich Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) at Hellesdon and are a team of 70 colleagues, ranging from call handlers, dispatchers and the management team.

Some of our main clients include:

Birmingham Community Health Care NHS Trust - taking calls from patients wanting to access one of the 30+ community nursing teams across Birmingham, and ensuring they are put in touch with the correct team for their specific needs. 

50+ GP surgeries across Norfolk and Waveney - covering services for lunch hours and training days.

Fertility clinics – managing an on-call system for patients who have concerns with their treatment or require medical support and accessing a clinician for them when required.

Iceland – providing call handling support for stores across the UK who are experiencing faults with freezers or fridges, and dispatching engineers to rectify the problem. 

UK Health Security Agency – handling calls for the east of England team (including Public Health England in the region) around escalations of concern regarding public health, such as infectious diseases.

Integrated Care Services/Integrated Care Board (ICB) - supporting both Bedford, Luton & Milton Keynes (BLMK) ICB, and Cambridgeshire & Peterborough ICB with on call and command functions, including managing on-call escalations to senior managers.