Like many busy practices, Five Oaks found that its ageing printer could no longer keep up with the high volumes and speed of printing needed.   The practice prints more than 600 repeat prescriptions a day, as well as general correspondence, patient information leaflets and patient records.  Breakdowns and paper jams were becoming more regular, and there was an urgent need for more up-to-date equipment to serve the administrative team.

 

In addition, practice nurse Gail Thomson was losing valuable patient time because her ageing printer – a cast-off from someone else in the practice – would regularly malfunction during consultations.

 

Local health informatics advisors the Manchester NHS Agency approached Brother, to provide a solution.  Brother have worked closely with the Agency in the last couple of years and recommended the practice trial two new Brother printers.

Brother recommended their HL-7050N workgroup mono laser printer with extra tray to meet the surgery’s general administrative needs. Importantly for the healthcare market, it includes universal paper trays that can handle prescriptions without using complicated adaptors as well as one for general correspondence.

 

The printer also has several money-saving features including a separate toner and drum system which means that when the toner runs out you just replace a toner cartridge not the drum as well therefore saving costs.

 

The HL-7050N also provides a useful, PIN-protected ‘secure printing’ facility to safeguard sensitive data such as patient records.

 

And it comes with unrivalled environmental credentials, through TCO ’99, one of the world’s toughest green standards – meaning reduced emissions in the office as well as minimal impact on the environment.

 

Practice manager Helen Dean was so impressed by trialling the HL-7050N that she decided to buy one for the practice.  In fact, she became so attached to the trial machine that she didn’t want to part with it at all!

She said: “The new machine has made a real difference.  It’s a lot faster, but it’s not just the speed that has helped. It has also saved us money on stationery because it’s not chewing paper up and it’s saved on time because we’re not stopping work to fix breakdowns all the time.

 

“It’s also a lot quieter than the old machine and the slim-line design means it’s not cumbersome in the office.”

Practice nurse Gail Thomson is equally impressed by the HL-5240.  She said: “My old printer used to go wrong a lot.  Sometimes it was a paper jam, at other times I couldn’t work out what was wrong and I used to waste a lot of time trying to find out.

“Now I can use all my time to focus on my patients.”