Call volumes, transfers/use of call back and performance against standards
| 2013–2014 Q4 | 2014–2015 Q1 | 2014–2015 Q2 | 2014–2015 Q3 | 2014–2015 Q4 | 2015–2016 Q1 | 2015–2016 Q2 | 2015–2016 Q3 | 2015–2016 Q4 | 2016–2017 Q1 | 2016–2017 Q2 | |
| Observations (months) per quarter | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| Call volumes | |||||||||||
| Calls initiated* | 9 71 718 | 1 059 104 | 9 58 185 | 1 165 760 | 1 110 541 | 1 100 726 | 1 010 607 | 1 202 030 | 1 366 497 | 1 207 808 | 1 238 972 |
| Calls answered* | 9 18 986 | 9 98 508 | 9 14 948 | 1 076 362 | 1 055 134 | 1 050 668 | 9 66 416 | 1 114 758 | 1 204 628 | 1 111 211 | 1 141 770 |
| Calls per thousand of population served* | NA | 19.5 | 17.7 | 21.5 | 20.3 | 20.2 | 18.5 | 22.0 | 24.8 | NA | NA |
| Percentage of transfers to clinical advisors and use of call back | |||||||||||
| Calls transferred to a clinical advisor | 20.2 | 19.9 | 20.7 | 20.1 | 21.3 | 21.1 | 21.5 | 20.6 | 18.9 | 19.7 | 19.6 |
| Calls ‘warm’ transfer to a clinical advisor† | 11.8 | 11.4 | 12.7 | 10.6 | 9.9 | 10.0 | 9.8 | 9.1 | 6.8 | 7.2 | 7.0 |
| Calls resulting in a call back | 8.4 | 8.5 | 8.1 | 9.4 | 11.4 | 11.1 | 11.7 | 11.6 | 12.1 | 12.5 | 12.6 |
| Calls resulting in a call back within 10 min | 4.0 | 4.3 | 4.2 | 4.5 | 5.1 | 5.0 | 5.1 | 4.8 | 4.4 | 5.0 | 4.8 |
| Performance against standards | |||||||||||
| Percent calls answered within 60 s | 94.8 | 93.6 | 95.5 | 87.5 | 92.5 | 93.9 | 93.1 | 88.9 | 77.3 | 88.6 | 88.1 |
| Calls abandoned - over 30 s wait* (%) | 11 212 (1.2) | 12 834 (1.2) | 8219 (0.9) | 39 775 (3.4) | 17 736 (1.6) | 16 496 (1.5) | 14 705 (1.5) | 32 321 (2.7) | 83 474 (6.1) | 28 583 (2.4) | 30 790 (2.5) |
Quarters are defined according to the financial year (consistent with reporting in the MDS). Q1 = April–June; Q2 = July–September; Q3 = October–December; Q4 = January–March.
*Absolute numbers are the average per month for quarter (ie, number of calls in quarter divided by number of eligible months in the quarter). Proportions are calculated across the whole quarter. All values calculated by the authors.
†A ‘warm’ transfer is defined as situations where the call adviser determines that the call should be transferred to a clinical advisor, the call adviser speaks to the clinician and then transfers the call without any call back.