Business challenge

The Withington Community Hospital is the first of its kind in the North West, and provides a walk-in centre, cyber-café and patient advice services. To enable the hospital and its patients to also take advantage of the new nationwide electronic health services, the Trust needed to ensure it had the right systems in place to link up with the NHS National Programme for IT.

Without any existing IT infrastructure, the Trust faced a mammoth task - with a finite deadline. Mike Jones, IT Programme Manager for South Manchester PCT, comments: “We had a raft of technology choices to make, and we needed to ensure that we not only futureproofed our investment but also maximised the potential of the new systems.”

Beyond the hospital’s opening day, the Trust also needed to ensure the IT infrastructure and staff were fully supported on an ongoing basis to safeguard the continuity and quality of its health services.

Computacenter solution

To access the additional skills and resources required for both the initial systems roll-out and ongoing IT services management, South Manchester PCT turned to Computacenter. They are now responsible for managing the hospital’s entire infrastructure under a five-year managed services contract. “Computacenter understood the challenges of working in a hospital environment and had the expertise to deliver ongoing value to our IT services management,” comments Mike.

Results

The transfer to the new systems was completed both on time and with minimal disruption to the hospital and its new patients. These systems are remotely monitored and supported round-the-clock by Computacenter from its Service Operation and Service Support Centres.

“We now have an infrastructure that is fully integrated with electronic health initiatives, and we will be one of the first hospital’s in the country to use the NHS Care Records Service,” comments Mike. “We can also link to other Trust health facilities, and can guarantee these links thanks to the ongoing support from Computacenter.”