London NHS trust automates to keep systems going

Remote troubleshooting and software delivery key to reliability

A London NHS trust has gone for a central system to manage its PCs and networks as part of a multi-million pound IT overhaul.

The South London and Maudsley (SLAM) trust has gone for remote troubleshooting, asset management and software delivery using CA Unicenter Service Desk. The trust runs over 2,500 PCs in 140 locations across the south of the capital.

Michael Denis, ICT director at SLAM, said: "We're proving that technology can be used to deliver a better NHS, a more efficient environment for staff and improved service to customers."

The trust has a complex infrastructure with LANs and WANs. The new system will save time and travel for the 22-strong IT staff by allowing them to distribute software upgrades and patches remotely from a central location.

The system also allows them to fix most network faults from the central location and the trust expects the saving in engineers' time and travel alone to be a major cost saving. The system also caters for asset management with embedded agents in each machine which can report on performance of hardware and software.

Denis said: "The challenges faced by the trust are similar to those confronting the entire NHS. Service improvements derived from the NHS' National Programme for IT, which incorporates the Electronic Patient Care Records Service, are dependent on the sustainability of hardware and software and the reliability of all networks."