GPs to be offered 8MB N3 links

GP practices may be able to upgrade their N3 connection to receive bandwidth of up to 8MB from later this year.

NHS network provider BT and Connecting for Health have told EHI Primary Care that they are currently running trials of a Business DSL service that would offer practices up to 8MB of bandwidth.

The vast majority of practices currently have a 1MB connection but CfH’s N3 programme director Len Chard says that practices will start to become due for renewal of the three year contract for that service later this year.

He told EHI Primary Care that CfH and BT were currently testing the 8MB DSL rate adaptive service with some GP practices but that more work still needed to be done. The service would offer up to 8MB but rate adaptive means the bandwidth could be lower.

Chard said: “We are testing it with some willing partners in GP practices but we can’t short circuit the development time. N3 catalogue services take a long time because we have to make this service available nationally and the resilience options have to be thought through.”

However Chard said that although he was reluctant to put a timescale on general availability he hoped the service would prove to be “a good product in many many situations”

Chard said GPs, together with PCTs, would have to weigh up the benefits of the rate adaptive product and its suitability for particular sites.

Stuart Hill, chief executive officer of N3, said, unlike the current uncontended service, the new product would have some contention.

He added: “We have got to make sure it is fit for purpose as it doesn’t have a minimum bandwidth guarantee.”

Chard said that the initial pilot sites had found there was no evidence of significant contention with download bandwidth to 6.5 to 7.25 MBs. He said the “true benefit” of the service might be in its upstream rate of 832kbps compared to the 256kbps currently delivered which could be of particular use to branch surgeries.

GP practices have complained of a variety of performance problems over the NHS network which have been blamed on N3 but in an interview with EHI Primary Care Chard and Hill insisted that the network was not to blame. Read the full interview here.

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