NHS trusts in Sussex get new IT helpdesk

NHS staff from eleven trusts in Sussex can now get instant technical support from Sussex Health Informatics Service, after it achieved full Connecting for Health accreditation for its contact centre support desk. 

The accreditation means that users of NHS IT systems in the Sussex region can call a local helpdesk for free, providing them with an alternative to local service provider Fujitsu’s chargeable national helpdesk.

Sussex HIS’s head of IT services, Steve Orman, told E-Health Insider: “With this accreditation, users no longer have to call the national helpdesk for assistance with technical problems on the many different systems used by our trusts. They now have one single point of contact, which they can call or e-mail, soon to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Sussex HIS is the largest HIS in the UK, supports 25,000 users from 11 different NHS organisations, over 2,000 applications and databases alone, supported by 350 IT staff.

Previously Sussex HIS had six different helpdesk tools, over nine different support desks and wanted to consolidate this into one single support desk operation, capable of working with new systems being introduced under the National Programme for IT (NPfIT).

With NPfIT applications like Choose and Book and PACS regularly used by many trusts in the area, and CRS due later this year, Sussex HIS felt it was essential to achieve CfH’s accreditation. The new contact centre works using a single IT service management tool from Marval software. 

“It wasn’t so much that we had regular technical problems with National Programme applications, but we felt it would help to save costs from calls to the national helpdesk, which have a charging structure based on a per-incident basis, and also lead times for fixing problems, if we earned our own accreditation,” Orman explained. 

This was especially important ahead of Fujitsu’s deployment of the Cerner Millennium R0 patient administration system in the Worthing and Southlands (WASH) hospital, due in September. 

Orman said: “We anticipate that Millennium will go-live at WASH by the end of September, and so it was important for us that we were able to be on hand to support this from pre go-live all the way to after deployment. 

“The plan is for us to go 24/7 the week before this go-live takes place to ensure that all users in the trust get all the technical support they may need with the new system as soon as is reasonably possible, at no additional cost, and within their own area.” 

Accreditation was granted by CfH after they visited the HIS to ensure that its 49 different criteria were met including staff training, use of technology, implementation of ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) processes and business continuity arrangements. 

Jo Noble, Contact Centre manager for Sussex HIS said: “This reflects all the hard work that the Service Desk and Service Management Team have put into developing the service desk. Over the past 18 months there have been many changes to the service desk and at times these have been difficult but this acknowledges that we provide a high quality service.” 

Orman added the software meant his staff were able to triage calls properly and deliver support in a more timely manner, enabling clinicians to stay focused on delivering patient care and not IT support. 

Links 

Marval