North Staffordshire invests in new COIN

North Staffordshire Information Technology Service is preparing to go live with an upgraded community of interest network (COIN).

The service, which provides IT services to a combined trust, primary care trust and more than 100 GPs, selected Updata Infrastructure to upgrade its region-wide network last year.

The contract was placed by North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust, which hosts the shared service.

The network will cover 112 NHS sites, 4,300 PCs, 3,000 telephones and 7,000 users within the next five months.

Core technologies manager Richard McCue, told eHealth Insider the network needed upgrading because it could not support a picture archiving and communications system.

“We had to get PACS imaging out to the community. Part of that required higher bandwidth connections and also back up links and various other requirements that the [old] network couldn’t deliver, so we decided to tender for this new contract.”

Updata Infrastructure has been working to unbundle the telephony network since the start of the year. The physical upgrade of the network is expected to be in place by June or July.

The contract has now reached its second phase where end sites, such as GP surgeries, are being connected. All sites should be converted by September or October.

The COIN is expanding, because since the tender went out late last year, 15 additional sites have expressed interest in linking up with it.

The ITS hopes that a range of network technologies, including 10Mbps Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) – a set of protocols defining access networks – ADSL and fibre, will save about £100,000 per year in network costs.

McCue said making use of EFM has a range of benefits, including protection from system failure. “If an EFM service fails, we will have network degradation, but it will not fail completely.

“We can also scale-up or scale down this type of service to match sit usage much more easily than is possible with standard fibre.”

McCue said the COIN would also allow the IT team to deploy operating systems and software packages from the central site; negating the need to visit local sites.

The infrastructure in the high-speed core of the fibre ring will be managed by Updata, while infrastructure within the end sites will be managed by the ITS.

Updata co-founder and executive director, Vic Baldorino, said the new technology would make work much more efficient for people working in the end sites.

“The GPs for example, we will provide them with a much faster service especially if they’re looking to transfer things like X-rays.”

He said winning the contract was a break-through for the company. “Because of the way the NHS communications is run – and the N3 contract – historically we’ve not had much success in penetrating the NHS, and it’s not just us. So this is a break through for us.”