NHS Hounslow primary care trust has outsourced its IT
services to Capita in a £3.3m three-year contact.
The deal will give the trust, which had a small internal IT
department, access to IT skills it needs to keep up with policy and
structural changes in the NHS.
Capita will take on responsibility for providing the trust's
datacentre, network, and helpdesk services for 1,200 staff across
more than 50 sites. Eight of the trust's IT support staff have
transferred to Capita under the deal.
"We needed to make an increased investment in the infrastructure
of the primary care trust. We came to the realisation we were
looking at a real capacity and capability issue," said Richard
Scowen, associate director of ICT.
Capita will use virtualisation technology to reduce the number
of servers the trust needs - currently more than 30 - to run SQL
databases, Microsoft Sharepoint and bespoke NHS applications.
The supplier will provide the trust with a dual datacentre, to
provide back-up in an emergency. The trust will have two network
access routes to the datacente, providing a back-up,if one route
goes down.
"From a business perspective, we were very clear we were not
looking at this as a cost saving mechanism. But we are looking at
this to develop a more robust infrastructure and improve the
services delivered to us," said Scowen.
Hounslow took the outsourcing route after being unable to find
suitable NHS organisations to share IT services with. "The
disbenefits outweighed the benefit," said Scowen
Scrowen predicted that an increasing number of primary care
trusts would go down the outsourcing route as they grappled with
the complexities of meeting NHS policy changes.
"Unless you add to your team by 50% or 100% you are not in a
position to deliver high-quality support. Given the number of
policy and structural changes happening in the NHS, this is quite
an exposed position," he said. "I think you will see more NHS
primary care trusts outsourcing support."