BT and Sussex NHS deal to connect 390 NHS sites across the UK

1.6 million patients across Sussex will benefit from faster treatment and diagnosis thanks to a new five-year multi-million pound contract with BT which allows health professionals to quickly share critical patient information.

BT has struck a deal with the East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust on behalf of NHS organisations in Sussex which will see the firm build and fully manage a new private, secure communications network, connecting 390 NHS sites across the region.

The network, based on BT’s Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology, will allow local NHS and social care organisations across the country to create their own dedicated virtual networks. This will allow a closed community of health and social care professionals to access specific IT applications rapidly and exchange information securely.

Another benefit is that IT applications commonly used by GPs to update patient records and print prescriptions will run faster and more reliably across a common platform.

As part of the new contract, BT will migrate the integrated communications network to the new Health and Social Care Network (HSCN) for the NHS. This new infrastructure will link the NHS with social care organisations for the first time.

With BT working on similar network projects with local NHS organisations in the South East, this could facilitate some of the first and largest HSCN regional networks in England and enable NHS organisations across several counties to collaborate more closely.

Mark Sexton, BT’s regional director for London and the South East, Business and Public Sector, said: “The NHS in Sussex needed a scalable network that enabled the sharing of critical patient information across different local sites. Clinicians will now be able to access and share information using the same, secure, cloud-based platform to meet the needs of the 1.6 million patients across Sussex. For example, local GPs and hospitals will be connected on the same communications infrastructure for the first time enabling faster patient diagnosis and treatment.”