Doncaster and Bassetlaw NHS Foundation Trust Selects Brocade Ethernet Fabric to Underpin Innovative Patient Records System

BRACKNELL, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwired - Mar 3, 2014) - With the UK Government recently announcing delays to its planned digitisation of patient records¹, NHS organisations are facing increased scrutiny over how these systems are implemented. They remain under growing pressure to ensure that the network infrastructure which will underpin these applications is fit for purpose. To help prepare for the move to digital records, Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, one of the region's largest healthcare organisations, has selected Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) to deliver the advanced networking infrastructure required to support the organisation's planned electronic patient records system. The new infrastructure will be based on Brocade® Ethernet fabrics and VCS® Fabric Technology, which are designed to guarantee higher levels of performance, automation, efficiency, availability, and operational simplicity.

One of South Yorkshire's largest NHS Trusts, Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust consists of three hospitals across the region, as well as a number of smaller sites. The Trust employs more than 7,000 permanent employees and serves more than 420,000 people in South Yorkshire, North Nottinghamshire and the surrounding area.

With the first phase of the Government's care.data initiative scheduled for Autumn 2014, Doncaster and Bassetlaw hospitals is one of many NHS organisations looking at the impact this digitisation programme will have on existing IT systems. The organisation is keen to move away from paper-based records and implement a digital patient administration system (PAS) that would allow hospital staff to access critical information faster and from any location, as well as increasing operational efficiency across the three hospitals. However, when assessing the core infrastructure needed for such a system to run effectively, the Trust's IT department quickly realised that a significant networking upgrade would be required if potentially disastrous outages were to be avoided. 

Nigel Hall, ICT Infrastructure Manager, Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust commented: "There is a real appetite within the organisation for a digital patient administration system. Digitising patient records will be incredibly powerful for our hospitals; enabling better availability of vital information for our front line staff and reducing the burden on the operational side by eliminating the need to physically manage and store paper records."