Hornbill’s Supportworks has been installed and will support 1,800 staff covering all disciplines ranging from district nurses, clinical staff, doctors, specialists such as physiotherapists and general practice staff. About half of the customers are directly employed by the Trust based at 3 HQ sites and at a number of clinics and health centres linked by the PCT VPN network. The service also supports 30 General Practices connected via the NHS network.

Supportworks will enable the transition from a purely technical support helpdesk to an IT Services support desk which will provide first line contact for all the new systems to be introduced under the National Programme for Information Technology. The programme will start with the GP systems, which will make patient records available anywhere across the NHS. Ultimately the programme will provide a full clinical system for the whole health economy including a ‘Choose and Book’ service for patients wishing to book their appointments at various clinics in advance, ‘e-Prescribing’ which will transfer electronic prescriptions directly to chemists and pharmacies, a new Child Health System and the upgrading of the NHS network to broadband technologies known as N3.

Hornbill’s Supportworks was selected for its ease of use and for its web-based functionality. Mark White, ICT Technical Services Manager at Middlesbrough PCT commented, “Supportworks’ self-service capabilities will help us to reduce support overheads, whilst extending the service to cover more staff. It will provide a flexible, one stop shop for users to access the new IT Service desk, 24 hours a day. This supports the PCT’s goal of building long term improvements in the health of the local population through the adoption of new working practices and the significant investment in new and modernised services.”

Mr White continued, “We offer a range of IT services including ECDL (European Computer Driving License) training for end-users, training on clinical applications, we supply database and applications development, and we provide a business analysis service to help departments get the most from IT. The new IT Service desk will provide a portal into all these services.”

The PCT is looking at using Supportworks in a number of other areas within the organisation including, to help cover its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, in the Patient Referrals Call Centre and for corporate functions such as facilities management.

Gerry Sweeney, Managing Director of Hornbill said, “The National Programme for Information Technology initiative is certainly gaining momentum within the NHS. Hornbill has seen several NHS Trusts looking to expand their existing technical support desks to provide a much broader service covering more systems and even extending that service to cover other adjacent NHS Trusts. At Hornbill we are dedicated to making that process easier. As well as introducing various NHS specific features within our systems we continue to be committed to providing ITIL compatible solutions.”