The Trust helpdesk provides support to 3,000 staff for all IT systems including the patient administration system, desktop applications and hardware, networking and other peripherals. The helpdesk logs approximately 1200 calls per month, an increase of 33% over the last 12 months, and 75% of these are dealt with immediately either on the phone or via WinVNC for remote diagnostics.

Since installing Supportworks the IT Department Support Team has expanded from 3 people to 7. Working practices have changed and there is much more emphasis on keeping track of who is using what equipment and who has access to what systems, particularly important in a medical environment.

Supportworks’ integrated email and web functionality enables helpdesk customers to request support via the Trust intranet, email or by phone. When a problem is resolved helpdesk staff are able to send an automatically generated template-based email to advise the customer what the problem was and what action has been taken. Customers can access Supportworks via the intranet to check on how their call is progressing.

Supportworks has been integrated with the Trust’s network user database so that new customers are automatically populated, saving time re-keying and cutting down on errors. Because West Suffolk is a teaching Trust, it works with the colleges in Cambridge and takes on groups of student doctors for six months, twice a year. This adds an extra dimension to the service provided by the helpdesk as they are required to set up a large number of new staff every six months. Automation from Supportworks ensures that this takes minimal time. When junior doctors come back to the Trust at a later date, their user records can be reinstated easily.

Supportworks was selected for its flexibility and the ability to customise it easily. Alan Burgess, IT Support Team Leader commented, "Supportworks is highly versatile and enables us to display information in a way that makes it easier for our users. Not only can we choose how the screens should look, incorporating Trust branding and using phraseology that we know, but we are also able to group information together, and link screens in a series of workflows that supports our business processes."

"The application functionality in Supportworks is comprehensive, giving the Trust everything that we needed. In particular, we were keen to have integrated email capabilities and web technology so that we could give access to users and customers via the Trust intranet."

Gerry Sweeney, Managing Director at Hornbill Systems commented, "Supportworks ESP is a flexible application platform and development environment that enables us to deliver an NHS-specific solution with customised screens for each Trust in a very short timeframe. Supportworks’ workflow capabilities are far beyond those of a typical helpdesk or service management solution which enabled us to build a tailored solution that matches the Trust’s existing business processes. This ensures staff take-up of the system, and enables helpdesk staff to deliver an excellent service to their customers."

For more information about how Hornbill and Supportworks helped other customers, please visit www.hornbill.com.

About West Suffolk Hospitals NHS Trust

The West Suffolk Hospitals NHS Trust provides acute health services in West Suffolk. The Trust serves an area of approximately 600 square miles which extends to Thetford in the north, Sudbury in the south, Newmarket to the west and Stowmarket to the east, covering a population of approximately 275,000. Patients who live outside the area but choose to be referred to the West Suffolk hospitals are also treated by the Trust. The main hub for the Trust is the West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds, with additional hospital and out-patient services available at a variety of locations throughout the region. For more information please visit: www.wsh.nhs.uk.