Skills for Health, the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for the UK health sector, has implemented Hornbill's Supportworks Essentials help desk software to support users located across the UK. The IT team uses Supportworks Essentials to log and track all calls and queries from staff, both home based and working in its eight locations nationwide, stretching from Cornwall to Edinburgh. The IT team also uses the helpdesk system to record and manage its IT assets. Since using Essentials, not only has the IT help desk team has been able to cope with an increase of more than double the number of users supported with the same number of IT staff, they have also managed to improve service delivery and increase efficiency.

The IT team selected Supportworks Essentials over competitive products for its functionality, ease of use and value for money. According to Tom Woolrych, IT Systems Support Manager at Skills for Health; "Prior to Hornbill's Supportworks Essentials we were using an Access database to record calls coming into the IT help desk, as well as email trails. Realising that we required more efficient tech support software, we researched the market and found Supportworks Essentials to be the ideal helpdesk software product for our size of company."

"Supportworks Essentials provides all of the functionality that we need and at the right price. It also gives us the foundations to develop further and upgrade to the ITIL-compatible Supportworks IT service management product in the future, should we wish to. The intuitive look and feel of the product enabled the IT help desk to get up and running quickly and very little training was required before we could get immediate benefit."

The IT team provides full support on all the IT equipment that staff use – laptops, desktops, printers, providing initial set up and basic technical training on the systems. All calls are logged and tracked using Supportworks.

The team uses the reports from Supportworks Essentials to identify common problems and also where there may be a need for specific user training. Following the success of Supportworks Essentials to date, the team intends to populate the knowledgebase with common questions and answers and encourage users to refer to it. The help desk team also plans to introduce a web self service portal.

Gerry Sweeney, CEO of Hornbill Systems commented: "Supportworks Essentials is ideal for smaller IT helpdesks in organisations where the IT service infrastructure is relied on, particularly when supporting staff working in remote offices and from home. Managing a widely spread user base requires a service desk team to be highly efficient in tracking and responding to calls. Supportworks Essentials is an affordable solution for smaller organisations and provides the essential management tools to deliver a support service function efficiently, maximising resource to best effect."

Hornbill Systems' Supportworks Essentials is designed for service desks where speed of deployment, ease of use, low cost of ownership and rapid user adoption are vital. Supportworks Essentials provides comprehensive service desk functionality at lower cost, based on Hornbill’s award winning Supportworks Enterprise Support Platform.

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About Skills for Health
Skills for Health is the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for the UK health sector. Its purpose is to help the whole sector develop solutions that deliver a skilled and flexible UK workforce in order to improve health and healthcare.
Skills for Health's specific aims are to:
• Develop and manage national workforce competences
• Profile the UK workforce
• Improve workforce skills
• Influence education and training supply
• Work with its partners.

The 25 Sector Skills Councils which make up the Skills for Business Network are licensed by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills in consultation with Ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

For more information, please visit:
www.skillsforhealth.org.uk