Our News

Lancashire Teaching Hospitals partners with Block to drive its 2020 digital maturity aspirations

Situated in the heart of Lancashire across two main hospital sites, Chorley & South Ribble Hospital and Royal Preston Hospital; Lancashire Teaching Hospitals provides several specialised services to around 1.5 million people across Lancashire and South Cumbria.

The Trust is embarking upon an ambitious programme to introduce paperless solutions across all their clinical areas. To achieve this, a highly capable and easy to manage network is essential to form the necessary digital foundations.

In partnership with Block, the Trust is undertaking a network transformation project encompassing a wide range of innovative technologies. The project will ultimately see upgraded wireless and wired capacity in key areas, capable of supporting the Trust’s programme of digital transformation. These upgrades are being supported by a complete refresh of the Trust’s core switches and network security portfolio

A key driver for the project is to improve overall network capability, whilst increasing and guaranteeing availability to ensure it met the demands of connecting multiple clinical devices.

These technologies enable the network to be more responsive to changing business and application needs, enhance agility, and drive greater business value whilst also laying the foundations to allow the Trust to move to software defined access across the network in the future.

“Developing our network capabilities will allow us to mitigate any risk and deliver against the Trusts ongoing efficiency challenges”.
Saeed Umar, Head of Technical Services at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

“Working in partnership with Block and their technical expertise and healthcare insight, we are confident that this investment will ensure the network is resilient and delivers the best experience for both staff and patients, whilst also meeting our longer-term goal of becoming software defined.” Explained Vikki Lewis, CIO, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

‘We are delighted to be partnering with the Trust on this exciting network transformation,” explains Marc Chang, CEO, Block. “Having worked with Lancashire Teaching Hospitals for several years, it is both exciting and rewarding to continue supporting the Trust’s digital maturity plans. This network transformation will utilise leading-edge technology to deliver a highly intelligent, secure and easy to manage network fit for a digital future.”