The NHS has partnered with Telefónica Tech to support the NHS Nightingale Hospital Bristol.
The new facility is one of seven Nightingale hospitals to be set up around the country, as part of a massive NHS response to the greatest global health emergency in more than a century, and Telefónica Tech were invited to support its setting up.
Based at the University of West of England Frenchay campus, the NHS Nightingale Hospital Bristol is hosted by North Bristol NHS Trust (the ‘Trust’) but staffed by people from many organisations across the South West.
The NHS Nightingale Hospital Bristol will provide up to 300 intensive care beds for coronavirus patients, if local services need them. Telefónica Tech is delighted to be supporting the Trust with the NHS Nightingale Hospital Bristol and its critical work to help tackle coronavirus in the UK.
Services to support workers
The new hospital will be staffed by existing healthcare workers from within the Severn critical care network. The Trust requires these healthcare professionals to have access to the Trust’s Office 365 services to safely and effectively manage communications, plan activity and collaborate digitally.
Telefónica Tech is rapidly deploying a Microsoft Teams environment on the existing Trust tenancy to bring this capacity to all workers. This will include the configuration of the Trust’s existing Office 365 tenant to enable collaboration between all healthcare professions supporting this facility.
Why North Bristol NHS selected Telefónica Tech
Prior to the Covid-19 crisis in the UK, Telefónica Tech and the Trust were working together on a digital transformation project. Telefónica Tech was supporting the Trust in its migration from its on-premise email environment and rolling out a number of modern applications such as Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive. During this engagement, the Covid-19 situation escalated quickly and, as such, the scope of the project was expanded to support the NHS Nightingale Hospital Bristol and the timescales became more critical.
Incremental was originally selected via the UK Government Digital Marketplace, G-Cloud 11. G-Cloud enables the public sector to search and compare cloud-based services, removing the requirement for a lengthy tender process.
With its strong track record delivering digital transformation projects within healthcare and the wider public sector, Telefónica Tech was selected as the Trust’s preferred supplier for the original project. Subsequently, Telefónica Tech was selected for the NHS Nightingale Hospital Bristol having demonstrated its ability to react quickly, work flexibly and provide value for money during this challenging time.
Neil Darvill, IT Director for North Bristol NHS Trust, and for the Bristol Nightingale project, said, “setting up a highly-specialised healthcare facility in just weeks is an enormous achievement and testament to the efforts of all involved including Telefónica Tech. The fact that the Bristol Nightingale is digitally-enabled and integrated into our other regional healthcare networks is a particular source of pride, and I’d like to thank Telefónica Tech for rising to this unique challenge.”
On completion, another feature of the hospital was its paperless operation – an outcome assisted by the partnership with Telefónica Tech, and which also supports NHS England’s strategic objective to become paper-free as a way of driving efficiency and patient and staff safety.
The NHS Nightingale Hospital Bristol was officially opened on Monday 27 April 2020 by His Royal Highness, the Earl of Wessex.
Crown Commercial Service (CSS) Covid-19 Framework
Incremental is listed in the new Crown Commercial Service (CCS) Covid-19 Framework. This provides public and third sectors with a route to buy urgent products and services to maintain public services during Covid-19. Visit the CSS website here.
Incremental is working to help all its customers adapt to the new normal as quickly and effectively as possible.