Hospital and community care services around the country are increasingly seeing the benefit of using mobile computing technology to improve patient care and make the best of their limited resources. So when Gloucestershire NHS was looking for its computer supplier, it was important to find a single supplier that could meet its need for both desktop PCs and laptops.

Using the Government’s Buying Solutions framework, the procurement process for the UK public sector, computer and IT services specialist Viglen was awarded the contract and recommended its partner Toshiba’s laptop products to fulfill the mobile brief.

“Mobile working is becoming increasingly common in the NHS because it helps to reduce building and infrastructure costs and is particularly useful for community services health workers, who can work more effectively and efficiently in the community with a laptop device,” explained Steve Holley, Services Delivery Manager for the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Awarding the contract, the Services Delivery Team, is responsible for supporting the IT needs of all the NHS organisations across the county of Gloucestershire and some in Herefordshire. This involves supporting an IT network and the needs of around 12,000 staff across three different NHS organisations in 300 buildings spread across 1,200 square miles. The groups include the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Gloucestershire Case Services (community care) and 2gether NHS Foundation Trust (mental and social care).

“Following the tender process, Viglen presented us the Toshiba laptop product range,” explained Steve. “We went through a thorough evaluation process to benchmark the Toshiba products for quality and quickly realised that Toshiba had the breadth of capability to meet our wide-ranging needs.”

Steve Holley, Services Delivery Manager for the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

“We quickly realised that toshiba had the breadth of capability to meet our Wide-ranging needs.”

One year into the relationship, the NHS team across Gloucestershire is primarily using two Toshiba devices; the Tecra A11 from the Performance range and the Portégé R700 Ultra mobile laptop.

The Tecra A11 which falls within Toshiba’s performance range of laptops are being used as a standard replacement device for mobile workers who have previously relied on a desktop PC. Built for mobility and performance, these advanced and powerful laptops feature Toshiba EasyGuard protection, providing peace of mind with a range of security, protection and connectivity technologies to enhance the user experience, including up to Intel® CoreTM i7 processors, a choice of screen sizes and lightweight design.

For their community health workers, the Ultra mobile range is the ultimate in thin and light laptops. High on innovation, compact in size, and highly desirable, the devices weigh from just 1.28kg, with a choice of stylish widescreen models and up to 10 hours battery life – perfect for the mobile worker.

Steve commented: “The staff have taken to the devices very well. They are mainly clinicians and their primary interest is ensuring the device is easy to use and, above all, reliable. All the organisations were involved in the evaluation and ultimately had to approve the supplier and the Toshiba products were well received.”

From a technical standpoint, Steve and his team have also been impressed with the relationship. “The relationship has been managed very well by Viglen,” he explained. “Viglen has proven to be very flexible and acted as a good mediator with Toshiba when required and that has enabled the relationship to work very well. That single point of contact is very important for us.”

When there are hardware issues with the device, Viglen and Toshiba offer onsite maintenance and an Up and Running Support service for all the organisations, via Viglen’s sister IT support company Xenon. With traditional onsite warranty services, an engineer arrives the next day to fix a laptop but occasionally ends up having to take the device away and this causes potential inconvenience for the device user. Under the Gloucestershire Next Business Day Up And Running Warranty service, a Technical Courier arrives on the next business day, bringing a replacement laptop with them. The courier removes the Hard Drive from the faulty laptop and installs it into the replacement laptop – this laptop is then ‘booted-up’ and left with the user – minimising disruption to the user as the service enables them to continue working on a laptop that contains all of their data. The faulty laptop is then taken away by the Technical Courier and fixed. The courier then returns and removes the user’s Hard Drive from the replacement laptop and reinstalls it into the newly fixed laptop. The Toshiba Next Business Day Up And Running support service is more convenient for the customer by minimising downtime and enabling the continued use of a laptop containing all of their data, as well as being a lower cost versus traditional Next Business Day onsite warranty services.

Through regular quarterly meetings to review customer needs and experiences and to discuss future product roadmaps and new technologies, Gloucestershire, Viglen and Toshiba have found they can meet the needs of the different organisations under the contract and resolve any issues swiftly. Moving forward, other areas of Gloucestershire NHS are now beginning to examine if going mobile could assist in their patient care and in making efficiencies.

“Viglen has proVen to be Very flexible and acted as a good mediator With toshiba When required...”

visit www.toshiba.co.uk/publicsector to learn more about toshiba’s medical partnerships

Steve Holley, Services Delivery Manager for the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust