Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust Chosen as Early Adopters of NHS Wi-Fi Project

 

  • Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust
  • Based in West Essex and East and North Hertfordshire region
  • Made up of three hospitals: Princess Alexandra Hospital, St Margaret’s Hospital and Herts and Essex Hospital
  • Emergency, maternity, cancer and elderly care
The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust serves a population of 350,000 and provides healthcare services to the communities of Harlow and the surrounding areas. It is a 501 bedded District General Hospital providing a comprehensive range of acute and specialist services. It has been led since May 2017 by Alan Burns, Chairman, and Lance McCarthy (Chief Executive). In addition to Princess Alexandra Hospital, the trust provides services for St. Margaret’s Hospital and Herts & Essex Hospital in Bishops Stortford.
  • Needed to meet specific criteria of new NHS Wi-Fi project 
  • Needed full integration with current network 
  • Ease of use across the trust
  • Barracuda Web Security Gateway 610 Vx solution 
  • Total of 3,500 users on network 
  • Early adopter of NHS Wi-Fi 

 

NHS Digital is working on a project that ensures everyone can access free Wi-Fi within all NHS sites across England. This means that NHS establishments taking up NHS WiFi projects must provide secure, stable and reliable Wi-Fi capabilities, consistent across all NHS settings. This will allow patients and the public to download health apps, browse the internet and access health and care information freely.

Consequently, Local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and NHS trusts are responsible for choosing a supplier that can provide an NHS Wi-Fi compliant system which suits their needs, and working with them to implement it across their local NHS sites.

As the Princess Alexandra Hospital had been elected as early adopters of this project, they needed to meet certain criteria to protect their Wi-Fi implementation in relation to NHS Digital regulations. This is where Altinet came in and implemented the Barracuda Web Security Gateway; covering requirements such as Content Filtering, Ransomware Protection and Comprehensive Reporting to name just a few.

As one of the first NHS Trusts to implement the new Wi-Fi, it was key for the IT team at the Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust to have the solutions in place to not only secure the free internet access, but also provide a stable and reliable platform on which to offer it. The Barracuda Web Security Gateway enables organisations to avoid lost productivity, wasted bandwidth and data loss.

Not only are these major features covered, the granular, real-time visibility into online activity allows the infrastructure team to have ease of use with the solution which is essential when managing multi-site trusts.

 

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Altinet and Barracuda met our key requirements on several essential criteria platforms NHS Digital demanded, such as Web Content Filtering, Deployment via WCCP, Granular Reporting and Ease of Use.

Jack Ciezak IT Service Design and Operations Team Leader

PrincessAlexanderNHStrust

 

Together, Barracuda and Altinet met all Criteria
with the Web Security Gateway

When working with the Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust it was clear from the outset what the key criteria that had to be met included, along with pricing and licensing structures that would be best for the NHS Trust. Altinet’s consultative approach to implementing solutions such as Barracuda’s Web Security Gateway, means that our customers can be fully transparent with success criteria with their projects to ensure we gain the fullest understanding of what they need to help with the best solution that is paramount to their requirements.

In terms of criteria, ‘License cost and license duration were very competitive with other solutions’ stated IT Service Design and Operations Team Leader Jack Ciezak. Along with these particular requirements, the Barracuda Web Security Gateway needed to fully integrate within their network, with ‘ease of use and functionality’ being essential. As early adopters of NHS Wi-Fi, it was important for Jack and his team to be fully confident with the new solution Altinet provided as it was completely new – we ensured this was thoroughly integrated with the required ease of use with an extended trial period.

 

Altinet's Direct Link to Barracua Helped us Obtain
the Information we Required

As Barracuda’s only UK premier partner, Altinet are able to have a successful relationship with Barracuda which allows for the best level of service from both sides. In order to have premier partner status, a high level of Barracuda product training must be undertaken by all members of the team to give the best level of §service to customers and scope out the right products in relation to the organisations unique network criteria.

When working with The Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust, more time was needed at the evaluation stage of the project for Jack Ciezak to be fully confident with the solution within his network. As Jack stated, ‘Altinet have always been quick to respond to our requirements and their direct link to Barracuda has helped us obtain the information we required, for example, extending an evaluation period for our Web Security Gateway.’

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About Barracuda's Web Security Gateway

The Barracuda Web Security Gateway is a web content filtering solution that enables the connected business to benefit from new technologies and online tools, without being exposed to lost productivity, wasted bandwidth, and data loss.

As new requirements emerge, such as social networking control, the Barracuda Web Security Gateway is automatically updated with new capabilities to meet those requirements. It enables highly granular, real-time visibility into online activity, broken down by individual users and applications, letting administrators create and enforce effective content and access policies. Included free are unlimited agents and software licenses to enforce content and access policies on mobile devices being used outside the network. 

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