Case

Delivering a resilient, reliable, future-proof network for Whittington Health

Whittington Health NHS Trust provides hospital and community care services to 500,000 people living in Islington and Haringey, as well as other London boroughs including Barnet, Enfield, Camden, and Hackney. Conscia has partnered with Whittington Health to support the implementation of their digital strategy – a critical enabling factor of their aim to help local people live longer and healthier lives by providing safe, personal, coordinated care for the community they serve.

Whittington Health NHS Trust provides hospital and community care services to 500,000 people living in Islington and Haringey, as well as other London boroughs including Barnet, Enfield, Camden, and Hackney. 5,000 staff members deliver care both from the hospital – where services include accident and emergency (A&E), maternity, diagnostic, therapy and elderly care – and from 30 community location in north London.

As an integrated care organisation, Whittington Health brings high-quality services closer to home and speeds up communication between community and hospital services, improving patient experience. Key to their approach is partnering with patients, carers, GPs, social care, mental health and other providers.

Conscia has partnered with Whittington Health to support the implementation of their digital strategy – a critical enabling factor of their aim to help local people live longer and healthier lives by providing safe, personal, coordinated care for the community they serve.

The challenge

• Whittington Health’s aging IT infrastructure required updating to avoid network downtime, data loss, and security vulnerabilities.
• Some of the trust’s older buildings made installation of technology challenging – it was imperative that equipment was installed safely and securely, in a variety of building structures and environments.
• The trust operates 24/7, caring for patients with a variety of illnesses and injuries, including those in critical condition. Implementation of a new solution needed to be achieved with minimal impact on services.
• Whittington Health’s IT team had limited time and resource, and network management was a time-consuming process, with regular appliance upgrades or replacements carried out manually. The trust needed a network solution that was more efficient to manage, to save time and reduce the potential for error.
• A key part of the trust’s digital strategy is to empower a ‘digitally enabled workforce’ – the trust needed consistent, comprehensive wireless coverage throughout their sites to achieve this, enabling clinicians to use a wide variety of devices and digital patient monitoring tools, and avoid frustration/low adoption due to poor connectivity.

Outcomes

• New wireless controllers were installed and configured, enabling the roll-out of new access points across the hospital. This has improved Wi-Fi connectivity, reducing frustration and complaints from clinicians about poor performance. During installation, clinical areas were prioritised to minimise disruption to services and put patient safety first.
• Whittington Health now has the ability to enable future use of Wi-Fi 6 and 6e, future-proofing the network to adapt to exponential growth in wireless usage and adoption of new clinical tools and devices.
• A pair of Cisco Catalyst 9606 switches were deployed to replace the existing end-of-life core switches. This has ensured that the core switches remain supported, reducing risk, and will enable additional features to further improve services, such as using Multicast to support a new CCTV solution.
• Upgrading the trust’s ISE deployment has bolstered network security, and enabled Whittington Health to roll out Network Access Control (NAC) – a feature that will help the trust remain compliant with standards such as DSPT.
• ISE upgrades will also support Whittington Health to deliver software-defined access and segmentation, and enable policy-based automation of users, devices, and things across wired, wireless, and VPN – giving the trust the reassurance that their network and data are secure.
• The trust currently uses Cisco Spaces to track their medical devices. The upgrades to their IT infrastructure will enable trials of additional use cases for Spaces – for example, baby tracking for infant security. Whittington Health will be able to protect their wired network, as currently anyone can connect to the network through a wired connection without security controls.
• Conscia is supporting the Whittington Health team to explore functions within DNAC, using analytics to gain greater visibility of the network and improve management. This will help the trust to maximise their value from existing Cisco investments and improve operational efficiency.

With Conscia’s support, Whittington Health now has a resilient, reliable, and future-proof network. It has been designed to enable staff to adopt innovative clinical tools and devices, confident that they will work effectively to help Whittington Health deliver outstanding safe, compassionate care.

Solutions and services

• Cisco EA 3.0
• Cisco DNA Switching
• Cisco DNA Wireless
• Cisco Identity Service Engine