Fujitsu have implemented the new NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) service desk in all of the National Programme for IT clusters.
The service desk will provide a helpline, e-mail and web logging facility for technical questions and queries about National Programme for IT systems and services.
Operated by Fujitsu Services Limited, the NHS CfH Service Desk provides a helpline for technical questions and queries about National Programme for Information Technology systems and services.
The North East, North West & West Midlands and East of England clusters were the first to go live on 15 December and London and the South went live on Monday.
Fujitsu are now contracted to provide this support until 2013 and have set up four call centres in Wakefield, Yorkshire; Stevenage, Hertfordshire; Manchester and Foots Cray in Kent. They will manage an estimated four million calls per year.
Fujitsu’s public sector managing director, Peter Hutchinson, said: “As a result of this new service, NHS staff will receive a much enhanced IT helpdesk function at improved value for money. These contracts will enable NHS staff to obtain the technical support they require for NHS Connecting for Health applications, and, where they choose, trusts’ local systems.”
The new service will replace the current in-house National Service Desk, run by Connecting for Health, which is due to close at the end of the month.
The support desks will cover the English NHS Care Records Service, Choose and Book, electronic prescribing and Picture Archiving and Communications Service (PACS).
It will also offer local framework agreements for non-NPfIT technical queries so trusts can procure their own local support services and will be available 24hours a day, 365 days a year, by phone, fax and e-mail.
A web logging facility will also be made available, which NHS staff can see on a special website.
Fujitsu were awarded the £41m contract in April after CfH decided their tender would allow the health service to get "professional, scaleable and consistent first-line support" for its applications