St George’s switches to ITIL framework

St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust has rolled out a new Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework, based on Connecting for Health’s best practice standards, after an independent review from IT service specialists, Plan-Net.

The south London hospital trust approached ITIL specialists Plan-Net to review their current systems and help them to meet the best practice infrastructure requirements, for its IT and IT helpdesk processes, as laid down by CfH in its Quality Management Strategy.

Plan-Net assessed all of the IT equipment within the trust against the CfH criteria for achieving better standards through best IT practice in the hospitals, and worked with the trust to develop a service improvement plan.

St George’s told EHI that the IT service review has led to “the introduction of a clearly defined and ITIL-based service framework, with consolidated processes, which in time will lead to improved management of the overall environment and provide a more customer-orientated service offering.”

David Boakes, Head of Computing at St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust said: “Before the review we were uncertain as to the maturity of our IT and helpdesk processes, and we were uncertain of where our strengths and areas for improvement lay.

“As a provider of IT services we wanted to measure our offerings against industry best practice and ensure we were providing a value for money service. We have been able to benefit significantly from Plan-Net’s knowledge and expertise.”

James Goodridge, account manager at Plan-Net told EHI that the team spent time improving the efficiency and clarity of the systems used in the trust as well as providing “better problem management, offering proactive resolutions for any faults, and better managing any changes that were necessary, as well as improving the service level management.”

He added: “It’s a big step for St George’s, as they are a smaller trust with between 25% and 50% fewer service support staff than other trusts, but the users there has told us that the new configuration process has made using the system a lot easier and they can see a great improvement.”