Free wi-fi to be available at 33 more acute and mental health trusts

Thirty-three acute and mental health trusts have agreed to deploy NHS WiFi throughout their sites by March.

Letters have been sent to each of the trusts selected to take part in the second stage of delivery of the project, which aims to have free wi-fi internet in place throughout the entire NHS estate by the end of the year.

The latest trusts to roll out the service include Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, Luton & Dunstable University Hospital NHS Trust and Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust.

South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust recently revealed it would be one of the first trusts to roll out the service.

Secondary care settings participating in the second stage of the project must have compliant NHS WiFi in place and accessible to patients and the public before April 2018, according to NHS Digital’s guidelines.

The level of funding allocated to participating trusts is based on their size with financing being provided by the Department of Health and Social Care.

In a blog post David Corbett, programme lead of NHS WiFi, more 3000 GP practices in England were now offering free wi-fi to some 25 million patients.

According to Corbett, the majority of the 16 ‘high priority’ trusts who received funding in August have now rolled out free wi-fi across their estates, with the remainder expected to do so before the end of February.

“It’s been a busy time for all involved. The NHS Wi-Fi team has been supporting all CCGs and priority adopter trusts to procure and deliver an NHS Wi-Fi compliant system to patients,” said Corbett.

“Over the next few weeks we’ll be supporting the last few CCG areas and ‘fast follower’ trusts to complete their implementations.

“We’ll be working hard to secure and put in place the support required to help the rest of the secondary care estate to offer free NHS Wi-Fi to patients in acute, community and mental health hospitals by the end of December 2018.”