Frontline Features - IT Team | News

Mahesh Patel, our Chief Information Officer reflects on IT supporting the frontline: -

In all the years that I have worked in IT, I cannot recall a time where I have been more proud of the IT Team.

Over the past few weeks, they have been absolutely amazing despite extremely busy dealing with the Covid-19 crisis.

They have been supporting remote working and setting up vast amounts of staff members on laptops to ensure they can work from home where they can.

The team has helped staff briefings via Microsoft Teams go ahead so that all staff members can stay up to date on the latest Covid-19 developments, while also supporting smaller groups and users get up to speed with this new way of working.

How has it been so far?

We have been working hard behind the scenes to increase remote network access capacity and provide additional hardware and support for home working colleagues that have needed it. 

We have also just begun a further rollout of mobile devices to connect more staff from home, including those that are self-isolating but well enough to work. 

The helpdesk phones have been approx. 50% busier than normal and most of our analysts are now working from home - thank you all for your patience when trying to get through.

How did you prepare the teams for this? 

Our teams quickly identified the areas that would need to be reviewed in light of the pandemic:

• Home working requirements for our colleagues and our own team members
• APAS configuration to support changes in clinical areas
• Telephony capacity and additional hardware were all at the top of the list.

Our swift action meant that we were able to secure computer hardware that has been in very high demand across the globe and this is now starting to be delivered through the supply chains. 

With the support of the HR and Voluntary Services Teams, we have been able to bring in additional resource to help configure and deploy this new equipment, including volunteer staff from the University of Surrey.

Are there any examples of innovative working that has taken place in recent weeks? 

We are so pleased to see nearly 950 colleagues across the Trust using the online collaboration tool Microsoft Teams. 

It has proved hugely beneficial for a variety of meetings and live events and ensures that attendees can maintain social distancing and still be in the same ‘room’. 

The Service Centre has also used Teams to provide remote support to colleagues working on site, in the community and at home. 

Indeed, two of our own team members have been working remotely from India for the last few weeks after their flights back to the UK were cancelled – it’s great that we can still be connected and can use their skills and expertise from so far away.  

What achievements are you most proud of within the team?

Working with our external partners, we have increased the network bandwidth to provide faster performance of IT for home workers and provided every member of staff the ability to access the Trust network from their personal computers at home via Citrix.  

In addition to this we have also set up the IT enabling clinicians to undertake virtual consultations, and we enabled the functionality for clinicians to be able to participate in MDT meetings remotely.

What would you say to other team’s facing this challenge?

Teamwork is the key – work to everyone’s strengths and be prepared to change plans quickly – the next challenge is just around the corner.