Hornbill’s solution was selected as it provided the functionality required to enable the IT team to implement ITIL ’Best Practice’, soon to be mandatory for all Trusts, as well as offering best value for money.

The Trust plans to use Supportworks to support all ITIL disciplines. The first phase of implementation will be for incident and problem management, with change and configuration management in the following twelve months. Using Supportworks all user requests and purchases of hardware and software will be logged centrally, replacing the paper based system currently in place. The web-self service feature will be available for users to log service requests at any time, as well as to gain progress updates on calls already made.

The investment in Supportworks will also enable the IT Team to support users of the Care Records System, planned for June 2006, part of the NHS National Programme which aims to ensure that every individual’s medical and social history is accessible at any of the NHS organisations throughout the UK. The IT team anticipate that the introduction of the new system will increase the number of support calls that the team currently handles.

Peter Drage, IT Service Desk Manager at Buckinghamshire Hospitals explains: “With the introduction of the Care Records system as part of the NHS National Programme for IT, and the need to be following ITIL ’Best Practice’, we needed to find a service desk system that enables us to handle incidents and service requests, as well as manage the capacity and availability of our IT infrastructure efficiently.

“Supportworks gives us a comprehensive toolset to achieve this and provides excellent value for money. It is an investment that not only enables us to work more efficiently - the web self-service feature will reduce users calling for updates by 40% - it will enable us to prepare for the changes ahead.”

Gerry Sweeney, Managing Director at Hornbill Systems commented, “The NHS National Programme for IT is driving immense changes throughout organisations like Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust. To fully support users across all systems, with limited resources, it is important that the IT teams are able to automate routine processes to manage the network and log and track all user support queries. Hornbill’s Supportworks can not only help the support team to work efficiently, it can bring identifiable business benefits – assisting with meeting service targets and ensuring adherence to ITIL standards for its working practices all at an affordable price.”