Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Case Study

Matt Carney
IT Security Officer
Newcastle upon Tyne

http://www.newcastle-hospitals.org.uk/

The Background

For over 250 years the hospitals in Newcastle upon Tyne have provided patient-centred healthcare to communities in the North East of England. We’re one of the largest NHS trusts in the UK, offering a wider range of specialist services than any other. From newborn babies to the elderly and infirm, our aim is to deliver leading-edge healthcare with a personal touch.

We deliver healthcare services from these sites:

• Freeman Hospital
• Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) (including the Great North Children’s Hospital)
• Campus for Ageing and Vitality (the former Newcastle General Hospital site)
• Newcastle Dental Hospital
• Newcastle Fertility Centre
• Northern Genetics Service

What environment is your Smoothwall product running in?

Windows

What type of user authentication do you use?

Active Directory for authentication

What was the problem that needed to be solved, that required you to look for a new system?

“We were previously using a competitive product but were not happy with the quality of the web filtering.

We required dynamic content filtering and web access control with flexible policy management. We also needed to protect patient confidentiality and ensure compliance with the Data Protection Laws. And, to deliver the best value for our organisation and the public.

Due to the life critical nature of our environment high quality support was integral to the product and service requirements.”

Why did you choose Smoothwall?

“Reliability - in our environment delivering information on-time can literally be about life and death.  We needed a solution that we felt would cope with the daily pressure of over twelve thousand demanding users and was supported by people we trusted.

Value - in the current climate we have to deliver the best levels of service without compromising on safety or reliability.  The NHS is always looking to improve productivity - keeping the amount of personal web browsing down and helping people focus on their tasks contributes to the overall goal.

Single product  to learn that integrates web filtering, perimeter anti-malware and email security.”

What has your Smoothwall product enabled you to do?

“It has given us greater flexibily to create policies that fit the users needs and allow them to get on with their jobs.

We intend to trial MobileGuardian to allow us to apply flexible policies that promote our AUP to our laptop users even when they are out of our network.”

Did we replace a solution from another company? Or who did we compete with?

“We went to market and received a range of quotations from some well known security vendors.“

Are you dealing directly with Smoothwall or through one of our Partners?

Do you have any comments about the quality of service you received from Smoothwall or our Partners?

“Your support is excellent with fast response times.  The product knowledge of the engineers is very high.”

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