Case StudyBLOWN FIBRE @ UK NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

PROJECT FACTS

Client CompanyTaunton & Somerset NHS Foundation Trust

Country United Kingdom

IndustryHealthcare

TE Connectivity SolutionsBlown fibre connectivity solutions

In partnership with:

ChallengesTo provide a high-capacity network with the flexibility to accommodate future expansion and support new healthcare services. The project was complex – the hospital’s much publicised Jubilee Building, a 112-single room facility with en-suite bathrooms, one of the first of its kind in the whole country – is still in construction phase. The ability to work around multiple building contractors and negotiate the complexities of antiquated Second World War premises, including underground passages, presented particular challenges. Fast deployment, without disruption to clinical activities and patient care, was critical.

Customer AdvantagesMusgrove Park Hospital now has a network that is fit for the future. The inbuilt resilience provided by the mile-long blown fibre ring is essential to business continuity by ensuring that no data is lost and patient care is maintained should the cabling be cut or damaged. Exceptional teamwork, TE’s innovation and technical services support coupled with the flexibility of Sceptre Networking Ltd to deploy extra resources at a moment’s notice, guaranteed the success of the project.

Musgrove Park Hospital, part of Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust*

Musgrove Park Hospital is part of Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust. It is the largest General Hospital in Somerset serving a population of over 340,000. Each year 40,000 patients are admitted as emergencies; 10,000 patients are admitted for elective surgery; 26,000 are seen for day case surgery; 232,000 patients attend outpatient appointments and over 3,000 babies are born in the maternity department.

Driven by the Trust’s three clear principles of Patient Safety, Patient Experience and Making the Most of Musgrove, Musgrove Park Hospital has embarked on a major construction project to replace some of the oldest buildings on the site dating back to the Second World War. When open to patients in the Spring of 2014, the Jubilee Building will be one of the first NHS developments in the UK to offer the privacy and comfort of 100% single rooms, 112 in total, all with en-suite facilities. Research suggests that privacy aids speedier recovery, and with hospital beds at a premium in the NHS, the Jubilee Building is expected to enhance the overall patient experience and help Musgrove Park Hospital reduce hospital waiting times.

At the same time, the IT Services team at Musgrove Park Hospital has focused on making the hospital’s network infrastructure fit for a 21st

Century healthcare environment. Like all NHS organisations, Musgrove Park Hospital is tasked with doing more with less, having to save millions of pounds every year whilst maintaining excellent patient care. Today’s modern healthcare processes such as digital radiology rely increasingly on IT – at Musgrove Park, for example, 170,000 diagnostics tests are carried out every year and the results need to be accessed easily and stored securely at all times.

The Government has also outlined ambitious plans for delivering a paperless NHS by 2018 with Electronic Patient Records (EPR) playing a pivotal role. Recognising the importance of a fast, robust IT infrastructure to drive efficiencies and improve patient care, the hospital has just built a new data centre and installed a blown fibre ring with the help of TE Connectivity (TE) and Sceptre Networking Ltd.

The plans for the Jubilee Building prompted Musgrove Park Hospital to review its IT requirements. The time had come to take a planned approach to IT to deliver high quality healthcare and maximise resources. The chosen technical architecture had to demonstrate it could guarantee

a solid return on investment in line with the Trust’s promise of spending wisely.

The existing infrastructure worked well but was fragmented and lacked the speed and agility to make changes quickly. The computer rooms could no longer offer enough capacity to support major capital projects over the next 5-10 years that may include the provision of new critical care services and an expanded day surgery centre. Expanding the rooms was not economically viable and the hospital decided to build a new data centre to hold all patient and clinical data in one place.

Rather than re-locate the site of the Jubilee Building to fit around the current IT infrastructure, Musgrove Park Hospital set out to create a highly flexible fibre optic network that could actively support the day-to-day business of running a modern hospital. The technology deployed had to navigate a maze of old buildings without disrupting patients and building works.

Musgrove Park Hospital elected to work with preferred suppliers who could cope with the complex project.

Groundworks of the 112 room Jubilee Building*

The Jubilee Building nearing completion in 2013*

BLOWN FIBRE @ UK NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

Blown Fibre is the future of IT for Somerset’s largest General Hospital

A bespoke mid span blowing station designed by Sceptre Networking Ltd*

CASE STUDY

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317791BE 9/13 Original © 2013

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BLOWN FIBRE @ UK NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

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Sceptre Networking Ltd, the premier data cabling company in the South West, had already met the day-to-day cabling needs of the hospital for many years. It had a detailed knowledge of the site, fully understood the pressures of working in an NHS environment and, most importantly, knew how to install systems successfully in patient areas whilst maintaining business as usual.

Sceptre Networking Ltd was also TE’s Network, Design and Install (NDI) partner and long-time provider of TE solutions. Despite evaluating other solutions in the marketplace, Musgrove Park Hospital was impressed by TE’s superior product functionality and proven track record in the healthcare

market. It trusted TE and Sceptre to build a robust, future-proof network, on time and on budget.

All three parties worked together on the network design but TE’s technical innovation and commercial acumen led to the final specification. TE recommended deploying a blown fibre rather than a traditional fibre network to minimise disruption, provide scalability and release valuable time and cost savings. It demonstrated how such an approach had enabled another NHS organisation to build a network from scratch with just two people in a matter of hours.

The project was completed in record time, just nine months after the business case was approved by the Trust Investment Committee (TIC) in January 2012. The mile-long blown fibre ring comprises 55 kilometres of TE’s 8-core OS2 single model fibre solutions and spans 32 acres, 40 communications sites, two

Steve Power, Senior Project Manager, NHS Foundation Trust

“We trusted TE and Sceptre 100% to meet our requirements for a 21st century network that could accommodate future expansion and support new services quickly and cost-effectively. Their exceptional teamwork, detailed knowledge of our site and understanding of the pressures NHS organisations face today made the project an overwhelming success. The new blown fibre network helps us to maximise our resources and deliver the best possible care to our patients.”

server rooms as well as the new data centre. The technology is reliable and modular, capable of 100 Gbps Ethernet transmission speeds, far exceeding the hospital’s current requirements.

Success depended on the exceptional teamwork between TE, Sceptre Networking Ltd and the hospital’s IT Services and Capital Projects team who, in turn, worked closely with Kier Construction, the main building contractor and SDS Services, Kier’s Mechanical and Electrical (M&E) design subcontractor for the overall project. Musgrove Park Hospital now has a future-proof network. Above all, the resilience of the blown fibre is critical to business continuity. Should the ring be cut or destroyed in any way, data is not lost, services are maintained and patients are protected 24/7, all year round.

*Photographs courtesy of BAM Construction, Taunton & Somerset NHS Foundation Trust