NMC signs £5.2 million contract with Business Systems Group

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the nursing and midwifery regulator for over 660,000 registered nurses and midwives in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Islands, has signed a five year contract worth up to £5.2 million with Business Systems Group (BSG), an Advanced Computer Software plc company.
 
BSG will be managing and hosting NMC’s core IT infrastructure across two different data centres. This will include the managing and hosting of NMC’s servers and networks, disaster recovery, systems monitoring, technical design and ongoing consultation. BSG will also be providing database and operating system support and managing NMC’s Microsoft Exchange email, Citrix desktops and telephony (using Cisco CallManager).
 
NMC’s IT infrastructure and systems are currently managed in-house by a four person IT team. Although this team has been providing an excellent service, NMC recognises the additional benefits of outsourcing its IT infrastructure requirements to a specialist provider, including better value for money, enhanced service delivery, greater IT innovation, ready access to a large pool of IT skills and increased security.
 
Jolyon Ingham, Interim Head of ICT for NMC, says, “Following a six month tendering process, BSG was selected as our sole IT supplier. In addition to being able to provide an economic alternative to managing IT in house and hiring external consultants, it is clear that BSG can deliver enhanced service levels, expertise and security as well as an effective disaster recovery solution. We look forward to developing a long-term strategic partnership with BSG.”
 
Under the terms of the contract, BSG is required to ensure 99.9% service availability and timely incident management. All four NMC in-house IT staff will be TUPEd across to work for BSG.
 
All software applications will be hosted by BSG, including NMC’s OpenAccounts financial management system provided by BSG’s sister company, COA Solutions. BSG will also be providing the NMC test and development environments, including release management, as new applications come online.
 
Ingham adds, “The NMC is the regulator for nurses and midwives and not a maintainer of IT services and so we require dedicated IT specialists managing and supporting our networks and servers. With BSG onboard, we are confident that our IT infrastructure will operate effectively and securely and will be managed by a team of knowledgeable and highly qualified IT experts.”
 
-ENDS-
 
About Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) www.nmc-uk.org
The Nursing and Midwifery Council is the nursing and midwifery regulator for England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Islands. The NMC exists to safeguard the health and wellbeing of the public and does so in a number of ways by:
• Registering all nurses and midwives and ensure that they are properly qualified and competent to work in the UK.
• Setting the standards of education, training and conduct that nurses and midwives need to deliver high quality healthcare consistently throughout their careers.
• Ensuring that nurses and midwives keep their skills and knowledge up to date and uphold the standards of their professional code.
• Ensuring that midwives are safe to practise by setting rules for their practice and supervision.
• Having fair processes to investigate allegations made against nurses and midwives who may not have followed their professional code.

About Business Systems Group (BSG) www.bsg.co.uk
Business Systems Group, an Advanced Computer Software Plc company, designs, deploys, operates and improves IT services from the desktop to the data centre, helping customers to align their IT to their core business requirements. BSG aims to help IT departments free themselves from day to day operational activity to allow them to deliver strategic value back to their business by creating an agile and scalable infrastructure that is closely aligned to their core business operations.

This is achieved by:
• Managed services focusing on the core utility components of customers’ IT operations (e.g. monitoring, backup, email and hosting).
• Application development to deliver a fully-supported application managed service for both existing legacy applications and new applications developed by BSG.
• Delivery either as a hosted service managed via the BSG data centre suite, remotely from customers’ comms rooms, as part of a cloud-based service via one of the many public cloud platforms available, or as a hybrid solution utilising a combination of these delivery environments based upon customer requirements.

About Advanced Computer Software plc www.advancedcomputersoftware.com
Advanced Computer Software plc (Advanced) is the leading supplier of software and IT services to the health, care and commercial sectors with a primary focus on delivering high quality products and services to enable first class delivery of care in the community. Advanced's portfolio for the health and care sector includes IT management and analytics systems for out-of-hospital applications covering urgent and unplanned care, district nursing, hospices, residential care homes, telehealth, end-of-life and long-term-condition management; as well as mobile information systems for community carers. 
 
Advanced additionally delivers back-office systems for NHS trusts, local authorities and care providers and is further strengthening its position in the health checks and pharmacy services markets. Working with partners in the NHS, local government and the private sector, Advanced delivers IT in support of safe and efficient care delivery and greater information for both the commissioner and care provider.  The company's unique proposition is the breadth of integrated health and care solutions from patient-facing IT systems through to back-end operational systems and services.
 
Advanced is also a leading supplier of software and IT services to the commercial sector. This part of the business underpins growth whilst providing opportunities for cross-marketing of products and IT services.
 
Contacts:
Liz Ebbrell, COA Solutions
Liz.ebbrell@coasolutions.com 
+44(0)1625 856505 or 07917 634 705
 
Ben Carey, COA Solutions
Ben.carey@coasolutions.com 
+44 (0)1625 856505