Cisco in the NHS

Today's NHS is a challenging place.

The UK Government has put reform at the heart of its policy for the NHS. Significant changes to the commissioning environment and the advent of AQP (Any Qualified Provider) mean that business models are shifting with the focus now on supplier differentiation as well quality and value. Meanwhile the blurring of boundaries between healthcare and social care are driving new demands for collaboration and interoperability with patient centred care the priority.

Today's NHS leaders need to find solutions to these challenges – they are tasked with delivering year-on-year savings, executing a significant reform programme, and continuing to support excellent patient care against a backdrop of ever-increasing demand.

Cisco believes that ICT can help to address these challenges and is a prime enabler of better healthcare. ICT can often be thought of as a problem rather than a solution, but at Cisco, we are helping to change perceptions – by offering a blueprint for ICT that offers practical and achievable solutions that support operational excellence. We focus on the four QIPP pillars - Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention and in this respect see NHS IT as a value centre rather than a cost centre.

At Cisco, we believe that healthcare professionals are the best people to judge what areas of their business need to be improved and technology should fall into line to deliver. In the same way that the horse comes before the cart, business and clinical requirements should dictate where IT investments are made. In short, the IT platform should be built with all business needs in mind.

We call this approach 'Plan Down, Build Up'.

Our blueprint, 'ICT at the Heart of NHS Reform' advocates such an approach, and can be personalised to every NHS organisation's needs. It delivers a platform that supports operational excellence, the reform agenda and patient-centric care.

In conjunction with its partners, Cisco works with NHS customers to focus on business priorities. We provide innovative solutions that support new models of care, mobile working and collaboration. Working together, we believe that the right ICT foundation can lead to improvements in business processes, service delivery and to better clinical outcomes.