NHS Networks passes 90K membership mark

NHS Networks provides web space and collaboration tools, daily news from around the NHS and a weekly newsletter with more than 49,000 subscribers.

Gary Kennington, IT operations manager from Torbay and South Devon Healthcare Trust runs the Registration Authority Community.

Kennington says: “Our network enables its members to communicate effectively with others that share a common problem, and is often the place the problem is solved, rather than having to rely on logging calls with multiple helpdesks.

“It is easy to administer, and you can easily manage large forums with very little investment of time.”

David Brown, optometry lead for NHS England’s Birmingham, Solihull and Black Country area team, uses NHS Networks to run an optometry information service.

He says: “NHS Networks offers commissioners a really effective platform from which to communicate with our providers electronically and this is something that we have never had before.

It considerably lightens the administrative burden of preparing and sending out items by post.

“We have used the service to advise contractors of pathway revisions, job vacancies, staffing changes, policies, news stories and regulatory changes. “

Julian Patterson, development director for NHS Networks, said: “NHS Networks is a good example of frugal innovation, run on a very modest budget with no central funding and a very small team.  As long as the NHS keeps changing, people will demand ways to stay connected.”

About NHS Networks

NHS Networks is run by Primary Care Commissioning CIC (PCC), a not-for-profit social business which provides training, development and advisory services to NHS organisations. The service, which is free to all, is funded exclusively by PCC as part of its commitment to support improvement and the spread of good practice.

NHS Networks is a free service that allows individuals and organisations to set up and run networks online either to replace or complement face-to-face meetings. Members use the service to share documents, run discussion forums and find other people with similar interests. Networks can be open to all or members only.

The web-based service is not constrained by firewalls and individual organisations’ IT systems, making it useful for connecting across organisational boundaries.

NHS Networks is at www.networks.nhs.uk.

Find out more about PCC at www.pcc-cic.org.uk.