By Steve Ranger, 19 January 2006 14:25
NEWS
N3 - The National Network
N3 is the name for the National Network, which replaces the old NHSnet network infrastructure.
The high-speed broadband network is vital to the delivery of new services such as Pacs (Picture Archiving and Communications System) and electronic prescriptions.
Connections to the new N3 network started in April 2004, and connecting up the 18,000 sites that deliver healthcare in England will take about three years to complete. This includes migrating 10,000 sites from NHSnet to N3.
What progress so far?
The N3 programme is ahead of schedule, according to the NHS, with 94 per cent of GPs' premises now furnished with a new high-speed, backed-up broadband connection. As of this month, there have been 12,978 N3 connections.
Comments
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1. anonymous
Um, interesting. Some points raised differ from what the reality.
Trusts are being pushed into CRS with no reguard to existing functionality or cost of moving to the new system.
Choose and Book is a complete failure, with all rollouts being stopped in our area, and existing users being told that they can stop using the system if they want to.
The N3 rollout success depends on what you mean by connected. BT have a different meaning of that phrase than most.
PACS is in, and working with a few glitches. The project was painfull however.
Setting users up on the Spine is a slow and painfull business, with a lot of resistance from users.
The Contact email system is slow and clumbersom, and not very user friendly.
You have missed of a few major national projects, such as the Electronic Staff Record, Shares Business Service and Integrated Comunity Equipment Services, all heading for their own show stopping problems if we're not carefull.
Overall, a nightmare for NHS IT Staff.
2. anonymous
Haven't seen any evidence of this in use yet.
3. matthew
How do you find out which IT companies are involved in these NHS -IT projects like choose and book? there seems to be problems with payment that is affecting accenture, but i can't find out or see who the other companies affected are - so its hard to judge if its bad NHS management of projects, or poor delivery by the companies that is the problem?
what does everyone else think on this issue?