350,000 NHS email accounts Exchanged in massive migration

The NHS has finished the migration of more than 350,000 NHS email accounts to Microsoft Exchange.

Cable & Wireless, which supplies the NHSmail service, started the migration process in January and 12 weeks later, the NHSmail accounts of 1,381 organisations across England and Scotland had been moved off the legacy Mirapoint system.

So daunting was the move that it was postponed for four months from last September while specialist software tools were refined to handle the transfer of the vast numbers of emails and appointments.

Will Moss, programme head for NHSmail, told silicon.com: "There was no precedent for this - who do you go to to find out how you migrate several hundred thousands of people?

"When we did staff at the London Strategic Health Authority we did 50,000 accounts in one weekend, which is probably comparable to a very large corporate like Tesco doing all of their services.

"The tool we used coped admirably with translating all of that data at one time.

"Also, unlike Lewis Hamilton who has a chance to have a pitstop, we had to do this in flight, so everybody was able to continue using their email and that both the old and new systems could work together."

The migration has seen teething problems, however: in January about 10 per cent of the staff moved onto the new system had problems with the more complex password system, leading to users being locked out of their accounts.

By the time the project finishes in 2013 every NHS employee - about 1.2 million people - will have been moved onto the system.

"How terrible the local service is is key in prioritising who we transfer first. We have had trusts come to us and say that our local service is about to collapse," Moss said.

The new service includes functionality to send text messages via email - a feature which is used extensively across the NHS, with about 750,000 automated patient reminders for appointments and services such as flu jabs sent out by SMS each month.

The migration will also give the NHS staff improved shared calendars and folders, a national directory of NHS staff and full push-pull integration with mobile devices.

So far about 80 per cent of staff feedback on the new system has been positive, describing the system as being more responsive and easier to use.

Up to £90m has been set aside for the implementation of NHSmail until 2013 and Moss said the project was "broadly" on budget.